Free Are You Still There by Sarah Lynn Scheerger Page A

works.” Janae readjusts her Dickies skinny pants. I can see her belly button ring. “You know we’re gonna have to pay him back for being such a loser.”
    â€œNo. No. No! I don’t know that.” I shake my head to make my point. “I’m not getting anyone back. I’ve already committed one crime for the day, and that’s enough for me.”
    â€œWait. Crime? You committed a crime?” The corners of Janae’s mouth twitch, like she’s thinking something funny. “You mean something other than having the world’s messiest locker?”
    I make a face. My locker is messy, sure, but there’s no need to be mean about it. I sigh. “I cheated on a physics test.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo I’ve never cheated on a test in my life.”
    â€œOh, boohoo.” Janae wipes fake tears from her eyes and gets all dramatic now, holding her hand to her face. “So now your moral code has gone to shit like the rest of us.”
    I ignore this. “It’s so weird. This kid I hardly know gives me a study sheet. But that sheet was the test. Same formatting and everything. How he got a copy of the test I don’t know, and I don’t really want to know.”
    â€œYou’re a trip.” Janae slings her arm around my shoulder. “Where have you been? Everyone knows Cooper reuses tests. Probably half the kids in your class crammed with the same info you did. Anyone who has an older brother or sister who’s taken the class, or a neighbor or a friend … There are probably thirty copies of that test floating around campus. So give yourself a break, why don’t you, before you have an aneurysm.”
    â€œIs that supposed to be comforting?” I ask, but honestly, I’m relieved. If I go down for cheating, so will half the senior class.
    â€œThis is good for you, Gabs. You got to loosen up.” And then she gets this gleam in her eye. “Get comfortable with being less than perfect, Gabi, because you are about to be a part of something totally sneaky and fantastic. A prank war.”
    Janae works fast. By the following day at lunchtime, we’re cramming ninety-seven dollar-menu hamburgers into Garth’s locker. We could have fit at least twenty more if we’d smushed them together and hadn’t run out of money. Janae texted as many people as she could, asking them if they’d pitch in a buck for a dollar-menu cafeteria burger and a good laugh.
    Janae and I lean against the lockers across the hall from Garth’s, just waiting and watching for him to come along. I’d begged Garth’s best friend to tell us his locker combo. It took him about ten seconds to give up the combination once I explained the prank war.
    Word has spread and now this hallway is way crowded. I see Garth ambling down the hallway, all big and bulky with hands like bear paws. Janae hugs me. “Are you ready?”
    I am. I’ve already got my phone out. My job is to capture the moment with video so that we can post it online.
    If Garth notices anything strange, he doesn’t show it. He walks with his whole body, like he can’t just move his feet, and it takes his shoulders to move him down the hall.
    When Garth twists the knob on his locker, I’ve got the phone out and pointed at him. It all happens in slow motion. The burgers are so crammed in there that as the door pulls back and away, they tumble forward and out. He steps back instinctively, and I move at an angle so I can catch his expression. Kind of a what-in-the-hell, do-I-have-the-wrong-locker look.
    I’m standing in his line of vision though, and I can see him taking in the cell phone camera. He scans the room in slow motion. People start to clap slowly, but it builds up. Garth calls out, “I hope these are veggie burgers!”

Stranger’s Manifesto
    Entry 8
    You think best friends know everything about each other.
    You think I should have known