The Team Prequel to the Runouw.Com Connection (Go GMARIO!)

[MessengerOfDreams]

This was the first day of public school for me, Sam Eastman at Cleveland High School.
Yes, that is exactly what I said.
You see, when you’ve Asperger’s syndrome like me, public school is no picnic, and so since the beginning of time, Mom taught me everything.
But here’s the thing. I’m on my way to college in a year, and my dad, traveling artist Seth Eastman decided to, well, travel. You see, I was born in Vancouver, Canada, during one of their travels. Never stayed in one place for more than a year. So, yes, technically, I am an immigrant. But I only stayed in Canada for a year, and It’s not I drink Maple Syrup or add eh to the end of every sentence, eh?
Of all the places we lived, I fell in love with Portland. It was just brilliant. It was here I started my photography, which is what Dad does. I decided this was where I wanted to set down my roots and my parents paid a tuition for a college in the suburb of Forest Grove at Pacific College, probably the most beautiful college I’ve ever seen. Then my dad got a gigantic (Read “Year’s Salary) job in Venice, Italy, and I was stuck here. Parting really is such sweet sorrow, especially considering how close we’ve gotten.
Since college and $25,000 tuition had me tied here, I bid my parents and my 11-year old sister, Dania, farewell as they took off for Italy. Since Mom wouldn’t be able to teach me, she had me enrolled in public school ‘till the end of the year. “It’s just for a month, sweetie.” She told me. “Besides, it’ll get you set up for college.”
Gulp.
Unsteadily, I opened the large doors to the school and made my way into the office to get my school pass, which pretty much looks like a library card with my face on it. I was also directed to Mrs. Lipton’s homeroom. With my nerves spinning round and round, round and round, like a record, I started off to class. With the label of “new kid” I walked into the classroom for the first time.
Actually, I walked into a redhead and knocked her down. Her head slammed on the cold tile ground. I stared in a mixture of shock and horror.
Then she did the unthinkable. She LAUGHED.
“Oh, god, I knocked a screw loose” I blurted out.
“Hey, don’t worry, man.” She giggled, getting up. Odd-looking girl, I must admit. She was sorta Asian, sorta American, with red hair with a ton of braids out of the back, making her look like a Raggedy Ann Doll, and her eyes were a deep violet. Another odd thing- she had no eyebrows. But, hey, she didn’t slap me, so, who cares? She’s nice.
“You okay?” I asked, humiliated.
“Totally, except the splitting headache you regifted,” she joked. Seriously, how can you not like a person who instantly jokes about how you nearly killed her? “I’ma go see the nurse, you take care of yourself… come to think of it, take care of yourself in the way that you don’t kill anyone, okay?” she winked.
Stunned, I held out a hand. “Sorry about that.” I said awkwardly. “Sam Eastman.”
“Ema Felkis,” she replied, accepting the handshake. “With one M.” She nodded as she walked away.
I slunk into my seat, only to be told that I needed to introduce myself. Lovely, I thought, as if everyone doesn’t know who I am.
I stood in front of a class of 31 kids and blurted out with that same awkwardness of wedging yourself into an Indian subway “Uhm… hello, I’m, uhm, Sam Eastman, uhm, I was the kid who knocked down your redhead, so, uhm, if you see her with an icepack later, that was me.” That provoked a laugh out of a couple of students. “Uhm, I live over in Downtown, and, uhm, this was actually the first time I went to school, uhm, because I am a little autistic.” Dang! I internally kicked myself for letting that one out. “So I was homeschooled up until now. My dad is a traveling artist, so he’s over in Italy with the rest of my family, so I’m here, finishing the school year until I can get into Pacific over in Forest Grove. I also like Photography, like my dad, and, uhm… I will sit down now.”
The teacher offered a thank-you which made me feel even more idiotic. I stuttered out a you’re-welcome and slunk into my seat, a giant shared. My desk had an empty spot next to it, which, with my luck, was Ema’s. Oh, a train wreck is a-coming, Yah have mercy, I know it is.
Someone had the gall to lean over and whisper “Good luck, sucker. That seat has been empty all year. Word in the school is that Felkis is one of the most annoying people in the school.”
I had the gall to roll my eyes and get to my schoolwork.
(Narration of Ema Felkis)
