The Fourth Stall Read online

  The Fourth Stall

  By Chris Rylander

  For Amanda, we’re going to live forever

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  You need something?

  I can get it for you.

  You have a problem?

  I can solve it.

  That’s why they come to me. By “they” I mean every kid in the school. First graders up to eighth graders. Everyone comes to me for help, and most of the time I’m happy to provide it. For a small fee of course.

  My office is located in the East Wing boys’ bathroom, fourth stall from the high window. My office hours are during early recess, lunch, and afternoon recess.

  Sometimes I do pro bono work. I don’t know why free is called pro bono, but it is. If your situation seems important enough, I just may offer my services without the usual fees of money or favors. But that doesn’t happen too often. And when it does, it’s usually because Vince asks me to.

  Vince is my best friend and right-hand man. He’s a good guy; in addition to being awesome with numbers he’s also the most book-smart kid I know, and the best business manager a guy could have. We started this business together, so when he gives me one of those looks that only I know, that says, Hey, Mac, you should cut this kid a break and do this one pro bono, I listen to him. I know you shouldn’t mix your business and personal life, but we run a tight operation and have been friends since kindergarten.

  My real name is Christian Barrett, but everyone calls me Mac. Mac is short for MacGyver. This eighth grader, Billy Benson, called me that once, and it stuck. Now it’s just Mac, because people are lazy.

  Right now you might be wondering how a little blue-eyed sixth grader with shaggy dark brown hair could end up with a business like this? And I don’t blame you—I hardly believe it myself sometimes. It’s actually a pretty long story that’s probably best left for later. So for now let’s just say it involves an old trailer park playground, a vampire, and one angry fourth grader and we’ll leave it at that.

  Anyways, I mostly handle easy stuff, like getting kids test answers, or forged hall passes and doctor’s notes, or video games that their parents won’t let them play, but every once in a while something tough comes my way. Like my last client on this particular Monday. His was one of the most difficult problems I ever faced.

  I was sitting behind my desk in the fourth stall from the high window. Maybe I should stop here to explain how we fit my desk into the stall. A lot of kids will tell you that the toilet was cleared out years ago due to a huge accident. They say some joker tried to flush a whole box of Black Cats and four cherry bombs down the toilet. Supposedly, the porcelain shards exploded everywhere and severed his arm and he now has a hook for a hand and lives in some special institution for kids who think they’re pirates.

  I know the truth, though, because I have connections the other kids don’t. The toilet was removed when some kid figured out Principal Dickerson’s bathroom schedule. Apparently, old people use the bathroom at the same time every day, and this kid, Jimmy Snickers, found out that Principal Dickerson used the fourth stall from the high window in the East Wing bathroom every single day at 12:02. Always. Why did he use that exact toilet? Maybe it was because the fourth stall from the high window was the biggest stall in the bathroom and had handrails that he needed to use because he was so old? I really have no idea. I know a lot of stuff about this school, but some things are just a mystery, and are meant to stay that way.

  Anyways, one day during morning recess Jimmy brought six bottles of industrial superglue into the fourth stall from the high window. Now, Jimmy was a pretty clever kid, so he knew that simply supergluing Dickerson’s butt cheeks to the seat was not enough, because the seat could easily be removed with just a simple wrench. Instead he lathered up not only the seat but also the screws and joints holding the seat to the toilet bowl itself. The concoction of glues he created, combined with years of built-up pee and rust and gunk, bonded together like the most stinky, sticky cement ever invented. Principal Dickerson wasn’t going anywhere.

  Dickerson didn’t yell for help because it would have been embarrassing to be found by a student. So instead he waited. And waited. And waited. Eventually the janitor found him at five o’clock that evening. Even though at that point Dickerson was really hungry from missing lunch, at least he was able to use the bathroom. They had to call in plumbers to remove the entire toilet and ship both Dickerson and his new porcelain shorts to the hospital, where doctors were able to surgically separate the two.

  Dickerson never ordered a new toilet because the process of doing so would just bring unwanted attention to the whole embarrassing ordeal. That, and the school had spent most of its money that year buying these cool Nike uniforms and tracksuits for all the sports teams. Then by the following year the kids and teachers probably just forgot all about the missing toilet, which was fine with Dickerson. So the fourth stall from the high window remained toilet-less and became the perfect place for my office. Mostly because it was in the farthest reaches of the school’s East Wing where there were no classrooms, except for a rarely used band room.

  The bathroom was also secure and private due to an arrangement I had with the school janitor. In fact, he had even given me a key so I could lock up the bathroom during nonbusiness hours to keep kids from coming in and messing with my stuff. Maybe I’ll get into that arrangement more later on, but for now I should probably get back to the story at hand.

