NORM•trap: n. a device used to trap a Norm (okay, fine, I got trapped too)
Monday at school, Trevor, Rowan, Stephanie, and I sit in Trevor’s car. My notebook is propped on my knees, and all our ideas for “dare completion” are listed out.
“What happens if we fail?” I ask.
“They get bragging rights for the rest of their lives,” Stephanie says. Her sour expression—which I’ve decided is her face’s default setting—is present. “We are not failing.”
I doodle a couple of split lines on the corner of the page. “I say we add a rule to the dessert game that the dare must take place the night of the loss. None of this, ‘On Monday you have to steal the principal’s bobblehead toy off the dashboard of his car.’”
Rowan raises one eyebrow, and one corner of his mouth rises with it. Default setting = creep. “Are you scared?”
“What?” I blow air between my lips. “No,” I say, when really the thought of breaking into the principal’s car ranks right up there with suffering through one of my mom’s mind patterns.
“I still think me distracting the principal right when he comes back from lunch, and one of you climbing into the car before he has a chance to set his alarm is the best option,” Rowan says, pointing at my notebook. “Oh, and while you’re writing things down, Addison, write down the name Luis Vasquez. Look him up, Trevor. Last year he had a major back injury during a game. Does his name sound familiar? It should, because he was up for All-American, just like you.”
“This isn’t helping our current situation,” Stephanie says.
“I agree,” Trevor says. “I’m for the borrowing-the-principal’s-keys-out-of-his-office idea.”
“But then someone has to put them back,” Stephanie says. “And that’s assuming he doesn’t keep them on him.”
I glance at my cell. “Well, lunch is almost over, so we’d better figure it out soon.”
“Okay, let’s try the distraction technique,” Rowan says. “Who’s going in for the bobblehead?”
Stephanie’s head immediately whips toward me.
Not me. “Why me?”
“Because you’re the one who had the pathetic dessert.”
“She had no idea about the game, Stephanie,” Trevor points out.
Everyone stares at me, and I find myself saying, “No, it’s fine.” I close my notebook and tuck it into my bag. “I’ll go in. You just better keep him occupied, Rowan.” There is no way I’m getting kicked out of Norm school over a stupid dare.
“I will. I’m an expert at distraction.”
“I’ll help Addison,” Trevor says. “Stephanie, you be backup for Rowan.”
“Yeah, okay.” She blinks several times, then looks up. Just when I start to wonder what someone said to upset her, she pulls down her lower eyelid and sticks her finger in her eye.
I gasp, but no one else reacts.
“My contact is bugging me.” She pinches a thin, clear film out of her eye, and since nobody else finds this at all disturbing I try to control my facial expression.
I must not have done a good job because she says, “What’s your problem? You don’t know anyone who wears contacts?”
No, actually. A Norm lesson about subpar vision is skirting just outside my memory. I need to get a memory program fast, because I seem to have forgotten all our lessons.
“You have it back in?” Rowan asks, and Stephanie nods. “All right, break.” He ducks out of the car like he thinks he’s a spy. Stephanie follows.
“He needs some theme music,” I say, hoping Trevor doesn’t ask about my reaction to Stephanie’s contacts.
“Mr. Buford has some he can borrow.”
I laugh and move toward the door, my feet crunching papers as I do. “Your car is a mess.”
“You’re disgusted.”
“No, I’m not,” I say too fast.
He laughs. “Your face says otherwise.”
“Disgust is the wrong word. It’s not like it’s littered with half-eaten food or dirty socks.” I reach down to pick up one of the many crumpled papers. “It’s just …” I start to unfurl the paper.
“Negative,” he says.
“Negative? Did you seriously just use that word?” The paper is crumpled up into a pretty tight ball, and I can’t open it as fast as I want to.
His eyes twinkle with a smile, but he grabs my wrist. “Addison, drop the garbage.”
I laugh. “If we weren’t in such a hurry, I’d fight to see what caused Mr. Laidback to use the word negative as a command.” I drop the paper with the others, and he releases his hold.
A few moments later, Trevor and I crouch behind the tailgate of a truck, waiting for the principal to pull into his spot. “Are they lists of people you want to kill?” The fact that he wouldn’t let me look makes me want to know that much more. I’m really good at keeping a secret, but when I know someone is keeping one from me, it drives me insane.
