Sidekicked (17 page)

There are no teachers or kids by the back door, and it's only locked on the inside, so getting out isn't a problem. And we have Nikki, so getting back in won't be either. I listen for the heavy thud of Officer Jenson's heels on the sidewalk. Our lone security guard has a slow, bowlegged gait and wears heavy boots—easy to identify. I can hear him clear around the front of the school. “All clear,” I say. Somewhere out there, probably not too far from here, some criminal in a suit is holding a playing card and saying the exact same thing. But there's a big difference between knocking over banks and skipping out on lunch. At least, I'd like to think so.

We head to the baseball diamond behind the tennis courts. Along the way we talk about the thing on all of our minds. Mike thinks the Jacks are just gathering enough cash to fly the coop—maybe head to Europe or South America, even go their separate ways. He figures the Dealer owed it to them to bust them out, but that they aren't really a gang anymore. Nikki thinks Mike is an idiot, even if he is kinda cute in a lost-puppy-with-one-broken-leg kind of way, and that the robberies are just meant to spook the public. Eric says the Suits are planning a big crime spree, though he may have said that they are baking a big cream pie. It's hard to follow along with his signs when we aren't standing still, facing each other.

Then I pitch my theory. That the Suits are out for revenge. After all, the bad guys don't like getting beat any more than the good guys do. The Jacks spent six years in prison thanks to Justicia's Supers, and the Dealer—well, who even knows what he's been up to. Not to mention they lost one of their own—the Jack of Hearts hasn't risen from the dead yet—giving them something else to avenge. I look over at Jenna, but she just looks down at her feet. When she finally notices everyone looking at her, she shrugs.

“The Fox will take care of it,” she says with certainty.

Rule number four.

“That's easy for you to say,” Mike scoffs, echoing my thoughts exactly.

The baseball diamond is deserted. The ground smells musty from last night's rain, though the sun has at least dried the bleachers. Because Mike won't get the cast off for a couple of months still, Eric decides to teach him the art of one-handed kung fu.

“This should be good,” Jenna says, climbing the steps.

“Yeah. Do you think Mike will break his other arm or just electrocute himself first?” I ask, sitting next to Jenna on the top bench of the bleachers, watching Eric show Mike the proper fighting stance down at home plate.

“My money's on accidental electrocution,” she says. It's a figure of speech, of course. Jenna never has any money.

Nikki takes one look at Jenna and me sitting on the bleachers and watches Mike strike a crane pose, though with his plastered arm and unsteady leg he looks more like a gimpy goose.

“I can't watch,” she says. “I'm taking a walk. Please make sure Eric doesn't kill him.”

“Oh, Mike will do himself in, don't worry,” I say, watching the Wisp shake her head, walk straight through the fence, and then disappear into the woods beyond the field. Beside me, Jenna is sitting cross-legged, fidgeting with the pull strings of her sweatshirt, wrapping them around her fingers one way and then the other, cutting off circulation. I watch Eric practice a couple of whirlwind kicks, one right after another. He's so graceful it's almost hypnotizing. Then I watch Mike fall on his butt just trying to get one leg to follow orders. I realize this is the first time Jenna and I have been alone—or at least almost alone—in about a week. Since we hung out together at the pool.

Suddenly she turns to me. Her hands are in her lap, one leg tucked underneath the other. Her eyes are scrunched behind her glasses and she's chewing on her upper lip, which is, I notice, a little chapped. I could count the cracks if I wanted to.

I've seen this look before. She has something on her mind. I hold my breath and wait for it.

“Do you think I'm good?” she asks. “A good person, I mean?”

I literally look behind her, wondering where, exactly, she pulled this one out of.

“You're no Mahatma Gandhi,” I say, figuring stupid questions deserve equally stupid answers, but the look on her face tells me I need to try again.

“You're serious?”

She nods.

