Swiped by Michele Bossley

Author:Michele Bossley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2006-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

chapter eight

“So you are the lunch bandit! I knew it!” Robyn said. She’d been right, and I knew we’d never hear the last of it.

“Yeah, so what?“ Cray answered belligerently.

“So, you owe us about fifty lunches, that’s what!” Robyn yelled.

“What’s going on?” Ms. Thorsen, who was doing lunchroom supervision, strode over. Then she saw the tearful grade four boy with bright blue lips. “What happened to you? Is that ink? Did you swallow any of that?” she asked, beginning to panic. The boy nodded.

“Oh, no!” She began to propel the boy toward the door.

“Wait! Wait, Ms. Thorsen!” Robyn hollered. “It’s okay. It’s only food coloring!”

Ms. Thorsen stopped dead in her tracks. “What?”

“It’s food coloring.”

“Why does he have food coloring all over his face?” Ms. Thorsen asked ominously.

“He ate a booby-trapped Twinkie,” Nick explained.

Ms. Thorsen blinked. “What—?” She stopped, studied Cray’s angry face and Robyn’s triumphant expression, then glanced at the now-silent lunchroom. All the kids had stopped eating and were waiting to see what would happen.

“I want all of you...” she eyed me, Robyn, Nick, Cray and the boy with blue lips, “...to explain this in my classroom. Now.”

We followed her out the lunchroom door. I carried the stolen Twinkie.

Once we were inside Ms. Thorsen’s classroom, she pointed to the desks. “Sit,” she said angrily.

We sat.

“Who’s responsible for this?” demanded Ms. Thorsen, pointing at the Twinkie, which was now oozing bright blue icing. It looked pretty disgusting, actually.

“We are,” Robyn said. “Trevor, Nick and I.”

Ms. Thorsen fixed us with a stare that could sear flesh from bone. “Playing practical jokes that humiliate younger students will not be tolerated,” Ms. Thorsen’s voice was tight with outrage. “I am very disappointed in you kids.”

“It wasn’t a practical joke!” protested Robyn.

“Then explain,” Ms. Thorsen snapped.

Robyn and Cray spoke at once, but between them all that came out was gibberish.

Ms. Thorsen held up her hand. “You first.” She pointed at Robyn.

“Someone’s been stealing our lunches. Trevor even had his locker broken into. So, we decided to catch whoever was taking our food. We put blue food coloring inside a Twinkie so that when the thief bit into it, we’d have proof.”

“I see,” said Ms. Thorsen. “So why are you saying Cray is the thief?”

“Because he gave the Twinkie to this boy,” Robyn said. “Cray admitted it.”

“Is that true?” Ms. Thorsen asked Cray.

“Yeah,” Cray said, glaring at Robyn.

“Why?”

“Because.”

Ms. Thorsen crossed her arms. “You must have a reason, Cray, and no one leaves this room until we hear it.”

Cray just shrugged, but he looked at the floor and refused to meet Ms. Thorsen’s eyes.

“There’s no way you’ve been pigging out on five or six sandwiches every day,” Robyn said.

“He’s not,” the grade four boy said. He’d been so silent, I’d almost forgotten he was there. “He’s been giving food to me and my sister and some other kids.”

“Why?” Robyn asked.

The boy turned away and didn’t answer.

“Because they don’t get much for lunch, that’s why,” Cray answered.

Everyone was silent, even Robyn.

“I remember what that’s like. Last year, both my mom and dad were out of work for a couple of months.

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