He smiles, and I decide he has one of the nicest smiles I’ve ever seen. “Yes, pages of them.”
“Okay, love letters?”
“Absolutely not.” He stands and stretches his legs, then squats down again.
I bite the inside of my cheek, thinking. What would a quiet, easygoing guy like Trevor not want me to see? “You write. You’re a writer.”
He raises his eyebrows in the do-you-seriously-think-that’s-a-possibility? look.
“Maybe your stint in the library inspired you to pen your memoirs.”
“You’re making a bigger deal of this than it is.”
“Negative,” I say, stealing his word. “You are. Anytime you make something a secret, it becomes a big deal.”
He smirks. “Are you going to keep guessing until I tell you?”
I nod once. “Yes.”
“So if I tell you, you’ll drop it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Here’s the huge secret: I draw a little and fail at it a lot.”
I thought finding out what the paper really was would make me want to see it less, not more. “You draw? What do you draw?”
He gives me the didn’t-you-say-you-would-drop-it? look, then peers around the tailgate. “You ready? He’s here.”
I turn and see a black SUV pull into the principal’s spot, Rowan already standing on the sidewalk ready to distract him when he exits the car. “Let’s go.”
“Principal Lemoore,” Rowan says, when the principal steps out of the car and shuts the door behind him. I approach the back passenger-side door, slowly opening it. Trevor stands behind me, waits until I’m all the way in, and closes it. I crawl along the floor but pause when I see the principal’s back in the driver’s-side window. Couldn’t Rowan have led him farther away? I hold my breath, tempted to wait, but I know I need to get it and get out before he sets the alarm. I start to crawl over the shorter middle seat and into the front. That’s when I notice a briefcase sitting on that middle seat. Crap.
I duck behind the driver’s seat just as I hear Rowan say, “Wait, what are you doing?” The front door opens. The principal grumbles and grabs his briefcase, then shuts the door again.
Another door opens and closes, and Trevor whispers, “I’ll get it, Addison. You just go out the back.”
Gladly. I head for the door. “Do you have it?”
“Yes.” At the same moment he utters the word, the horn sounds twice.
I drop back down, curling into a ball. “Tell me that was you accidentally bumping the horn.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Great.”
Rowan’s face appears at the window. “Uh. He just set the alarm. Sorry, guys. Operation ‘key retrieval’ in motion.” Rowan disappears.
I crane my head back to look at the silver door handle. “So we open the door and set off the alarm. He won’t know it was us.” I suddenly feel very trapped and have an overwhelming desire to get out of the car.
“If we didn’t have to borrow his bobblehead, I’d say, yeah, let’s bail. But we should give Rowan a few minutes and see if he comes through.”
I roll onto my side and realize I can see Trevor under the seat. I focus on him and only him and try to forget where we are and what kind of trouble we can get into because of it. “Is this guy a bobblehead collector or something? I don’t believe he’d notice it missing.”
He laughs. “Yeah, he’s a freak. You should see his office.”
“Considering where we are, I think that’s a huge possibility.”
Trevor’s jaw tightens. It’s interesting to watch someone when he doesn’t realize you can see him. Trevor’s unguarded expression looks more concerned than his normal one.
The fact that he might be as worried as I am eases my nerves. It’s like there’s a certain amount of stress appointed to every situation and I’m used to being responsible for holding it all by myself. It’s nice to share it with someone. “You okay?”
He looks over and smiles, the worried look immediately gone. “Oh, hey.”
“So let me see this toy that’s causing so much trouble.”
He rolls onto his side, facing me. I can tell he’s pretty cramped in the space when he brings his hand up and it’s smashed against his chest. The bobblehead jiggles slightly. It’s a football player, but I have no idea which team it’s supposed to represent. “Here’s the offender,” he says.
“A football player.”
“Yeah.”
“Is everyone in the world obsessed with football?”
“It’s pretty big around here.”
It seems to be the theme of my life lately, and I don’t even like the sport. “What’s up with Rowan always coming up with players and their injuries?”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m surprised he didn’t say it the other night. He has this theory that someone is purposefully injuring the competition.”
