Tito the Bonecrusher Read online

  We were still short on cash. Brain and I exchanged looks.

  “Can you excuse us for a moment?” Brain asked her parents.

  She didn’t wait for an answer. She ran up the stairs to her room, and I followed her.

  “We’re close,” she said as I shut the door behind me. “We need less than two hundred dollars.”

  “Brain,” I said, “I know how we can get it.” I paused. “Signature move number five.” I had an idea for how we could make a deal with the person—or people, in this case.

  Brain narrowed her eyes. “Go on,” she said carefully.

  I must’ve looked kind of shifty, because she seemed to know I was about to say something she wasn’t going to love.

  “We can do the commercial,” I said.

  Brain wrinkled her nose like she was smelling garbage.

  For years, Mrs. Gregory had been trying to get Brain to act in a commercial for Mr. Gregory’s company, Apparel Warehouse. You have such a pretty face when you’re not squinting behind a book, she’d complain. Brain had always refused. Her mom also tried It would mean so much to your father, but we all knew Brain’s dad couldn’t care less who was in the commercials as long as they convinced people to shop at Apparel Warehouse.

  Brain sighed deeply several times, then stared up at the ceiling like she was hoping a better idea would fall through the roof or something. It didn’t.

  She looked back at me and nodded. “Signature move number five,” she said.

  We hustled back down the stairs, where Mrs. Gregory was trying on Brain’s new cupcake jewelry and Mr. Gregory was typing on his phone.

  “Mom and Dad?” Brain said, trying to get their attention. Only Mrs. Gregory looked at her. “I’ve decided that I’ll do a commercial for Apparel Warehouse.”

  Brain’s mom almost fainted.

  “Just one,” Brain added firmly.

  Brain’s mom clapped her hands together, and the little cupcakes made a jingling sound. “Oh, Warren, isn’t this wonderful?… WARREN!”

  Brain’s dad glanced up from his phone.

  “Brianna is going to do a commercial for Apparel Warehouse!” Brain’s mom sang Apparel Warehouse like she was the one in the commercial.

  Before Mr. Gregory could go back to his phone, Brain laid out three conditions: (1) The commercial would be filmed as soon as possible; (2) I had to be in it, too; and (3) we each had to get paid.

  “We’ll pay you whatever you want,” her mom said.

  “Now hang on a second, Jessica—” Brain’s dad began.

  “Thirty thousand dollars,” Brain said immediately. She knew from the movies that you should ask for more than what you need.

  “How about fifteen dollars,” said Brain’s dad, who also seemed to know the rules for making a deal. He and Brain went back and forth until they eventually settled on one hundred dollars for each of us.

  A hundred dollars each would put us over the top.

  I called my mom to ask about the commercial. You’d have thought she would be excited for her only son to become a television star, but she wasn’t. “You don’t need any more distractions,” she said. “I’m already concerned about your grades. And the note from the headmaster—”

  “That was a one-time thing. I didn’t do anything wrong. My grades will be amazing. Please, Mom. It’ll make me really happy. Don’t you want me to be happy right now?” Nothing wrong with laying on a little guilt.

  Mom sighed into the phone. “Okay, but no more visits to the headmaster’s office. And no bad grades.”

  “Deal,” I said. “‘Night, Mom!” I hung up before she could make me promise anything else.

  At last, it was time for Brain to open my present. Whenever Brain and I give each other gifts, the person receiving it tries to guess what is in the package before opening it. To throw Brain off, I had taped the DVD case to the bottom of a much bigger box so she wouldn’t automatically know it was a movie.

  Brain lifted the package and shook it. “Is it something to wear?” she asked.

  “Nope!” I said.

  “Is it a book?”

  “Nope!”

  “Hmm … Is it spy equipment?”

  “Nope!”

  “Hmm … Is it sports-related?”

  I considered this. “Sort of,” I said. “It has to do with … Yes, sort of sports-related, in that—”

  “Oh for the love of money, just open it, Brianna,” Brain’s dad interrupted. “I have a conference call with Singapore in ten minutes.”

  Brain ripped into the package.

  “Woo-hoo!” Brain exclaimed. She jumped up, and the wrapping paper went flying.