Okay, so it’s lunchtime now, right. I hadn’t seen my klutzy friend, Sam, since the incident this morning. Poor guy, guess that wasn’t the best first impression he had hoped to given. I decided to look for him at lunch.
Unsurprisingly, he was at a table alone. Newbies always are. I slid my tray full of the cardboard pizza and rabbit feed salad next to his plate of a rock between bread and some day-old fruit. Okay, so the rock was actually hamburger. Sue me for taking my creative liberty.
It took him a minute to notice me. Okay, so I tapped him on the shoulder. He leapt up out of his seat and swiveled around like a lazy Susan with a motor attached. “Oh, hey Ema.” He said, drawing in a deep breath. “What say we start over? Hi, I am Sam Eastman, and I never knocked you down in my life.”
“Who are you and what did you do with that kid who did knock me down this morning?” I quipped. Quip, I like that word. You will see it a lot from me. Fair warning.
“Yeah, I was a wreck that morning.” He sighed with a smile on his face, nearly breaking a tooth on his hamburger. “Uh, man, remind me never to go to school broke again.”
“Yeah!” I lit up. “We should go over to Burgerville sometime across the street! I’m not sure how long you’ve been in Portland, but Burgerville is the best food chain in the whole darn US of A. The ice cream is the best.” I stopped short, praying “Please, don’t let this guy think I was asking him out or anything!”
Luckily, he said “I have actually been there before, and, yes, the ice cream beats all of its competition, and the other food ain’t bad either.”
“Whew… I mean, cool. Do you gots a job, Sam Eastman who did not knock me over this morning?”
He laughed and said “Why, yes, I work over at Belmont Library.” He replied. “I should introduce you to my boss, Shi Anne Li.” That same look I had over Burgerville came over his face, and we all know what horror he was thinking.
“That’d be cool!” I replied, enthusiastically. You see, my viewing audience, I have the reputation as the annoying girl, so I had pretty much zero friends. One thing we had in common.
“So, are you a senior?” he asked.
“Why, yes!” I replied. “I come from Wyoming, as in Why-in-the-heck-did-I-leave-my-Oming?”
“Really?” he seemed surprised. “I never would have guessed.”
“No accent,” I bragged. “So, what college are you going to?”
“Pacific University,” he replied.
“Oh, the college no one calls by its initials.” I quipped.
He laughed at that one. I, personally, love to achieve laughs at my jokes.
“So, why did your family leave Wyoming?” he asked.
“No, my family stayed behind.” I explained. “I just went to get my last year of school in and start college at the PSU downtown.”
He looked a little astonished before he explained that that was sorta what happened to him. And you know what his life was like, so no need to re-explain things.
I put up a really unusual question. “Didja hear about the Quadruple-One Bandit?”
“An odd name, but no. If I had, rest assured I would have remembered.” He replied, intrigued.
“Well, the security cameras always catch someone getting into the school at 11:11pm and stealing one thing. Just one thing. On all days ending with one. Really, it would make more sense to call him the sextuple bandit, but that just got people giggling.”
“Intriguing,” he responded. “Do go on.”
“Well, last night, it was a donated Spelling Bee trophy.”
He raised his eyebrows. I envied him. “That the most valuable thing he stole.”
I nodded, and came up with a brilliant idea. At least, they always seem that way at first. But who knows?
“I just got a good idea!” I said, fist pumped.
“Well, I can’t exactly read your mind, so you got to tell me.”
I giggled and said “I know you just got here, but graduation day is in a couple of weeks. On the 12th of June. And everyone’s gotta contribute something to the graduation. And there’s a medal of honor to the person who did the best deed of community service, so why not stop the Q1 bandit and get the trophy back?”
He raised his eyebrows, skeptical. “You and Me? Stop a thief? Alone?”
“I got a really smart little friend.” I explained. “His name’s Mic Davis, he’s 11, and he goes to Lane Middle School. After school, we can go to the community center over off Harold Street and meet up with him. We can even get you signed up for some classes so you have something to do to pass the time!”
“Mt. Scott Community Center?” he asked. “Uhm… sure. That sounds fun.”
The bell rang, and it was time for biology class. We talked all through recess. I got up and said “Mt. Scott. The three of us. 4:30.Who knows, this could change our lives for the better!”
Boy, was I right!

