Chapter 6 EUREKA!
Did you ever hear the expression “breaking every rule in the book”?
That was it. That was my Big Idea. Break every rule in the book. Literally.
The way I saw it, the HVMS Code of Conduct could be my worst enemy here at school, or if I played it right, I could turn it into my best friend.
Sorry, Leo. I mean my second-best friend.
All it would take was a little bit of work . . . and a ton of guts. Maybe two tons.
Leo knew exactly what I was thinking. The idea had come from his picture, after all.
“Go for it,” he whispered. “Just pick something out of the book and get started.”
“Right now?” I whispered back.
“Why not? What are you waiting for?” he said, and I guess the answer was—two tons of guts.
I just kind of sat there, frozen, so Leo ipped open the book for me and pointed to something on the page without even looking down. When I saw where his nger landed, I almost started having a heart attack.
“I can’t do that!” I told him. “What if someone gets hurt?”
“How does this hurt anyone?” Leo said. “Except maybe you.”
Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better.
“Listen,” Leo told me, “you’re never going to be one of those people”—he pointed at all the student council candidates and jocks and cheerleaders sitting on chairs that had been set up on the gym oor. “But this,” he said, thumping the rule book with his pen, “this is something you can do.”
“I don’t know,” I tried lamely.
“Or,” Leo said, “you can keep going the way you’re going, and every day can be just like this one.” He shrugged. “It might not be so bad. There are only a hundred and eighty school days in a year.”
That did it. “Okay, okay,” I said, and even though
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my heart was pounding out “The Star-Spangled Banner,” I got up and walked over to where one of the prison guards (I mean, teachers) was standing by the gym door.
“I need a bathroom pass,” I told her.
“You can wait,” she said.
“‘Section Eight’!” Stricker boomed over the
microphone. “We’re halfway there!”
“Please?” I said, trying to look as much like a
pants-wetter as possible.
The teacher gave a big sigh, like she wished
she’d been a lawyer instead. “Okay, ve minutes,” she said.
Five minutes was more than enough. I went out to the hall and into the boys’ bathroom while she was still watching me. Then I counted to ten and stuck my head out again.
Nobody was around. As far as I knew, the whole school was inside that gym. It was now or never.
I sprinted up the hall, around the long way behind the of ce, and then cut down another hallway, through the cafeteria, and into an empty stairwell in the back. By the time I found what I was looking for, I’d been gone only a minute or two.
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I stood there, staring at the little red box on the wall.
I could just hear Leo now, like he was right there. Don’t think about it. Just DO it!
I ipped the latch, opened the wire cage around the alarm box, and put my nger on the little white handle inside. This was what you call the point of no return. My mission, should I choose to accept it . . . and all that.
Still—was I crazy? Was I completely nuts for thinking I could pull this off?
Yes, I told myself. You are. Okay, I thought. Just checking. And I pulled the alarm.
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Chapter 7
CHAOS
I’m not sure what the re alarm sounded like in the gym, but it was about ten thousand decibels in that stairwell: wah-AH! wah-AH! wah- AH! I covered my ears as I sprinted back to the bathroom.
The idea was to make it there before the teachers could get everyone lined up and marching outside. Then I could stroll out like I’d just nished my business and blend into the crowd.
Turns out, I didn’t need a plan. By the time
I got anywhere near the gym, everyone was already running, walking, and for all I know skipping in every possible direction. I guess Mrs. Stricker hadn’t gotten to the part about what to do if a re alarm sounds (Section 11). In fact, I
could still hear her over the mike in the gym. “Everyone remain calm! Line up with your
teachers and proceed in an orderly fashion to the nearest exits.”
I’m not sure who she was talking to. It looked like the whole school was already out here in the hall. And in the parking lot. And on the soccer eld. And on the basketball courts.
I couldn’t believe this was all because of me! I kind of felt guilty about it, but it was kind of . . . amazing. To be honest, only half of that sentence is true. It was more like I knew I should feel bad, but I didn’t.
Meanwhile, the re alarm was still blaring—
But it just sounded to me like—
When I found Leo outside, he gave me a big, double high ve. “That’s one for execution and one for the idea,” he said.
“I can’t take all the credit,” I told him. “The idea was half yours.”
“That’s true,” he said, and high- ved himself. Then he showed me his drawing again. “Check it out. I made some improvements.”
I opened up my copy of the Code of Conduct
and turned to Section 11, Rule 3: “Students shall not tamper with smoke or re alarms under any circumstances.”
Then I took Leo’s pen and drew a line right through it. That felt pretty good too. One rule down and . . . well, all the rest to go.
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Chapter 8
MY HOME PAGE
On the bus ride home that afternoon, everyone was talking about my little re drill. It was
a rush, sitting there and knowing they were all talking about me.
Of course, everything good has to come to an end. Before long, I was getting off the bus and walking through the front door of my house.
Meet my future stepfather, also known as the low point of my day. His name is Carl,
but we call him Bear. Two years ago, he was just this customer at the diner where my mom works. Now, somehow, Mom has a ring on her nger, and Bear lives here with us.
That’s Ditka, Bear’s lame excuse for a guard
dog. Ditka knows all about “attack” but not so much about “down” or “stop.” He usually tries to eat my face for an after-school snack.
“Ditka, down! Down!” Bear said, coming out of hibernation as I walked in the door.
Bear pulled Ditka off of me and then opped back into his Bear-shaped place on the couch. “Hey, Squirt. How was the rst day?” (He calls me Squirt. Do I even have to point that out?)
