Oh man, I was in trouble.
Those dumb excuses—I heard someone call for help, the door lock was broken before we got there—started flooding back in, but I knew that they would just help sink me. Bat Lady would not be able to get me out of this one, and I somehow doubted that Buck’s father would say that I had permission to break the lock on his shed door and shatter a bunch of beakers.
Yep, I was in trouble.
I stayed behind the tree but I could tell from the bouncing flashlights that they were getting closer.
Think, Mickey.
The fact was, the two officers had one advantage over me: They could see. I had one advantage over them, albeit temporarily: I could hide. But the hiding could only last a little longer. The flashlights would discover me. But then again, if I put my flashlight on too, yes, they’d see me, but it would also even the playing field.
There was one other thing to consider—the police officers might be armed—but this was Kasselton, not Newark. In towns like this, officers don’t pull their guns, especially on suspects running through the woods.
I flipped on the flashlight and ran.
“Stop! Police!”
I didn’t know which was worse: breaking into that shed or running away from the police. Either way, I picked up my pace. They were fast. I was faster. More than that, I did figure out an advantage. I would shine my flashlight in front of me, plan out the path, turn off the flashlight, confuse them with that, turn it on again when I needed it.
Then I got a break.
The woods started to grow less dense. The officers behind me were in the thick of it now. I was nearly out. Once I barreled through, I came into a clearing behind the Kasselton Mall.
Perfect.
There were still plenty of cars in the lot. That was a bonus too. I hurried over to Target because it was the largest store in the mall. I found a corner kiosk in the appliance department where I could see both entrances. If the police entered one, I could hurry out the other or even hide in the vast space of the store.
But the cops didn’t come inside.
At the end of the day, I was just a kid who maybe broke into a big tool shed. It might be interesting, but it wasn’t as though a SWAT team was going to be called out.
Half an hour after entering the Target, I went through the mall and exited out the Sears on the other side. There were no police. I started down Hobart Gap Road toward Uncle Myron’s house.
So what do I do now?
Should I text Troy? That seemed iffy. If he’d been caught and I texted him, the police might see that we were communicating. I should wait and let him contact me. But then again, would he? Wouldn’t he logically think the same thing about contacting me and also wait?
I wasn’t sure it mattered.
I tried to put together what I had learned in Mr. Schultz’s shed. Start from the beginning: One, Troy had seen Buck and his brother, Randy, both of whom he claimed used steroids, go into that shed with test tubes. Now that I’d been inside the shed, it was clearly some kind of laboratory. It could have something to do with making the PEDs—performance-enhancing drugs. Maybe Randy or Buck was tinkering with, I don’t know, their formula.
I frowned. I’m not sure Buck could spell the word chemistry, nonetheless start fiddling with complex compounds.
Then I remembered the urine samples.
I don’t know how many were stored in that cabinet—and, ew, I hoped none fell on the floor as we ran out—but what could Buck and Randy be doing with them?
Hmm.
I had read somewhere that steroid cheaters would often use someone else’s urine to beat the system. Here was how it worked: You hid a urine sample on you when you went to the test. When you entered the bathroom stall to urinate, you switched your sample with one you knew was clean.
Could that be it?
Possible, except for one thing. There were probably a hundred urine samples in storage. We only get tested once or maybe twice a year. Why so many?
I was missing something.
I didn’t know what. In a sense, it didn’t matter. Tomorrow I would head back to Adiona Island. There was some kind of clue there, some kind of link between that island and the Bat Lady and the Abeona Shelter and maybe even Luther and my father. I wanted to help here. I wanted to figure out why Troy had been set up and by whom. But it wasn’t my priority.
Except . . .
I had an idea. I took out my phone and called Brandon Foley. He answered on the third ring. “What’s up?” he said.
“I’m about two blocks from your house. You free?”
“Sure,” Brandon said. “Anything to avoid studying for this physics test.”
As I got closer, I heard the comforting sound of a dribbling basketball. Brandon was in his driveway again, working on his game. He tossed me the ball when he saw me coming. I stopped and took a jumper. Swish. He threw the ball back to me—“courtesy” is a universal basketball concept—but I just held the ball.
“You have your phone?” I asked.
“It’s in the house. Why?”
“I may need you to text Troy.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because he and I . . .”
“What?”
And that was when I stopped. I liked Brandon. I really did. But I wasn’t sure that I wanted to confess to him that I had just done something illegal. He was president of the student council and all those other things. He took his responsibilities as basketball captain seriously.
Could he be trusted?
Sure, Brandon had been the one to get me involved in helping Troy, but what would he say if I told him that I’d just broken into a storage shed and run away from the cops?
Would he tell?
I had thought that I could ask Brandon to contact Troy for me, so that it wouldn’t get traced back to my phone. But now I wondered whether that was a good move.
“You and he what?” Brandon asked again.
“Nothing.”
“So why did you want to see me?”
In a way, Brandon couldn’t help me with this. I would hear from Troy or I wouldn’t. It didn’t change anything. Brandon couldn’t help with the break-in. He couldn’t help answer why I had found urine samples in that shed or really anything that could cast light on this situation.
So even if I did trust him, even if I believed that he only had my and Troy’s best interests at heart, what was the point of telling him?
Answer: nothing. There was no point.
