Knee Deep in the Friend-Zone Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The next day, Steve came to school with his secret ammunition.
I was nervous. 

"Did you really bring it?"

"Yup.  Take a look."  Steve opened his backpack to reveal two huge bottles of extra-stiff hair gel.  "Wait until Army Fatigues tries to put his boots back on after gym class."

In gym class, Kramer usually stuffed his boots inside an unused locker, because they were too big to fit inside the one assigned to him.

If we ever got caught, we'd be in really big trouble, I knew.

For one thing, Mr. Goldman, our school principal, would probably suspend us--but worse, Kramer would kill us.  I mean really kill us!  But we had no choice; we had to teach him a lesson about messing with our friends.  Especially our girl friends.
Okay, maybe Jenna wasn't my girlfriend yet--but I was working on it.

Steve and I stuffed the flat square hair gel bottles down our pants, pulling our sweatshirts down and snuck into the locker room. 

As everyone was getting into his gym clothes, Steve whispered, "Now remember the plan.  We stall getting dressed.  Then we go into the bathroom and wait for everyone to leave the locker room.  Got it?"

"I think so."

"Right after we make sure everyone else is gone, we sneak over to the locker where he keeps his boots and squeeze the gel out real fast.  Don't forget to take the cap off so it comes out faster."

"O-kay," I stuttered.  I was starting to have second thoughts about going through with this.  Not that Kramer didn't deserve it.

Finally the coast was clear.

"Come on," Steve said, "Hurry.  We've got to do this before Potbelly Billings notices were not in line yet."

We quickly made our way to Kramer's extra locker.

"Remember to take the cap off."

I unscrewed the cap off my bottle as fast as I could.  Steve had already squeezed his bottle into one of the boots.

"Hurry up!"

I couldn't help feeling guilty as I turned the bottle upside down into Kramer's other boot.  Then the image of Kramer smashing Jenna's head into that locker popped into my mind, and the guilt went away.

Once we were done, we threw the evidence into the dumpster outside the back exit of the locker room, making a mad dash for the gym.  By the time we got to where everyone was hanging out and waiting for class to start, we were pretty cool.
No one had noticed us walking out of the locker room.  It was like we were invisible.

Forty minutes later, gym was over and we all filed back into the locker room to change out of our clothes.  I tried to get dressed as fast as I could.  Most of the class was already on their way out the door when Kramer yelled out a bunch of curse words.

I froze where I stood.

Steve elbowed me back to life.  I was following him out of the locker room when Mr. Billings and another gym teacher came storming in.

I'd really wanted to see the look on Kramer's face when he realized he was up to his ankles in extra-stiff hair gel.  My curiosity almost got the better of me, but Steve pulled me back.

"No! If we go back to look, Potbelly might get suspicious.  Just stand here and look confused, like everyone else."

Trying to look like I didn't know what was going on, I watched my other classmates stretch their necks to see what was going on.  Then Mr. Billings came stomping toward us.

"Okay, which one of you did it?  Speak up now and you'll save the rest of your classmates from having to stay after school for detention."

I glanced over at Steve.  He secretly kicked me, as if to say be quiet.

Steve and I hadn't meant to get the rest of the class in trouble.  I guess we should have thought about that before we went through with our plan.

I'd never had to stay for detention.  I would have said something to spare the rest the class from taking the fall, but then Kramer would have known we were guilty.  He definitely would have killed us then.

We didn't say a word.

For a few seconds Mr. Billings waited to see if any of us would confess.  Finally he announced, "Okay, you all just earned yourselves an afternoon of detention!  Well, what are you all standing there for?  Don't you have some place to go?"

I had math, where at least I'd be far away from Kramer and his hair-gel-filled combat boots.  I left the locker room as quickly as I could.  After math came lunch, which was usually the period I got to relax.

That day I wasn't in the mood to relax, though.  The way our plan had backfired, I'd lost my appetite, too.  I wasn't looking forward to what would happen at home when they found out I had detention.

Steve wouldn't get in trouble; he always knew how to beat his mother to the punch, calling her before she had a chance to suspect anything and acting like everything was wonderful.  And his sister Susan wouldn't rat him out like I knew my sister Penny would.

Unlike Steve, I had been born between two people who got enormous pleasure out of seeing me get into trouble with my parents.

At least there was one good thing about having two parents who worked: They didn't come home until after five o'clock, which meant they never knew if I got home on time or had to stay late.

Dad usually didn't get home until seven-thirty every night.  Except for Fridays and Saturdays, he worked long hours running his business.  He'd bought the town pharmacy fifteen years ago.  Sometimes, I came in on Saturdays to help him out when he needed an extra person to help with inventory.

It was about four o'clock when I walked into the house. 

"Where were you?"  Penny said, like she was a big detective.  Mom and Dad gave her an extra five dollars' allowance to keep an eye on Jon and me for the two hours my parents were still at work.

But Penny already knew where I had been, and why.

That afternoon Jon had stopped by the auditorium after band practice to walk home with me.  His best friend Patrick Christie had been out sick that day, and Jon didn't like walking home by himself.  Plus he wanted my friends to protect him from Tara McDougal.  She always tried to follow him home.

I didn't know why it bothered him that a cute girl had a crush on him.  I'd have given anything to have that kind of problem with Jenna.

I blew off Penny's question, running straight up to my room to play my trumpet.

"You might as well tell me," she shouted up the stairs.  "I have to tell Mommy something when she gets home.  She called earlier and I had to tell her that you weren't home yet."

I closed my bedroom door.  Taking out my trumpet, I started to play "String of Pearls."  Music made everything else go away, at least for a little while.

At dinner, once my parents got home, everything seemed okay.  I should have known better.

I was making my way to bed later when my dad caught me by the stairs.

"Mom and Penny told me you were kept after school.  What happened?"

"These two kids--uh, I mean, some kids pulled a prank on someone."

"Why did they do that?"  It felt like Dad could see right through me. 

"I don't know."  I looked down at my sneakers.

"Well, that stinks," Dad said matter-of-factly.

I had been expecting him to yell.

"It's unfair that you and the rest of your class had to stay after school for someone else's bad judgment."

"Oh."  I started to feel nervous.  "Yeah, it wasn't fair."

"Who was the unlucky victim of the prank?"

"Kramer!"

"Him again.  Knowing him, he probably deserved it."  Dad stood at the base of the stairs with his hands in his pockets, one foot on the last step. 

All I could do was shrug. Don't ask me how, but I knew that he knew.  It felt like he had x-ray vision--he couldn't have been looking through me more if I'd been made of plastic wrap.

How do parents always know about stuff?

"Hopefully, the...two kids who did it realized the consequences of their actions," Dad went on, "making the rest of their classmates pay for something they did alone.  Maybe next time they have a problem and feel the need for revenge, they'll think about telling someone, instead.  Like a teacher."

"Yeah, maybe."  Tell a teacher, was he nuts?  Steve and I would never do that.

"Well, it's getting late."  My dad smiled up at me.  "Good night."

"Good night, Dad."

Jogging up to my room, I got undressed and climbed in bed under the covers.  Jon seemed to be asleep already.

Just as I was falling asleep, I heard his voice.

"Did you really fill Kramer's boots with shaving cream?"

"No! It was hair gel," I said without thinking.

"I knew it!  I knew you were in on it!"

Outsmarted by an eleven-year-old midget!