“You? Jenna Jaden. Straight-A student. Award-winning athlete. Soup kitchen volunteer. Superhero sidekick extraordinaire. You seriously don't know if you are a good person?”

She leans back, challenging me with a smile and one raised eyebrow. “Well, are
you
a good person?”

“Well, yeah,” I say. “I mean, I think so, don't you?”

She doesn't answer that one. That's when I know I'm in trouble. She leans forward again. “When's the last time you lied to your mother?” she asks.

Technically I don't think I said anything to Mom that wasn't true in the twenty minutes we spent together this morning over breakfast. So that would make it . . .

“Yesterday,” I say.

“When's the last time you did something you knew you probably weren't supposed to?”

I immediately think of the math test. Then skipping school and biking to the bar. Then I realize that I'm probably not supposed to be out here sitting on these bleachers talking to her during fourth period.

“Okay. What's your point?”

“I'm just saying that you do things that some people would consider
not
good.”

She's got me fixed with those green eyes of hers. There's no way out of this one.

“Well. Yeah. Sure. I'm not perfect. I screw up every now and then. But when it comes to the really important stuff, I think I do okay.”

“You do
okay
.” The way she says it, I feel like I'm suddenly six inches tall.

“I don't know. I think I'm basically good, I mean, more or less.”

“Well, which is it, more or less?” she prods.

“You know what I mean,” I tell her. “You do the right thing most of the time, and you make some mistakes, but you learn from them, and you try to help other people or at least stay out of their way, and you don't kill anybody and you're, you know, basically good.”

“And basically good is, what, good
enough
?”

“Yeah, something like that,” I say.

“But it's not
good
. Not
good
good. Not the way we mean it when we say things like good and evil, right?”

“I don't know, Jenna. I don't think anyone is good all the time. Being totally good every second is just not . . . well, it's just not
reasonable
.”

“So that's a reason not to do it?”

I throw my hands into the air. The universal gesture of
What the heck do you want from me?

“I'm just asking,” she says defensively.

“Well. No. I guess not.” I smile, hoping to segue into a different line of questioning or even something resembling a stupid, meaningless, middle school conversation, but Jenna is all earnestness, leaning in, eyes narrow, lips pursed. She's not letting go. “Seriously. What is all this about? Did Mike tell you about my math test?” I knew I shouldn't have told him about that. Of course he said he cheated on his Spanish quiz the week before, so I didn't feel bad. But I'm guessing Jenna never cheated on anything in her life. She's all about hard work and sacrifice.

“This isn't really about you, Drew.”

Jenna looks down at her feet. She's wearing sandals today, even though the air is a little crisp, and her nails are painted pale pink. Her feet smell like the wet grass she just walked through. I can see the tiny, soft blond hairs on her legs just above her ankles. She looks back at me. “It's just that sometimes I kind of wonder . . . what's the point, you know? I mean, every day most people don't do a single thing for anyone but themselves. And some people, they do terrible things and get away with it. And then there are people who devote their entire lives to being good and doing what they believe in, and they end up forgotten.”

“Geez, Jenna. You're only thirteen. I think it's a little early to worry about this stuff.”

“I'm not talking about me, either, Drew. I mean, not really.” On the field, Mike is desperately trying to land just one punch, but Eric continues to dodge them with ease. I suddenly realize I'm Mike in this conversation. I scoot an inch closer to Jenna.

“Sometimes I don't think there really is a good and bad,” she says. “At least, not the way we are always taught. Sometimes I think there are just choices and consequences.”

“Okay,” I say. “I can see that.” I scoot another inch, leaning back on my elbows, all casual like. I can actually smell the leaves turning, drying out, can hear them breaking free, and I'm reminded of that hippie song about seasons and times and purposes and all that. My mom loves that song, which means I am naturally inclined not to, but I kind of believe it anyway.

“But then there must be good and bad choices, right? Or at least good and bad consequences?” she asks.

“Well, sure.”

“I mean, if I blow up a building and kill the people inside, that's bad, right?”

