Paper Hearts [Brallon-ish]

33 days

"What about me and Patrick?" I asked and Patrick nodded along with me, also curious about his part in all of this.

"You guys keep watch. Spencer has eagle eyesight."

We shrugged. Fair enough, I guess. At least we would be able to play it off if we were caught. And Patrick was known amongst the Seacoast staff as being particularly well behaved and a good kid. So it was actually probably the best position to be with him if we got busted.

"And afterwards, we meet back here. It'll only take like half an hour, less than that if we're lucky." Brendon concluded and nobody spoke. We were all trying to remember the plan and go through it in our heads.

And I thought, why are we doing this? Then, shut up this is going to be great.

And then we stayed quiet for a minute, like are we really going to do this? Because if you thought about it, there was a lot on the line. Especially if Brendon still wanted to follow through with the breaking into Spencer's office house and sending out suspension notes, which was probably like 2 felonies smashed into one huge crime that could send someone to jail if the right person got caught. I'm not even sure I could save myself let alone everyone else.

"You guys ready?"

"Hell yeah."

..:..::..:::..::..:..

Patrick had convinced me to scale the tallest tree around with him, surprisingly an easier feat than I expected, so we could have a clear view of Seacoast.

The cheap $6 walkie talkie Ryan provided to everyone buzzed in my hand when I made it to the top branch with Patrick, Brendon's voice echoing over Petes. I could vaguely remember Ryan saying he'd rigged the walkie talkies to have multiple devices on the same station. And then I thought maybe he should be like a secret spy because I don't think I've never known someone who can do that with Walmart walkie talkies.

"35 seconds," Pete whispered through the speaker, Ryan buzzing with excitement on the other end.

My heart was racing, bound to beat out of my chest any second because I felt like we were about to get caught yet I knew we wouldn't. The plan was so well thought out when Brendon explained the details further, there was no way it could fail.

"There's only 195 students at this school," Patrick said, breaking the silence and cricket chirps "someone's gonna figure out it was us."

And then the first string of firecrackers burst in the air, and Spencer's lights shot on simultaneously and he dashed out towards the sparks still settling in the air like he was a cheetah.

"The eagle has left the nest!" Ryan cheered through the radio, his breaths labored like he'd just run a mile but he hadn't even started running yet. And then Brendon whispered in the background "let's go" and their footsteps crunched against the leaves, making the walkie talkie sound like it was being spun in the cycle of a washing machine before their signal cut off and the line was dead silent again.

" 'Trick! Where's Spencer at?" Pete sputtered to life through the device.

"Still at the first set looking for clues like he's Scooby Doo. Free to set off the next string on your count." Patrick responded, and sure enough almost exactly 6 seconds later, more firecrackers exploded almost 200 yards away and Spencer was off again.