Constant Fear

CHAPTER 5

Five boys and one girl, students at Pepperell Academy, gathered in the campus’s main courtyard-The Quad, as it was officially known-for a meeting. In better times, the six would have been laughing and talking excitedly. They were the best of friends, and shared the same interests: watched the same movies and TV shows, visited the same websites, downloaded the same apps, ate most of their meals together, and hung out as a group whenever possible during their limited free time. They were, in fact, what other students labeled a clique. Their collective even had a special name-though no one but the members knew it. They called themselves “The Shire.”

Andy Dent was dressed the same as the four boys with him. Each wore a nice button-down shirt and a solid-colored tie. The group’s lone girl, Hilary Eichel, wore stylish white-rimmed eyeglasses, plaid skater skirt with dark leggings, and underneath her white button-down blouse-Hilary adhered to the school dress code as well-a fitted T-shirt that read: THINK LIKE A PROTON AND STAY POSITIVE. The words on her T-shirt were barely legible through her overshirt’s fabric. However, the near-frantic look on Hilary’s face, and those of her friends, said nobody was in a particularly positive mood.

In the background, a sea of students, most carrying backpacks, ambled from one building to another. They chatted easily with friends, or buried their faces in their smartphones. It was a normal March scene at Pepperell Academy; but for The Shire, things were far from normal. They looked away from each other, as no one felt comfortable being the first to break the silence.

Rafa spoke up finally.

“We have to get this over with,” he said. “I have track practice.”

Two of the six members of The Shire were on school-sponsored sports teams. Rafael Dufoe, who had curly, black hair, olive skin, and the whisper of a mustache, could run an 800-meter race in two minutes, eight seconds, which was not the best in the state, or even at The Pep, but it did put him a few strides ahead of some other runners. “Rafa,” the nickname his friends in The Shire gave him, was exceedingly thin. Some thought he had an eating disorder or digestive problem, but neither was true. Rafa simply had the metabolism of a hummingbird.

Andy seethed and his face went red. He addressed Rafa through gritted teeth. “Your track practice can wait,” he said. “I think this is just a little bit more important.”

Andy was the group’s founder and de facto leader, and it was his text message that had brought them all together. “It’s been over a week since it went missing. One of us has it,” Andy said, his voice shaky, “and one of us better fess up. Solomon?”

Solomon Burke was the other athlete in the group. As the captain of Pepperell Academy’s bowling team, Solomon had led the school to a championship two years running. While few students at The Pep considered bowling a sport-most would call it a recreational activity-Solomon had a different opinion. He was a cranker, which meant he created as much spin as possible by using a cupped wrist with his delivery. Spin was what made the bowling ball hook, and it was also the reason Solomon had recorded two 300 games and bowled a 274, 258, and 279 at his last tournament. Somewhat fittingly, Solomon’s physique matched the shape of the ball with which he had crushed the school’s bowling record.

“I told you, I don’t have it,” Solomon snapped. “I don’t.”

Solomon looked close to tears.

They were all on the verge of tears. Pallid complexions. Bags under the eyes because there hadn’t been a good night’s sleep among them. Shoulders hunched, weighted down with dread.

Hilary Eichel gave Solomon a hard stare, but she couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. Hilary often referred to her friends Rafa and Solomon as “Abbott and Costello.” It was a joke few at The Pep could appreciate; most students knew nothing about Abbott and Costello, and would not understand the reference.

As a self-proclaimed geek, Hilary embraced the Geek Chic style with flair. An attractive girl, Hilary got a lot of attention from the boys because of her looks. When they tried to flirt, she’d intentionally yawn. This usually sent them away. She had hazel eyes, long-layered brown hair, with ginger-colored strands, and a pert nose. She was in good shape, and could probably beat Rafa in a race if they ever went head to head, but Hilary was more mathlete than athlete. She already had taken two semesters of AP calculus and was currently acing her college-level statistics and probability course.

“We’re all just going to deny it,” Hilary said as if it were a matter of fact.