  So where was I anyway? Oh yeah, Monday. It was lunchtime. I was sitting behind the desk my crew had installed in the fourth stall. Business had been a little slower than usual the past couple of days, but otherwise it had been just another normal day at the office up to that point. Joe, my strongman, stood outside the bathroom, forming lines and regulating the flow of kids. Only one customer was allowed inside the bathroom at any given time. Joe also kept out any unwanted company. He was an eighth grader, the biggest kid at our school; he towered over the other students like an NBA player at a midget convention. No one messed with Joe, not even me. But he was loyal, and I compensated him well.

  Joe ushered in kid after kid, first come first serve. Vince was the only person other than me and the client allowed inside the bathroom when we were seeing customers. He usually stood outside my office, where he patted the kids down and checked for recording devices, stink bombs, or other undesirables.

  The second-to-last client of that afternoon was a big football player named Robert Hoveskeland. He looked funny sitting in the small plastic chair in the cramped stall. His huge knees were almost level with his shoulders. I had a good feeling about the kid right away, probably because he was wearing a Chicago Cubs jersey.

  “What can I do for you, Robert?” I asked. “Need more playing time? Less playing time? A girlfriend? Help breaking up with a girlfriend?”

&
nbsp; “No, not exactly,” he said.

  “It has to do with a girl, though, right?”

  He nodded and I thought I saw him blush a little bit.

  “I want to take a girl to that new movie Idiots Doing Stupid Stunts, but I don’t know how to get us in. It’s rated R. My dad’s a cop and he’s obsessed with the whole ‘the law is the law’ thing, so he won’t go for it. Anyways, I already told her I could get us in, so I’m just wondering if you could help me somehow. I don’t want her to think I’m a liar.”

  “I think I can help you, Robert. When were you two planning on going?” I asked.

  “Well, I invited her to go Saturday night. This Saturday.”

  “I need a few moments please,” I said.

  I saw him shift uncomfortably in the small chair as I looked through my Books. My Books were a few notebooks that I used to keep record of customers and their requests, such as who owed me favors and other stuff like that. I also kept a record of all my connections, like people who could get me stuff that most kids didn’t have access to. Such as Vince’s older brother Victor. We used him to get us stuff that only eighteen-year-olds can buy. Vince kept his own Books, too, but his dealt more with how much money we had and who owed us money and other financial stuff like that. I checked my Books for the problem at hand. I knew a guy at the theater who owed me a favor, but he didn’t work on Saturday. I hoped Robert would be flexible.

  “Okay, Robert, here’s the deal: I can get you two in but not Saturday night. Do you think she’d agree to go Friday instead?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” he said as he scratched the back of his head.

  “Good, just tell her you have to babysit your little brother or something on Saturday; that usually works. Look for a cashier named Derrick; he’s tall and has short dark hair. He’ll be expecting you. Sound good?”

  “Yeah, except that I don’t have any little brothers or sisters. So I don’t know what—”

  “Robert, Robert, Robert. Use your imagination. Tell her you have to go out for your mom’s birthday on Saturday or something. It’s okay, everybody can tell a harmless lie once in a while. Right?”

  He hesitated. I could tell that he was a good guy because he seemed to be such a terrible liar.

  “Yeah, okay, I can do that. What do I owe you?” he finally said.

  “Tell you what, I didn’t fix your problem perfectly, plus you’re a Cubs fan, so we’ll do it at a discount. How does five dollars and a small favor sound?”

  “A favor?” he asked.

  “Yeah, there may be a time when I need your help with something. Don’t worry, it won’t be anything huge, I’m not going to, like, ask you for your kidneys or anything like that.”

  Robert chuckled, but it sounded a little nervous. “Sure, sounds good.”

  “All right, just bring the money by anytime this week.”

  “Actually, I have it now.”

  There was absolutely no doubt left that this was definitely a good kid. I loved it when customers paid up front. I quickly wrote a note down in my Books that Robert was someone to potentially employ in the future. His size could come in handy at some point.

  “Great. Give it to Vince before you leave. And just be ready if I ever need that favor. Thanks, Robert.”

  “Okay, Mac, thanks,” he said, and then squeezed out of the stall.

  I sat calmly and waited for the next client, not even suspecting for a second that he would be the biggest problem that had ever stepped into my office.

  Chapter 2

  Before I tell you about the worst problem I ever faced, I should mention that it was also the worst time ever for it to happen. Because as everybody knows, the bigger a problem is, the more money it costs to solve. And at that moment in time, more than ever before, we needed to make money rather than spend it. We were saving up to go to a baseball game. But not just any baseball game. A Chicago Cubs World Series game.

  The Cubs are Vince’s and my favorite baseball team in the world. We aren’t just normal fans either; we are basically obsessed. We’re real fanatics, like those crazy European soccer fans. We watch almost every Cubs game on TV and had been planning for years to go to the World Series together if the Cubs ever made it. And we weren’t just planning to go to the game like how most people make plans but never actually do them. We were serious. We’d even started a savings account for it, the Game Fund. Well, okay, it wasn’t an actual savings account at a bank or anything—it was really just a pile of cash that I kept in my closet. But you get the idea.