I can't help but give her a look. “Um. Yeeaaahh, Jenna. I think blowing up a building full of innocent people qualifies as a
bad
choice.”

“And even if I
make
the bomb and
sell
it to the guy who blows up the building, that's bad, too, right?”

“Pretty sure. It's a bomb. What did you think it was going to be used for? It's not like you sold him a pack of gum.”

“Okay. Right,” she says, suddenly moving close enough to me that our knees bump. It makes me sit up straight. Our faces are probably only a foot apart. I can actually count the pores in her nose. I can't believe
none
of them are clogged. I'm suddenly very self-conscious about my breath. I had oatmeal for breakfast. Apple cinnamon. I wonder how good
her
senses are. Still, I don't dare move.

“So let's say I sell him a pack of gum instead, and as I give him back his change, he says, ‘Hey, did you know I was headed over to that building across the street to blow it up?'”

“He just says that?”

“Yes.”

“As you're giving back his change?”

“Yes.”

“In that girly voice of yours?”

“No, fart head. He sounds like Kermit the Frog.” Jenna scowls at me, but she doesn't scoot away.

“Really. Because I can't imagine Kermit the Frog blowing up a building.” I realize that I'm trying to be charming, which isn't a strength of mine, but I can't turn back now.

Jenna hits me on the shoulder. It's meant to be playful, I think, but it actually hurts quite a bit. “He says he's going to blow up the building.”

“And you say?”

“Nothing. I don't say anything. Or I just say ‘oh,' and I go back to restocking the snack cakes.”

“You say ‘oh'?”

“I say ‘oh,' that's it, and then half an hour later the building explodes.”

“That's one vicious frog.”

“I'm serious,” Jenna says through gritted teeth. I'm afraid she might punch me again, less playfully this time.

“Okay. Okay. It blows up. And you never did anything to stop him? Never called the police?”

“I didn't say a thing to anyone.”

“Well, then, yeah. That's definitely not good.”

“Right. Because I could have stopped it, right?” She shifts a little, and our knees bump again. “Okay. Except let's say there were no people inside, so nobody really got hurt.”

“Still bad,” I say. “Destruction of property. Maybe not as bad—”

“Except one. There's one person,” she says, interrupting. “A terrorist.”

“Miss Piggy?” I ask.

“Drew!”

“Okay. Fine. There's a terrorist in the building. Whatever.”

“Thank you. And the guy I sold the gum to is blowing up the building to get rid of the terrorist.”

“Right.”

“So that's bad, right?”

“What's bad?”

“That I didn't call the police when the guy buying the gum told me he was going to blow up the building.”

I'm a little confused. “And you knew that there was only one person in the building and that the one person was a bad guy?”

“No.”

“No, you didn't know, or no, you knew?”

“I didn't know he was a bad guy.”

“Then I'm going to have to say not good.”

“Then yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, let's say I knew he was bad.”

“Who?” I ask, confused again.

“The guy in the building. The one that got blown up.”

“And you didn't call the police?”

“No.”

“No, you didn't call, or no, you did?”

“No, I did, actually.” She seems to be debating it in her own head.

“You called the police?”

“Yes. And they stopped the man who bought the gum from blowing up the building.”

“With the terrorist in it?”

“Right. And he escaped.”

“The gum guy or the terrorist guy?”

“The terrorist guy. And
he
blew up another building that was full of innocent people.”

“I see,” I say, but I'm just saying it. I'm completely lost.

“So then which is it?”

“Which is what?”

“Good or bad—me calling the police to stop the guy who was going to blow up the first building to begin with?”

I don't say anything this time. I'm trying to piece it together, more than anything to just try and figure out why she is asking me all of this. I wonder if this doesn't have something to do with me somehow. Or Gavin. Or both of us. I wonder if I'm the chewing-gum guy. I hope I am. I think at least it's better than being the terrorist.

“Good or bad?” Jenna prods.