“School was unbelievable,” I said. “I kind of, well, sort of, met this amazing girl, and then I set off the re alarm during an assembly—”
Okay, that’s not what I really said, but it wouldn’t have mattered if I did. Bear’s not exactly a good listener.
“Uh-huh,” he said. He reached up and stretched — his workout for the day. “Did you sign up for football yet?”
“Nah,” I said. I took a couple of pudding cups out of the fridge and kept moving toward my room.
“Why the heck not?” he yelled after me. “Football’s the one thing you’re actually good at!”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t forget I’m a loser, Loser,” I said as I zoomed down the hall.
“DID YOU JUST CALL ME A LOSER?” Bear roared back.
“No, I called myself a loser,” I said, and slammed my door. “Loser.”
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Like I said—low point of my day.
Bear and Mom had just gotten engaged that summer, over Fourth of July. That’s when Bear moved in. Mom asked Georgia and me what we thought about it before she said yes, but what were we going to tell her? “You’re about to get engaged to the world’s biggest slug”? I don’t think she would have listened, anyway.
Now Mom was working double shifts at the diner all the time just to make enough money, and Bear was spending 99 percent of his time on our couch, except maybe to go to the bathroom or to collect his stupid unemployment check.
Bottom line? My mom was way too good for this guy, but unfortunately neither of them seemed to know it.
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Chapter 9
CHECK THIS OUT
So, this is what my room looks like. It’s the one place at home I can kick back, be by myself, and do whatever I want. Mom says I keep it too messy, but the truth is, I just have too much STUFF.
Chapter 10
CHECK THIS OUT, PART II
Okay, I might have been exaggerating a tiny bit there.
Really, it’s more
like this.
(Just kidding. Kind of.)
Chapter 11
GEORGIA ON MY NERVES
About twelve seconds after I slammed my door, Georgia came a-knocking. She knew better than to just barge in. At least I’d trained her that much.
“Enter!” I told her.
She came in and closed the door right behind her. “What’s going on? Why was he yelling like that? Are you in trouble?” she said.
In case you’re wondering, Georgia is nine and a half years old, in fourth grade, and 100 percent into everyone else’s business.
“Go away,” I told her. I had work to do. A mission to plan. Besides, since when do I need an excuse to NOT want my sister around?
“Just tell me what he said,” she whined.
“Here.” I gave her one of my pudding cups. “He said have a pudding cup, okay? Now get out.”
She gave me a look that was like, “I’m not stupid, but okay, I’ll take the pudding cup,” and she didn’t ask any more questions.
Mostly, I can’t stand Georgia, but I also didn’t want her to get stuck in the middle of anything with me and Bear. She was still the kid in the family, after all.
“Rafe?”
“What?” I said.
“Thanks for the pudding cup.”
“You’re welcome. Now close the door—from the
other side,” I said, and turned my back on her like I expected nothing short of obedience. A few seconds later, I heard her leave.
Finally, some peace and quiet! Now I could get down to work and really gure out where this whole mission thing was going to take me next.
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Chapter 12
SO THIS IS WHAT MOTIVATION FEELS LIKE!
First of all, it needed a name. I thought about it for a while and came up with Operation R.A.F.E., which stands for:
Rules Aren’t For Everyone
I’d be the rst kid to ever play Operation R.A.F.E., but not the last. Someday there
could be Operation R.A.F.E. video games, Rafe Khatchadorian action gures (okay, so it’s not the best action hero name), a movie version (starring
me), and a whole amusement park called R.A.F.E. World, with sixteen different roller coasters and no height requirements to ride any of the rides. The whole thing (R.A.F.E. Enterprises) would make me the world’s youngest million-billion-trillionaire, or maybe some kind of -aire that doesn’t even exist yet. And I’d pay somebody to go to school for me.
Meanwhile I still had to nish inventing this thing.
I decided that every rule in the Hills Village Middle School Code of Conduct should be worth a certain number of points, depending on how hard it was to break. Of course, this meant I could get into some serious trouble, so I decided to make that worth a bunch of points too. And there would be bonuses, for things like getting big laughs, or if Jeanne Galletta saw what I did. Definitely that!
I wrote it all down in a big grid, in one of the spiral notebooks Mom got me for school. (What? This was for school.)
That’s only part of it. There are a TON more rules in the Code of Conduct than that —112 of them, to be exact—but you get the idea.
After I was done writing it all down, I started thinking maybe this whole thing needed some kind of major ending. Like, if Operation R.A.F.E. was going to get me through sixth grade, then I should have something big—no, HUGE—as a kind of nal challenge before I could go on to the next level (which was seventh grade).
I’d get Leo to help me, and it would be worth
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half a million points—way more than anything else. It had to be something everyone in school would see, and everyone would remember long after I was gone. But also very high risk. I’d have to earn those big points.
I still didn’t have any idea how I was going
to pull this whole thing off, but it almost didn’t matter. I just couldn’t wait to start guring it out. In fact—and please don’t tell anyone I said this— for the rst time in my life, I was actually looking forward to going back to school.
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Chapter 13
OFF AND RUNNING
The next morning, Mom set two plates of scrambled eggs in front of me and Georgia and then sat down to watch us eat. She loves to watch us eat, which I totally don’t get. I mean, she works at a diner. She watches people eat all day long.
“You were both asleep when I got home last night,” she said. “I’m dying to hear about the rst day of school. Tell me everything!”
I wanted to say, “De ne everything,” but that would have been like putting up a neon sign that read i have something to hide.
The thing is, I don’t like to lie to Mom. I mean, I’ll do it if I have to, but she has enough to deal with.
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