A cool wind kicked up and mussed Hilary’s hair. She brushed the strands away from her face as her gaze retreated back to the dusty ground. March was not a particularly beautiful time of year at The Pep. Today the sun was a cool pale disc brushed upon a cloudless blue sky, but The Quad itself was an ugly shade of brown, and the tree branches were barren. In a few more weeks, nature would work its magic and everything would bloom and change and look like the pictures on the website and brochures, the ones that lured prospective students to the campus for a tour.

The brochures did a nice job of showcasing the western Massachusetts campus, but it wasn’t the natural beauty and the historic buildings that inspired parents to fork over $45,000 a year for tuition and board. It was what they got for the money that had most students (and their parents) salivating.

A diploma from The Pep might not guarantee admission into an elite college, but it sure didn’t hurt. A lot of graduates went on to prestigious schools and to do big things in life, which was exactly what The Pep counted on. While the average amount spent per pupil in Massachusetts hovered around $14,000 per year, The Pep blew that figure away by investing $52,000 annually to house and educate each of its twelve hundred students. To bridge the gap between tuition and costs, The Pep relied heavily on its endowment, which, thanks to a wealthy alumni base and shrewd investments, had topped $1 billion last year.

Some students depended on scholarships to cover their elite education, but most of The Shire came from privilege. Not Andy, though. He was in a special category. Because his father worked at the school, Andy got free tuition-tuition remission-and it came with some self-imposed pressure to do well. His GPA never drifted below 3.8, an impressive feat considering most of his classes were AP or high honors. Andy’s father worked what Andy thought was a dead-end job to get him this education, which made Andy grateful for that sacrifice and determined to succeed.

At the moment, however, what mattered most to Andy wasn’t his stellar academic record. It was an answer to his question.

“David, did you take it?”

Andy was glaring at David Townsend, who hailed from Chicago, and was the best (and only) bassoon player in the school’s orchestra. David preferred to be called by his hacker name, “Dark Matter,” and his eyes narrowed in displeasure when Andy used his given name. David was a tall, gangly boy, with a gap in his front teeth and freckled skin that reddened quickly in the sun. While not exactly handsome, David attracted a lot of attention because of his long hair, which descended well past his shoulders. David often wore his hair down, as if to invite ridicule from fellow students who would call him a girl and think they were being clever. Unlike Hilary, who ignored the attention of boys she found tiresome and juvenile, David embraced the taunts, maybe even trolled for them, as a way of proving they didn’t really matter.

“I don’t have it. I told you a million times. It’s just gone.”

Rafa began to pace. His breathing turned shallow.

“We’re dead. We’re all dead.”

“Calm down,” Andy said. His voice had a hard edge, almost scolding. “It’s not going to do us any good to panic. We just need to get honest with each other and not be greedy. Nobody will be in trouble. But the money has to be given back.”

Rafa put his hands on his knees and breathed as if he’d just run a race.

Andy looked up at the sky to clear his head and calm his nerves. He blinked away the sunspots and regarded Troy Cranston with suspicion. At fifteen, Troy, a sophomore, was the youngest member of The Shire. He also had the highest IQ of a group comprising high-IQ people.

Troy had on his favorite ratty, gray hooded sweatshirt over his school-mandated shirt and tie, and the dark sunglasses he wore anytime, day or night, outdoors or indoors. Troy didn’t like it when people knew what he was looking at. He also didn’t want anybody to see how scared he was. Troy shook his head back at Andy.

“We’re really screwed, aren’t we?” Troy said in a soft voice.

At some point, Troy’s father, a senior-level investment banker with JPMorgan Chase and a former All-American quarterback for Notre Dame, had to face the fact that the jock name he’d bestowed upon his only son did not match the boy’s physique or mental makeup in any way. The other Troys at Pepperell Academy were cool kids, muscular and athletic, probably closer to what Troy’s dad had envisioned his son would be. This Troy, however, was a pixie-sized kid with a broad, flat nose, thin lips, and an oval face without much of a chin. His dark hair was cut close to his head, and always looked in need of a good washing. Troy would say he just had naturally oily hair.