  “What is it, Brianna?” Brain’s mom said. Now she was typing on her phone. Probably telling half of Haselton about Brain’s commercial.

  “Steel Cage! Both movies!” Brain was already ripping the plastic wrap from the DVD case. “We have to watch these tonight,” she declared.

  We dashed to her rec room, where she had her own entertainment system.

  Mrs. Gregory wandered in a few minutes later. “Don’t you want your cake, Brianna?”

  “We can have it in here,” Brain said, her eyes not leaving the TV screen as she scrolled through the DVD menu. I turned to give Mrs. Gregory a thumbs-up, but she was already looking at her phone again.

  We started with the original Steel Cage, where Tito the Bonecrusher first plays Bruce Paxton, the former professional wrestler, and he has to break his brother out of a criminal gang’s headquarters. Brain and I watched it like twenty times when we were figuring out the signature moves, but the new DVD had the director’s cut, with four minutes of never-before-seen footage, so it was like seeing it again for the first time.

  We were about three-quarters of the way through the movie when the clock hit 8:30 and, as I expected, Brain’s dad made us go to bed so that he and Mrs. Gregory could have some peace and quiet. Brain and I lay low in her room, waiting patiently for her parents to go to bed at ten o’clock. Technically, Brain waited patiently and I fell asleep, but Brain woke me up when the coast was clear. Then we snuck back to the rec room and watched the rest of Steel Cage and all of Steel Cage 2: Back in the Cage, which is a lot like the original Steel Cage, except that Tito has to rescue his mom instead of his brother.

  Every Tito the Bonecrusher movie is kind of the same, which is what makes them so awesome. You always know what to expect. Tito plays a former pro wrestler who now has a job that requires him to be super strong, like a bodyguard or security guard or something. Then some evil villain takes someone important to Tito, and he has to rescue them through some elaborate plan. The plan usually involves sneaking into a secure facility, and also wrestling.

  The other thing in every movie is that Tito never, ever takes off his mask. Some people say he has never been seen without his mask in real life. There are a couple of controversial photos that people say are of Tito, but no one can prove it. Brain says they are obviously photoshopped, and she’s practically a genius, so I believe her.

  Some people say it’s silly that Tito’s character wears a mask in every movie, but my dad always said that it was a sign of strength and pride. Tito never tried to hide that he was a luchador and not some regular old American wrestler. Sometimes Dad would get all fired up talking about wrestling and masks. He said it didn’t matter what anyone said about Tito’s mask.

  Some people also say it isn’t true that every movie features The Germ because The Germ didn’t have a speaking role in Steel Cage 2: Back in the Cage, but you still see his face, so I think it counts. Brain does, too. Our opinions are the same on most Tito controversies.

  Anyway, after the second movie, we started on the bonus features even though I could barely keep my eyes open. At some point I must have fallen asleep on the couch, because I woke up to Brain smacking me on the shoulder.

  “Get up, Spaghetti-O! It’s morning! We have to go upstairs before my parents wake up!”

  We raced upstairs to Brain’s room and pretended to be
asleep when her mom came in to wake us up five minutes later.

  It was awesome. But in all the excitement, I had forgotten that we had a science test that day. Which was going to make it really hard to keep my promises to Mom and Dad about my grades. Which was why later that day I found myself standing in front of my teacher’s desk, trying to convince her that I hadn’t cheated.

  6

  THE SCIENCE TEST

  The rest of the class was at recess. It was just me, Sharon Dunston, and Mrs. Thumbly, who kept staring at me. Her stare reminded me of Tito’s movie Time Crusher, which features these evil robots who shoot laser beams out of their eyes, and the only person who can stop the robots is Lance Knightfox, the former pro wrestler turned masked security guard played by Tito the Bonecrusher. It’s only my fourth-favorite Tito movie, but it’s still amazing.

  I had never cheated on a test before, so I wasn’t sure how to react. I tried not to blink. And I tried not to look down and to the left, which according to Lance Knightfox is a classic sign that you’re lying. That’s how, in Time Crusher 2: Out of Time, he figured out Senator Corruptron couldn’t be trusted.

