The High 5

Chapter 16: What a Boy Wants

It was early Friday morning, only 45 minutes until classes started. The Five had stayed up till one in the morning delicately planning their take down of the trio. Bel was next on the list, and Mace had quite the role to play. Colette had told them that they could likely find her in the south gym, organizing the cheer equipment.

Though it wasn't necessary, Mace eagerly decided to 'dress up' a bit in order to really convince Bel of his act. He discreetly entered the gym, keeping an eye out for Mrs. Maran or any other teacher that might have been around, and almost immediately noticed Bel carrying two large duffel bags over to a room near the entrance of the gym.

Bel stopped as she caught sight of Mace, sauntering over towards her. She eyed him cynically, mentally assessing his choice of clothing: a white t-shirt tucked in the right side of his pants with several indeterminable stains on it; black track pants with trillions of lint balls stuck all around it; and a pair of black sneakers with worn out and dusty soles and the left shoe was missing a lace so its single lace was tucked in behind his heel.

"Hey Bel. Need some help with that?" Mace asked cheerfully. He didn't wait for her to respond, and scooped up one of the duffels out of her hand. Lifting it up and down, he tested the weight of it. "Ooh, that's pretty light. What's in here anyway?"

"Pom-poms," Bel said.

She was quite familiar with this behavior from boys. Whenever one offered to help her with something, they usually wanted something from her, or just wanted to go out with her. Whatever the case was, she always reaped a few of the benefits before either giving them what they want, or refusing entirely.

"How 'bout you carry this one too?" She held the other duffel up to him, and he briefly stared at it as if the action was a test, before smiling and scooping it up as well. She pranced into the equipment room, not bothering to hold the door open for Mace, and he scrambled to follow.

Inside, Mace quickly scanned the entirety of the large, chilly room. Colette was right, there weren't any security cameras.

"Just put them in there, on the floor, on the right side against the wall," Bel said.

He did as directed and went over to the wide, open metal storage closet at the back of the room, and gently plopped the bags by the wall on the right side. Thinking his volunteered services were no longer needed, he smacked his palms against each other as if getting rid of dirt then turned to Bel with a question, when she said something else.

"Could you also grab those megaphones and put them on the middle shelf?" She had taken a seat on a chair on a corner and crossed her legs.

Mace huffed in annoyance, but kept his smile as he strode over to the two small stacks of colorful plastic megaphones by the wall near Bel. He took one stack to the closet first and placed it in the center of the middle shelf because it was the only available space on it, then moved a little quicker to get the second stack in the closet as well. With his hands on his waist, he turned to Bel again ready with a question, when she said something again.

"Oh and can you get the mat to the top shelf?" She was looking at her nails with a curious expression, instead of anything else.

Mace closed his mouth so Bel wouldn't see him gritting his teeth, not that she was looking at him at all, but he still managed to keep the smile on. He walked over, quite stiffly but quickly, to a thick rolled up black cheer-leading mat that laid in another corner. It took him two tries to finally lift it off of the floor, and he waddled back to the closet, not slowing a bit. He was glad that he didn't have any heavy textbooks in his backpack, as he heaved the object above his head, and it felt like the entire world instead of just a plain old mat. Sluggishly, he leaned forward and let gravity suck it into place on the top shelf.