The only rule is (Of course) to keep it PG.

[MICrophone]

Chapter 2

"There he is!"

It was 4:30, and my new friend Ema and I were walking to the Mt. Scott Community Center. Ema pointed to a scrawny little kid, no more than five feet tall and wearing really nerdy glasses, standing by a tree outside.

"That's him?" I said incredulously. "You've got to be kidding me!"

"That's what I thought when I first met him…"

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"Hi! Mind if I sit next to you?"

I looked up. A scrawny little kid, no more than five feet tall and wearing really nerdy glasses, was standing in front of me. He couldn't have been more than ten years old, maybe eleven. Great, I thought. The last thing I need is an obnoxious kid distracting me while I'm trying to do my insanely hard Calculus homework.

"Of course!" I said. Man, sometimes I wish I wasn't so nice.

"Thanks!" he replied, sitting next to me on the park bench. "My name's Mic. Mic Davis."

"Ema Felkis. Nice to meet you." I quickly went back to work on my homework, hoping that he would get the message that I wasn't interested in talking. Silly me.

"Whatcha doing?" he asked.

"Calculus homework." I thought for a moment. He probably didn't know what calculus is. "Calculus-"

"Calculus? Ooh, I love calculus!" The kid was practically jumping out of his seat. "What topic is the homework on?"

I stared at the kid. OK, I've seen plenty of weird things in my life, but there is no way this kid knows calculus. "How old are you?" I asked, trying to verify my assumption.

"Eleven." He leaned over my paper. "Oh, you're doing concavity of functions? That's easy! Calculate the second derivative, and solve for f''(x) greater than zero, which gives you the interval for which the concavity is upward, and f''(x) less than zero, which gives you the interval for which the concavity is downward."

OK, so maybe I was wrong. "Here, can you show me on paper?" I handed Mic my pencil and notebook. I was starting to like this kid.

"Sure," he said…

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"He knows calculus?" I said, stunned. "Man, I just turned eighteen and I'm autistic, and I don't even get calculus!"

At that moment, Mic looked up from a book he was reading and saw us. His face lit up and he ran over to us. "Hey Ema!" he said. He then looked at me. "You Sam?" he asked.

"Sam I am," I replied, remembering my Dr. Seuss. Mic smiled and held out a hand. "Mic. Pleasure to meet you, Sam!"

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"So, the Quadruple-One Bandit will be striking again on June 11, the day before graduation. You guys are hoping that by doing this, we'll all get this medal of honor thingy, right?"

The three of us were sitting under the tree planning for their apprehension of the Quadruple-One Bandit. Well, Mic was really doing most of the planning while Ema and I sat there pretending to look smart. But you get the point. Speaking of points…

"That brings me to my next point," continued Mic. "So, our criminal seems to be going after more valuable stuff each time, right? So what, on the eve of graduation, might he or she be planning to steal?"

Ema and I sat there thoughtfully. Mic was hinting at something, but for a few seconds I couldn't think what. Then it hit me…

"The medal of honor! Of course! What could disrupt graduation more and be more valuable?"

Mic beamed at me. "Exactly. That will tell us where to position ourselves. Where is the medal kept?"

"In a locked glass case in the Principal's Office," said Ema.