  “I didn’t cheat?” I told Mrs. Thumbly. Shoot. It probably wasn’t very convincing to say it like a question. I tried again. “I didn’t cheat.”

  Mrs. Thumbly maintained her suspicious glare while Sharon wept noisily beside me.

  “Really,” I insisted, ignoring Lance Knightfox’s other rule of looking completely innocent, which is to keep your mouth shut and don’t say too much. “I studied my head off. I studied the cytoplasms and the mito-, um, the … all that other great stuff you taught us about plant and animal cells. Fascinating stuff, Mrs. Thumbly.”

  Mrs. Thumbly frowned. “I certainly do think it is fascinating, Oliver, considering that cells are the building blocks of life.”

  “I completely agree?” I said.

  “I wish I could believe you passed this test on your own, Oliver,” Mrs. Thumbly said, not looking like she wanted to believe me at all, “but you and Sharon chose the exact same answers, even for the questions you got wrong.”

  I hadn’t planned to cheat, but when I got the test and didn’t know any of the answers on the first page, I started thinking about my dad and the stuff he’d said about school. And I really wished I’d done some studying. My eyes blurred a little bit, and when they refocused, I realized I was looking at Sharon’s test paper. I could see all of her answers. And I automatically started copying them. I guess you could say I used Brain’s and my #3 signature move: Take what you need without anyone noticing. It wasn’t that I really wanted Sharon’s test answers, I just wanted … I don’t know what I wanted, exactly.

  For most of the test, it had been easy to avoid detection because Sharon practically had her nose pressed against the test paper, she was reading it so carefully. But on the next-to-last question, Sharon looked up right when I was checking out her answer sheet.

  We locked eyes. Sharon clenched her jaw, got up from her seat, and marched to Mrs. Thumbly’s desk. Mrs. Thumbly walked over to me, took my test paper, and walked back to her desk without saying a word.

  So that’s why I was standing next to the teacher’s desk during recess, saying I didn’t cheat.

  Sharon was crying and carrying on like she’d been accused of murder. “I swear to God I’m innocent, Mrs. Thumbly! I would never allow anyone to copy off me! Especially not Oliver. Even if I would ever allow someone to copy from me—and I never, ever would—Oliver would be the very last person I would ever let copy my work! I swear! You have to believe me!” she sobbed.

  It’s one thing to proclaim your innocence, but Sharon didn’t have to get so personal.

  It wasn’t like I’d really wanted to copy from Sharon, either. Sharon Dunston is a jerk, a snitch, and a two-faced priss. But I was panicking, and it just happened.

  “How do you know that Sharon didn’t copy from me?” I asked Mrs. Thumbly.

  “Be serious, Oliver!” Sharon cried. I was being kind of serious. I usually get good grades, just not when I have more important things to do, like help my dad when nobody else will.

  Mrs. Thumbly glanced at the clock. We had to be approaching her lunchtime, which gave me an idea. “I’ll retake the test right now if you want,” I said, bluffing. “Right here in front of you.” I figured there was no way Mrs. Thumbly would sacrifice her lunchtime to sit and watch me take the test again.

  Mrs. Thumbly and Sharon were both silent.

  I rambled on. “I bet I can get an even higher score than I did before. And if I don’t, you can go ahead and say I cheated.” I tried to project confidence like Tito does. He’s really good at bluffing.

  “Okay. That seems fair,” Mrs. Thumbly said.

  Shoot. That never happens in Tito’s movies.

  Sharon grabbed a tissue to wipe her eyes, mouthed “You’re lying” at me, and scurried off to lunch. I sat down at my desk, and Mrs. Thumbly gave me a new test paper and a multiple-choice answer sheet. I reread the first question:

  Janie is a scientist who has prepared slides of plant and animal cells. Look at the pictures below of Janie’s microscope slides. Which of the slides is LEAST likely to be an asparagus cell?

  I wanted to march up to Mrs. Thumbly’s desk and ask her when in my life I would ever need to identify an asparagus cell, but I knew she would give me a lecture on the building blocks of life. This was hopeless. I hadn’t known any of the answers the first time, so it wasn’t like I was going to know any of them this time.