He might not have been able to dribble a basketball with any dexterity, or catch a baseball, or master any of the skills his überath-letic father dreamed about, but what he could do-and do better than anybody else at The Pep, including the professors in the computer science department-was hack. Troy, who went by his hacker handle, “Pixie,” cracked codes as other people cracked eggs. As a requirement for acceptance into The Shire, all members had to demonstrate decent hacking prowess, but Pixie’s gifts were something special. He was a digital Mozart, and probably the one most responsible for The Shire’s dire situation.

It was the conspicuous consumption and egregious display of wealth at The Pep that had initially inspired Andy to found The Shire-well, that along with a viewing of the remake of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner. Andy asked himself: What if I robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, just like Robin Hood?

Discussing this at school, Andy found among his peers others who shared a disdain for the gross display of wasteful spending. They’d never intended to hurt anybody. It was just for fun, and sure, the rush of doing something illegal and daring had its own appeal. The Shire stole small sums of money from the rich parents of students at Pepperell Academy and gave it anonymously to various worthwhile charities. They monitored the e-mails and text messages of their wealthy victims, and the few parents who even noticed the missing money simply changed their online banking passwords. The amounts taken were always negligible when compared to the size of the bank accounts that Troy had taught them how to access.

Always negligible, until now.

Andy took off his backpack and slammed it to the ground. “This isn’t going anywhere,” he growled. As group leader, Andy felt it was his mess to unravel, and he looked each member in the eyes: Rafa, Solomon, David, Hilary, and, once again, Pixie. “One of us has it, and that kind of money isn’t going to just disappear without somebody taking notice. This isn’t our usual small skim here. This is the big-time, people, and we need to put the money back where we got it. Now!”

David was about to respond when his gaze drifted to the girl coming up behind Andy. Andy turned to look, and upset as he was, he couldn’t suppress a broad and almost silly grin. Every hormone in Andy’s body came alive. He was so jacked up on teenage lust or love or whatever that the seriousness of the situation evaporated upon the arrival of Beth MacDonald.

To Andy, Beth MacDonald looked like every unattainable girlfriend in every ’80s teen film he’d ever seen (and he’d streamed them all). She had a dynamite smile, wavy blond hair, full lips, and the most dazzling green eyes imaginable. Hilary noticed Andy noticing Beth, and frowned.

“Hey, Beth,” Andy said, with that same toothy grin.

“Hi, Andy. Hi, guys and gal,” Beth said, directing her last greeting at Hilary. Hilary smiled weakly and tried not to look like she was checking out how Beth wore her uniform. “What are you doing?”

“Just talking,” Andy said. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I was hoping we could study for that trig test together.”

Andy was thinking that he wanted nothing more in life than to spend every waking minute with Beth studying for that trig test. Beth was thinking that she really wanted a good grade. And she was thinking about Andy, too, at least sort of, in a strange way, because he really wasn’t her type. Her type was supposed to be Ryan Coventry, the boy she’d broken up with last week. Ryan was all-American handsome, and could have been a stand-in for Thor if the Norse god ever sported a flattop. In addition to his strong jawline, piercing blue eyes, and facial features all in proportion with the golden ratio of beauty, Ryan was captain of the football, wrestling, and lacrosse teams. He was also a champion debater, who, at the tender age of eleven, had made a list of life goals that included attending Harvard undergrad and Yale law school. Now a senior, Ryan could check at least one item off the list: along with four other students from The Pep, he had been accepted as an early decision into Harvard.

While Andy looked unblinking at Beth, Hilary made several short whistles, sounds of alarm. Andy followed Hilary’s line of sight and immediately saw what was making her nervous. Ryan Coventry was marching toward the group from the direction of the Society Building, which housed classrooms for mathematics and humanities. He looked ready for a fight.