"Good. Where is that in relation to entrances and windows?"

"Well, there aren't really any nearby doors," Ema replied, "but there is a large window in the Principal's Office through which somebody could enter."

"So, if two of us are stationed outside the window and one inside the Prinicpal's Office, we should be able to catch the bandit easily." Mic paused, then continued. "We will all have walkie-talkies. Whoever is stationed outside will walkie-talkie when they see the bandit coming, and then whoever is inside will walkie-talkie as soon as the bandit has left. That way, we can be sure to be timed perfectly."

"OK," I said. "But who's going in?"

"Well," Mic said, "I'm smallest, so I can fit through the window easiest, so I'll go. Sound like a plan?"

Ema and I looked at each other. I certainly was impressed by how thought out the plan was. "I'm game," I said.

"Me too," added Ema.

"Great!" Mic said, grinning. "We'll meet in front of the school at 10:45 on the 11th."

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22:45, June 11

OK, don't ask me why I'm using military time. I guess it just makes it sound more awesome.

Anyway, there I was, standing in front of the school. It was raining and unusually chilly for a June night, and in my light jacket I was quite cold. Great, I thought. This is probably some huge practical joke to get me out here late at night and freeze to death over some bandit that doesn't even exist. Ema and Mic are probably sitting in a heated house watching TV, eating popcorn, and cracking up over my stupidity. I sighed. Maybe I should just go home.

I turned around to start walking home only to see Ema and Mic only a few feet away coming towards me. "Hi!" I said happily as they approached.

"Hey Sam!" Ema said.

Mic didn't greet me. I guess he was all business. He handed Ema and I each a walkie-talkie. "Now, you guys know what to do with these. The most important thing is not to talk when the bandit is in earshot. Also, do not be seen! Station yourselves near the window, but don't stand right in front of it so he sees you when he enters. Good luck." And with that, he turned to face the wall, hoisted himself up onto a ledge, and climbed through the window.

"Good luck!" I called after him. Only seconds after I said that, I heard glass shattering. I pushed a button on my walkie-talkie and said, "Mic, you all right? What happened?"

"Nothing," Mic said, aggravated. "Just knocked over a flower vase."

"Are you hurt?" said Ema.

"No," Mic said. "Don't worry. Just get ready."

Ema and I exchanged glances, then she said somewhat worriedly, "All right."

I then said to Ema. "I'll go a little to the left of the window and you to the right. As soon as he goes through, we move closer so we can tackle him as soon as he comes out."

"All right," said Ema. "Good luck."

"Yeah, you too," I responded, and then moved along the wall of the school building. I found a nice spot around a corner and sat down to wait.

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23:30, June 11th

Look. It was past 11:00 at night, it was pitch dark, I was tired, and had nothing to do. So it's not exactly my fault that I dozed off, and consequently missed nearly the entire episode. However, I will recount it as best I can through what Mic, Ema, and the police told me.

At 11:10, Ema saw a masked man walking towards the school building. She walkie-talkied Mic, who acknowledged. The man removed his shoes just in front of the window, which Ema deduced was done in order to not leave footprints in the office, since it was raining and the bandit's shoes were probably muddy. As soon as the bandit climbed through the window, Ema moved closer. She waited for a minute for me to come, but then realized that something was wrong. Freaking out, she walkie-talkied Mic to inform him of this, alerting the bandit to his presence. Chaos ensued as the bandit rounded on Mic, who was hiding under the principal's desk, and pulled out a gun. Mic was too slow to get up and would have been shot had the barefoot bandit not stepped on the broken glass from the vase Mic knocked over. He howled with pain, and quickly turned, medal around his neck, and climbed out the window, blood dripping from his left foot.

Unfortunately, Mic was still in the Principal's Office and I was sleeping, so only Ema was left to tackle the bandit, and even with his injured foot, the bandit easily overpowered Ema, punching her in the temple and knocking her out. Mic then came flying out the window and started chasing after the bandit. The bandit, who could not move very quickly, was easily overtaken. A fistfight ensued, but with the same result: Mic was knocked out by a punch to the temple. The criminal, satisfied, turned to leave.

