Confessions of a Class Clown by Arianne Costner

Author:Arianne Costner [Costner, Arianne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2022-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve got to be faster. A little kid is gawking over the cupcake tower in the display window of Sweets ’n’ Stuff. I tiptoe behind him and clip a clothespin on the side pocket of his pants. He swivels his head toward me but doesn’t say anything, so it totally doesn’t count as getting caught.

Next I enter the pet store and clothespin an employee, as well as a middle-aged man tapping on the mouse-cage glass. Brielle follows close behind, catching everything as sneakily as one can while holding a phone in front of their face.

One clothespin left. I exit the pet shop and spot a teenage girl sitting on a bench next to a plant. She’s texting and totally oblivious to her surroundings. Perfect.

As I head toward the texter, I turn around to make sure Brielle’s in a good recording position. I take a step backward and my shoulder bumps into the rubber plant next to the bench, causing it to topple over. I grab on to one of the rubbery leaves and pull it back up. Brielle’s burst of laughter echoes out across the walkway. So much for being stealthy.

Amazingly, my target is still texting. She hasn’t moved a muscle, except for the thumb ones.

I clip the clothespin onto the collar of her jacket and run back to Brielle.

“Final time: six minutes and thirty-two seconds,” she says.

“Not bad!” I high-five her with both hands.

“I gotta give it to you, Jack. You have no shame.”

“One of my only good qualities.”

She laughs. “My turn, I guess. You really think I can do this?” Her breathing gets faster and she starts bouncing around like she maybe has to pee.

“Of course you can. You’re way less suspicious-looking than I am. If I didn’t get caught, you definitely won’t.”

“Good point.” She breathes in deeply and squeezes her hands together. “I’m just doing one, though. That’s all I have to do to look fun, right?”

“One is better than nothing, but I’d automatically win.”

Brielle closes her eyes. “I can do this, I can do this,” she whispers to herself. I try not to snort. She hands me her phone. “Tell me when to go.”

I press the Record button. “Go! You got this, Bri Bri.” She’s so focused on her breathing that she doesn’t even tell me to not call her that again.

“I’m going for that guy.” She jabs her thumb at a middle-aged dude sitting in a massage recliner in the middle of the walkway. His eyes are closed and he’s maybe even asleep. Great target. The texting girl has left the bench, so I stand next to it and record from behind the plant.

Brielle walks to the recliner with jerky motions—fast, and then slow, and then fast, and then slow. She peeks over her shoulder and quickly clips the clothespin to the man’s sleeve. He snores loudly, causing her to jump, but he stays asleep.

She jogs back to me and squeals. “I did it! I really did it! He didn’t even see me!”

“Well, he had his eyes closed, so yeah, I’d be impressed if he did see you.

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