  I tried to picture Sharon’s answer sheet in my head. I thought the first answer was C, maybe? Or B. Then I remembered that when I’d finished copying Sharon’s answers, I’d thought the answer sheet looked kind of like the Big Dipper.

  I went through and filled out the answer sheet to look kind of like the Big Dipper. Then I handed the test back to Mrs. Thumbly. She made me wait while she graded it. When she finished, the paper was covered with so many red dots that it looked like my answer sheet had the chicken pox.

  “This is an F, Oliver,” Mrs. Thumbly said.

  I looked down.

  “Wait—” she started, and I looked up. “Actually, it’s an F minus. I forgot we gave those, it’s been so long since a student got one.”

  Then she sent me to Headmaster Nurbin’s office.

  7

  HEADMASTER NURBIN’S OFFICE 2: BACK IN THE OFFICE

  “Hello again, Oliver,” Headmaster Nurbin said when he finally saw me. I had been sitting on the leather bench in front of his office for a long time. At my old school, the bench in front of the principal’s office was metal with red peeling paint, and kids would scratch things into the paint like THIS SCHOOL IS TERRIBLE, which wasn’t true but was probably what you’re thinking when you’re on the principal’s bench about to get in trouble. But Headmaster Nurbin’s leather bench looked brand-new and really expensive.

  I handed Mrs. Thumbly’s note to the headmaster when I walked into his office. While he read it, I settled into one of the cushy, deep brown leather chairs and waited for his “I’m a big believer in third chances” speech. Or maybe he would ask why I cheated. I’d gotten a really high score on the test you have to take to get into Haselton Academy, so he must have wondered what was going on with me.

  “Well, Oliver,” Headmaster Nurbin began. He wrinkled his nose and set down Mrs. Thumbly’s note like it was a dirty tissue. “I suppose your previous school did not prepare you academically for the rigors of Haselton Academy.”

  I started to say that the work here was actually kind of easy compared to what my teachers had given me the previous year, after they’d decided I needed to be “challenged,” but Headmaster Nurbin kept talking.

  “No matter how difficult the work may be,” he said, “there is never an excuse for cheating. You need to take some time to think about your behavior. So you will complete a Saturday Service Reflection.”

  This sounded familiar from when I’d skimmed the Haselton Academy Code of Conduct at the begin
ning of the school year, but I didn’t remember any specifics.

  “You will report to school on Saturday from nine a.m. until one p.m. You will work with our high school service coordinator, Mr. Pollson, to beautify our school grounds.”

  “Oh. Like detention,” I said.

  Headmaster Nurbin cleared his throat. “We don’t give detention,” he said calmly. “Detention is a punishment. Saturday Service Reflection is an opportunity for you to reflect on your behavior.”

  “Okay,” I said, even though it sounded exactly like detention to me. “Let me check my agenda.”

  I opened my backpack and took out a pencil and the fancy leather agenda book that had been issued to me when I started at Haselton Academy. They must have a deal with some leather company, because everything is leather around here. I flipped to the month of May and scanned for an available Saturday. May 18 had FLORIDA in big letters. May 11 had GALA on it. And this coming Saturday, May 4, was the filming for the commercial.

  Brain and I had to have that commercial money. It was our last chance to earn cash before the gala.

  “Hmm,” I mused. “I’m busy the next three weekends, but I can do the last Saturday in May.” I started penciling DETENTION THING in the box for May 25.

  I looked up to see Headmaster Nurbin watching me. His expression was less like the we-are-all-friends-here headmaster smile that had surprised me on my first visit to his office, and more like the principal-who-is-fed-up-with-you face that I’d seen once or twice at my old school.

  “It’s not about doing it when it’s convenient for you, Oliver,” Headmaster Nurbin said. “Reflection time must happen as soon as possible, to discourage you from engaging in inappropriate behaviors like cheating. Do you know who you’re really hurting when you cheat?”

  “No one?” I offered. Cheating doesn’t really HURT anyone, not like punching someone, or sending somebody to prison when they didn’t do anything wrong.

  “You’re really hurting yourself,” Headmaster Nurbin said. “Because you’re cheating yourself. Out of knowledge.”