  Vince and I had been saving for a Chicago Cubs World Series game for the past five years. One game might not seem like a big deal, but it was. The Cubs make the play-offs like once every ten years, and they haven’t made it to the World Series in almost seventy years, and haven’t won one in over a hundred, which is the longest a single team has sucked in all of sports history. So if we ever got to see a World Series game in person at Wrigley Field, it would be pretty rare. A once-in-a-lifetime chance, basically.

  But get this: They are actually good this year. Really good. They are already in the play-offs and are just one win away from sweeping the Dodgers in the first round. I have a feeling that this is the year we’ll finally get our chance.

  That’s why we’re trying hard to add as much as possible to the Fund. Getting Cubs World Series tickets will be expensive. Every Cubs fan in the world would want to go to the game, since basically nobody living has ever seen a Cubs World Series game before. The tickets would probably have to be purchased through this scalper website because play-off tickets sold out from the real box office in like four minutes flat, so World Series tickets would probably go in under four seconds. They would probably cost at least a couple thousand dollars per ticket, even for nosebleed seats.

  We also had to save money to buy the awesome seven-dollar hot dogs, six-dollar sodas, souvenirs, and other stuff like that. Plus we’d need Vince’s older brother Victor to take us, which meant we’d have to pay for the gas it would take to drive us there. It’s only a few hours away, but gas is pretty expensive. Victor’s a cool guy, but he’d never do that kind stuff for free, not even for his little brother.

  So it’s more important than ever to keep our money flowing in. Like I said, the Cubs are actually really good this year, which is shocking to everybody who knows anything at all about baseball. If everything goes well and they keep winning, their first appearance in a World Series game in almost seventy years is just over two weeks away. We’re already so excited that it sometimes feels like pure liquid sugar is being pumped directly into our veins through an IV, like you see in hospitals. I’ve never looked forward to anything as much as this. Not ever. Not even when my parents took me to Disney World when I was ten.

  The problem is that we don’t have quite enough money yet. So at that moment every last penny really mattered, making it a horrible time for trouble to just waltz into my office like it did. Well, I guess it didn’t so much waltz as it did stumble, but you get the idea.

  I heard my last customer of that afternoon shuffle through the bathroom door, his feet reluctantly scraping the floor as if he was being prodded by a stick. I heard Vince pat him down and say, “Hey, kid, you need to relax. No one’s gonna hurt you, okay?”

  The stall opened and a young kid entered. He was pale with bloodshot eyes. His hands shook as he reached out for the chair. Then he stopped and looked at me. He was asking for permission.

  I nodded my head at him and he sat down. He couldn’t have been more than a third grader. He looked at the stall’s wall to his left, eyeing the ancient graffiti. Middle school cave drawings are how I always think of them. I’ve spent plenty of time myself looking at the ancient writing. There are classics like “GaRy wuz HeeR” and “Mr JensEN SUX” and “Mitch JuLie,” but there were also a few weird ones like “I WISH I WAS A PEACE OF CHEESE” and “Jason J fly’s kites at NitE” and “i eaT what i am.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked, turning my attention back to the custom
er.

  His head snapped toward me as if I had screamed at him. His eyes were big and brimming with tears. He looked like a deer staring into the bright doom of oncoming headlights.

  “My name? Oh, it’s aah . . . uuh, my name is, umm, Fred.”

  I studied him for a moment. He squirmed nervously.

  “Okay, Fred, what do you need help with?”

  “Well, it’s uh . . . it’s, umm, complicated. He’s after me, Mac, and I don’t really know where to start, I’m in so much trouble, it’s just a mess, it’s uh, it’s just so . . . oh man, I guess—”

  “Fred.”

  He stopped his chattering the instant I said his name. He looked up at me with his frightened doe eyes. This kid was making me nervous. I don’t like being nervous.

  “Look, Fred, relax and slow down. I’m having a coronary over here just watching you. Take a deep breath. I can’t help you if I don’t understand what you are saying. Okay?”

  Fred breathed deeply and nodded. He still looked terrified.

  “Okay, Fred, let’s start with who is after you.”

  “Staples.”

  I hoped Fred couldn’t see my shock. That couldn’t be right.

  Staples? Staples wasn’t even supposed to exist. The legend of Staples has been spread throughout the town practically since the beginning of time. According to the most often repeated stories, Staples was this kid who dropped out of school after fourth grade and never went back. His age always varied from story to story, but it was generally agreed that he was now between fourteen and twenty. Some kids claimed that he could do forty pull-ups with two seventh graders dangling from each leg. Others said he could pop a tetherball with a single punch. He also supposedly ran a mile in under six minutes and was smarter than Albert Einstein and Hermione Granger combined.

  According to the legends, Staples had an intricate web of connections that spread throughout almost every high school, elementary school, and middle school in the city. He was even rumored to have people in the police department. He was untouchable.