My throat feels dry, and I try to swallow down some moisture. “Why does he think that?”
“Well, because of the nature of my hit. It was after the whistle. I wasn’t expecting it, and neither was my line—which is odd, because I’m always on guard for a few seconds after each play. But that time I felt completely relaxed. And then I was hit. Hard. The ligaments in my shoulder were torn pretty bad. Which makes him think that someone tried to permanently injure me.”
“But you don’t think that?”
“No. Football is all about smashing into other people as hard as you can. Of course players are going to get hurt. And how could someone know how badly I would get hurt anyway?”
I clear my throat. “And these other players who have been hurt too … The ones Rowan’s been telling you about. Did they all get hurt while playing that same school as well?”
“I don’t know. I try not to take Rowan too seriously. It’s been my downfall many times.” He pauses. “But he’s a lot of fun. He lives off adrenaline. You’ll never be bored with him around.”
I’m not sure if that statement was made specifically for me or if he was speaking in generalities, but it’s time to make my feelings for Rowan clear. “Adrenaline is overrated.” Okay, so that isn’t the clear-cut ‘I hate Rowan’ statement I was looking for when I opened my mouth. But I feel bad; I don’t want to be rude about his best friend.
He readjusts his position on the floor, but it doesn’t seem to make him any more comfortable. “I never did give you that zombie quiz on Friday.”
“That’s because you were too busy driving strangers to my house.”
He groans. “I thought you might’ve been mad about that. Sorry.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve known me for such a long time. You should be able to read my looks by now. Glaring at you in the rearview mirror, like this, means: ‘You will die if you take people to my house. Come up with an alternate solution.’” I give him an example of the look.
“Good to know. I’ll start a list.”
My cell phone chimes, and I pull it out of my pocket. The text message from Laila reads, I just let the air out of the tires of one of my dad’s loser friends’ car at Fat Jacks. It felt so good.
I close my eyes, trying not to let this news affect me now, from hundreds of miles away. Because my immediate response is to ask her if she’s crazy. What’re you doing off-campus for lunch? Shouldn’t you be sitting on the stage tormenting people who walk by?
I felt like Fat Jacks. Snuck off. Apparently the entire football team hangs out here. You should see this place. Packed. What’re you up to?
I’m locked in a car with Trevor, I text back.
“Is that our rescue squad giving us an update?” Trevor asks.
Ooh, Sounds fun, Laila responds.
“Oh. No. It’s my friend Laila. Rowan doesn’t have my cell number, and I really don’t want him to, so please don’t give it to him.”
Trevor’s eyes dart to mine. “Wow, it was that obvious, huh?”
“Yeah, and I’m not really interested. No offense.”
“It doesn’t offend me. It was a best-friend favor. Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. Will you just let him know?”
“Yeah, sure.” He shifts his shoulders again, and I wonder if he’s in pain.
“Isn’t there a way to move the seat back or something? You look so uncomfortable.” My Compound car immediately adjusts to my settings. Was it the same here? I hadn’t paid enough attention. Maybe I just made the stupidest suggestion, because the car obviously doesn’t have Trevor’s fingerprint in its database. How is he supposed to move the seats in someone else’s car?
“Yes, the lever is probably on the side. Can you reach it?”
“Lever?” So it was a stupid suggestion for a different reason—I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“On the side of the seat. By the door.”
“Oh, right.” I reach to the side of the seat, hoping to find something sticking out. I do, but I still don’t know what to do.
“Did you find it?”
“Maybe?”
The next thing I know, his hand is on mine. His fingertips, slightly calloused, travel over mine in search of the lever. “You probably just push it back.”
Our eyes meet under the seat. The car is entirely too stuffy and hot. I take my hand out from under his. “Maybe we shouldn’t move the seats. The principal will probably be able to tell.”
“True.”
The horn beeps, and I jump.
“We’re free,” Trevor says. “Let’s take a team picture with this and then put it back.” He starts to get up.
“Trevor?”
His face reappears under the seat. “Yeah?”
“Sorry about your shoulder.”
He smiles. “No need to be sorry. Really. Rowan makes it into a much bigger deal than it is.”
I nod, wondering if Trevor really had let it go. And more than that, I wonder if Rowan has a reason to be suspicious of Lincoln High.