Free The Fourth Stall Part II by Chris Rylander

just like Vince, too. Always telling lame stories when there were more pressing issues. Sometimes I wished he could just not tell a Grandma story for once. But I still had to admit that most of the time I found them pretty funny. Even this one was pretty funny.
    â€œWell, anyways, we’re working on it for you,” I said over their laughter. “It takes time to get to teachers; it’s only been two days. Rome wasn’t burned down in a day, you know.”
    â€œGosh, you are a cutie,” she said.
    I blushed. “What . . .”
    Vince nudged me. “It goes, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day,’ Mac.”
    I blushed even more, and I turned around to keep her from seeing. I actually couldn’t stand this. I didn’t remember ever feeling this embarrassed. Ever.
    Vince and Trixie shared a laugh while I regrouped.
    â€œWe’ll actually be working on your problem right after detention today,” Vince said to her.
    â€œGood. I seriously cannot wait to get that succubus Mr. Kjelson off my back.”
    I turned to Vince with a raised eyebrow. He was always my go-to guy when people said something that didn’t make sense. But to my surprise he just grinned and shrugged.
    â€œWhat if he’s still around?” Vince asked.
    â€œHe won’t be,” I said as we moved down the empty hallway toward Mr. Kjelson’s classroom. “He’s probably still at baseball tryouts in the gym, remember?”
    We weren’t old enough to have Mr. Kjelson as a teacher, but we’d found his classroom location on the school’s website. I still was convinced that as a Cubs fan there was no way he could be as evil as Trixie made him out to be, but I’d also learned a long time ago never to trust someone’s appearance entirely.
    I took out the key I’d gotten from the janitor earlier that day. The janitor was a cool guy, even for an adult. We had an understanding , so he was always helpful when I needed access to something inside the school.
    We were several feet from the classroom door when I was proved wrong about Kjelson not being there.
    The door flew open, and Mr. Kjelson burst into the hallway. Why wasn’t he at practice?
    My gut told me to dive for cover, but we were in a school hallway and there was nowhere to go. So I stood there, frozen, like a small critter about to get flattened all over a stretch of asphalt. Vince didn’t move either.
    But it didn’t matter. Mr. Kjelson turned away from us immediately and barreled down the hallway in the opposite direction. His classroom door slowly eased back toward the frame and then right at the end slammed shut with a loud double thud.
    Vince and I looked at each other.
    â€œWhy was he in such a hurry?” he said.
    I shrugged and said, “Did you see what he was carrying?”
    Vince nodded slowly.
    We watched Mr. Kjelson reach the end of the hallway and turn left. He was walking so fast he was nearly running. In his left hand he held a large wire cage with at least two small furry animals inside. Neither appeared to be moving.
    Vince and I turned to each other, nodded, and ran as quietly as we could after Mr. Kjelson. We needed to find out where he was going and what he was planning on doing to those animals.
    We tracked him all the way out to the parking lot, making sure to stay about twenty yards behind him at all times. I didn’t know if that was too close or too far—Tyrell was my tailing expert; I wasn’t used to fieldwork. A few times I thought for sure Mr. Kjelson would turn around and spot us and then that’d be it, but he never did. In fact, he was moving so fast that we had to jog to keep up.
    When we got outside, Vince and I ducked behind a few bushes and watched as Kjelson went to his car. It was a small orange thing from at least the time of the dinosaurs, possibly older. But it did have a large Cubs sticker on the back. He opened the trunk and struggled to get the