"Stop!" I cried.

The Quadruple-One Bandit turned and faced me. I had been woken by his cry of pain from stepping on the glass and only made it just in time to stop him. The only problem was that I didn't really have a plan on how to stop him. He grinned and took out his gun, a pistol. "Sorry, kid," he said menacingly. "You shouldn't have gotten in my way. Now, don't move."

The bandit walked up to me and then proceeded to knock me out by hitting me on the head with his gun. Guess he didn't want to kill me. But, I had distracted him long enough to prevent him from escaping before the police arrived. Quickly, the bandit removed the medal and placed it around my neck, removed his mask and threw it in some nearby bushes, then tried to flee the scene.

"Hey you!" cried a policeman, pointing a gun in the direction of the bandit. "Stop right there!"

The bandit limped towards the police and explained that he had caught three criminals trying to steal a medal of some kind from the school, the criminals being Mic, Ema, and I. He had been injured in the process, however, and was leaving the scene to seek help.

Roughly around this point in time, Mic, Ema, and I all regained consciousness. We were immediately handcuffed by the police and led towards a police car. "Yep," one of them said. "This one's got the medal around his neck." And sure enough, I looked down and saw the medal was indeed around my neck.

"Hey wait a minute!" I cried. "We're being framed! He's the criminal; he knocked me out and put the medal around my neck!"

"Sorry, sonny," said the cop leading us, "but you'll have to convince the court of that."

"Wait," said Mic. "The medal was kept in a locked glass case in the Principal's Office. So, if that's the case, there must have been a key, right? The glass case isn't broken; you can check the Principal's Office to confirm that. So I bet you that if you search your little friend over there, he's got the key on him."

The cop stared at us, then looked at the bandit, who was receiving medical attention. "Worst thing that happens is that you turn up nothing and arrest us," continued Mic. "But justice won't be served if you don't search him for the key and he does in fact have it on him."

The cop nodded and told one of his colleagues to search the Quadruple-One Bandit. To the great surprise of the bandit, he did have the key. The three of us were let go and the true bandit was handcuffed.

"Now I'm being framed!" he protested as he was led away.

"I hate to break it to you kid," said the cop, "but it's a lot easier for you to frame three unconscious people than it is for three unconscious people to frame you."

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The next day, Mic, Ema, and I received the Medal of Honor for catching the Quadruple-One Bandit. The Quadruple-One Bandit was none other than a 9th Grade English Teacher at the school, Mr. Barton. He was later sentenced for 25 years in prison.

After the graduation ceremony ended and the three of us received our diplomas, we went over to Mt. Scott Community Center and rehashed the events of the previous night under the same tree that we had made our plans for those events.

"Here's what I don't understand," I said. "How did you pull that off Mic?"

Mic smiled. "Simple, really. Before he arrived, I found the key, which I correctly guessed was in the room, and left it right next to the case. The bandit didn't have any reason to find anything odd about that. The principal wasn't anticipating the bandit, so the principal could easily have left the key lying around anywhere. After removing the medal from the case, the bandit left the key where he found it. I didn't climb out the window in enough time to aid Ema because I had to grab the key again. Then, when we got into the fistfight, I planted the key on him in case something unplanned occurred and we needed another way to prove his guilt. And, I also tipped off the police that somebody might try and steal something from the school around 11:15 before I left with Ema to meet you."

"Brilliant!" said Ema. "Yeah, that was a little close, but all's well that ends well, I suppose."

At that moment, a woman of maybe a little over twenty years of age came up to us. "Are you the three who solved the Quadruple-One Bandit case?" she asked.

"Yes," Ema said.

"My name is Buffy Clark," she said, pulling out a badge. "I'm a police officer, and I want you to come with me."