But there was still one key to all this—one person who could answer all my questions about that shed, about illegal steroids, about why Troy had tested positive. It kept circling back to that same question:
Those dumb excuses—I heard someone call for help, the door lock was broken before we got there—started flooding back in, but I knew that they would just help sink me. Bat Lady would not be able to get me out of this one, and I somehow doubted that Buck’s father would say that I had permission to break the lock on his shed door and shatter a bunch of beakers.
Yep, I was in trouble.
I stayed behind the tree but I could tell from the bouncing flashlights that they were getting closer.
Think, Mickey.
The fact was, the two officers had one advantage over me: They could see. I had one advantage over them, albeit temporarily: I could hide. But the hiding could only last a little longer. The flashlights would discover me. But then again, if I put my flashlight on too, yes, they’d see me, but it would also even the playing field.
There was one other thing to consider—the police officers might be armed—but this was Kasselton, not Newark. In towns like this, officers don’t pull their guns, especially on suspects running through the woods.
I flipped on the flashlight and ran.
“Stop! Police!”
I didn’t know which was worse: breaking into that shed or running away from the police. Either way, I picked up my pace. They were fast. I was faster. More than that, I did figure out an advantage. I would shine my flashlight in front of me, plan out the path, turn off the flashlight, confuse them with that, turn it on again when I needed it.
Then I got a break.
The woods started to grow less dense. The officers behind me were in the thick of it now. I was nearly out. Once I barreled through, I came into a clearing behind the Kasselton Mall.
Perfect.
There were still plenty of cars in the lot. That was a bonus too. I hurried over to Target because it was the largest store in the mall. I found a corner kiosk in the appliance department where I could see both entrances. If the police entered one, I could hurry out the other or even hide in the vast space of the store.
But the cops didn’t come inside.
At the end of the day, I was just a kid who maybe broke into a big tool shed. It might be interesting, but it wasn’t as though a SWAT team was going to be called out.
Half an hour after entering the Target, I went through the mall and exited out the Sears on the other side. There were no police. I started down Hobart Gap Road toward Uncle Myron’s house.
So what do I do now?
Should I text Troy? That seemed iffy. If he’d been caught and I texted him, the police might see that we were communicating. I should wait and let him contact me. But then again, would he? Wouldn’t he logically think the same thing about contacting me and also wait?
I wasn’t sure it mattered.
I tried to put together what I had learned in Mr. Schultz’s shed. Start from the beginning: One, Troy had seen Buck and his brother, Randy, both of whom he claimed used steroids, go into that shed with test tubes. Now that I’d been inside the shed, it was clearly some kind of laboratory. It could have something to do with making the PEDs—performance-enhancing drugs. Maybe Randy or Buck was tinkering with, I don’t know, their formula.
I frowned. I’m not sure Buck could spell the word chemistry, nonetheless start fiddling with complex compounds.
Then I remembered the urine samples.
I don’t know how many were stored in that cabinet—and, ew, I hoped none fell on the floor as we ran out—but what could Buck and Randy be doing with them?
Hmm.
I had read somewhere that steroid cheaters would often use someone else’s urine to beat the system. Here was how it worked: You hid a urine sample on you when you went to the test. When you entered the bathroom stall to urinate, you switched your sample with one you knew was clean.
Could that be it?
Possible, except for one thing. There were probably a hundred urine samples in storage. We only get tested once or maybe twice a year. Why so many?
I was missing something.
I didn’t know what. In a sense, it didn’t matter. Tomorrow I would head back to Adiona Island. There was some kind of clue there, some kind of link between that island and the Bat Lady and the Abeona Shelter and maybe even Luther and my father. I wanted to help here. I wanted to figure out why Troy had been set up and by whom. But it wasn’t my priority.
Except . . .
I had an idea. I took out my phone and called Brandon Foley. He answered on the third ring. “What’s up?” he said.
“I’m about two blocks from your house. You free?”
“Sure,” Brandon said. “Anything to avoid studying for this physics test.”
As I got closer, I heard the comforting sound of a dribbling basketball. Brandon was in his driveway again, working on his game. He tossed me the ball when he saw me coming. I stopped and took a jumper. Swish. He threw the ball back to me—“courtesy” is a universal basketball concept—but I just held the ball.
“You have your phone?” I asked.
“It’s in the house. Why?”
“I may need you to text Troy.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because he and I . . .”
“What?”
And that was when I stopped. I liked Brandon. I really did. But I wasn’t sure that I wanted to confess to him that I had just done something illegal. He was president of the student council and all those other things. He took his responsibilities as basketball captain seriously.
Could he be trusted?
Sure, Brandon had been the one to get me involved in helping Troy, but what would he say if I told him that I’d just broken into a storage shed and run away from the cops?
Would he tell?
I had thought that I could ask Brandon to contact Troy for me, so that it wouldn’t get traced back to my phone. But now I wondered whether that was a good move.
“You and he what?” Brandon asked again.
“Nothing.”
“So why did you want to see me?”
In a way, Brandon couldn’t help me with this. I would hear from Troy or I wouldn’t. It didn’t change anything. Brandon couldn’t help with the break-in. He couldn’t help answer why I had found urine samples in that shed or really anything that could cast light on this situation.
So even if I did trust him, even if I believed that he only had my and Troy’s best interests at heart, what was the point of telling him?
Answer: nothing. There was no point.
But there was still one key to all this—one person who could answer all my questions about that shed, about illegal steroids, about why Troy had tested positive. It kept circling back to that same question:
