Breakout by Kevin Emerson Read Free Book Online Page A

the day falls away, and when I finally look up the whole night has passed, my fingers and arms are sore, and I crash into bed with barely any thought.
Night Raid
    Until my phone buzzes me back awake. Keenan. Probably pulling an insomniac
LF
session like he does—
    Except his text says:
Did you hear about Sadie?
    I reply:
Hear what?
    But I feel like I already know before Keenan texts back:
    Skye says she got suspended. Two weeks
.
    He texts again, but he doesn’t need to. I’m thinking the same thing:
    We’re screwed for the show
.

The Crime
    I wake up late, which makes my dad late and we’re both silent in the car. I eat a banana and a cereal bar and he drives too fast, and then I rush to class. I trudge through the morning and don’t have a chance to talk to Keenan until we’re back at our lockers before lunch.
    He just looks at me. “Suspended.”
    I feel the energy drain out of me again. “Do we know what for?” Even just speaking feels like the biggest effort ever.
    Skye shows up and throws herself into a slouch against the lockers. “I got the dirt,” she says breathlessly. “Sadie and Parker were in Ms. Rosaz’s room for free period because they got caught cheating on the vocab test. And when the bell rang she left to make copies, but she’d confiscated Blake’s phone earlier in the day and it was still on her desk. Parker knew his password, since they just broke up, so she grabbed it and they sent these nasty texts to a bunch of his contacts. Butthey sent one to his cousin by mistake, who told Blake’s mom, and she called Rosaz.”
    “No way!” says Keenan, and he sounds kind of impressed because really that is some kind of combination of craziness and bravery even for Sadie.
    “But how’d they get caught?” I ask.
    Skye rolls her eyes and smacks down on her gum. “Because Mr. Scher saw them running out of the room, and they were laughing and stuff, and so he got suspicious.”
    “Of course,” I groan. “It’s like Scher’s dream come true.”
    “And then Ms. Rosaz got the call,” Skye says, “and she and Scher put two and two together and then tracked down Parker at the end of school and she confessed to Tiernan during interrogation.”
    “That’s so stupid!” I shout, and I kick my locker shut in frustration.
    “Anthony …,” says a serious voice, and I turn around and can’t believe that
again
someone is walking right by at the worst time. At least this time it’s Mr. Travis. He’s new this year and apparently just got his teaching degree in Hawaii. He wears sandals even when it’s raining and freezing and is always trying to have this mellow, cool vibe. He has a picture up in his classroom of him surfing. I think he means it to say, like,
Check it out, I’m a real person too!
but it is so not cool to have to see your teacher in a bathing suit. “Settle down, please,” he says.
    I resist the urge to point out that I don’t
want
to settledown, that Sadie’s suspension is a perfect reason for me to have some nonsettled emotions.
    Instead, I turn to Keenan. “We have to find Mr. Darren.”
The Verdict
    We eat lunch barely speaking, and then I spend free period on the office couch again, and then during passing time before language arts we run for the student lounge. Inside, we find Mr. Darren kneeling in front of a Fender Twin amp. It’s turned around backward and he’s replacing the tubes and has one of the short glass cylinders in his hand.
    He sees us and says, “Hey, Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Jones, how can I help you?”
    “Did you hear that Sadie got suspended?” Keenan asks.
    Mr. Darren sighs. “I did.”
    “Can she do the show?” I ask, even though I know it’s useless.
    “I’m afraid not,” says Mr. Darren. “This is considered a school activity, and with her suspension she’ll miss our last two practices, so … There you go.”
    I can feel myself starting to shake with frustration. “So, what are we going to do?”
    Mr. Darren kind of shrugs. “Well,