Ratbags and Scallywags [bxb]

Chapter 26

"What 'huh'? You talked with him, right? He said he was going to meet you like forty minutes ago."

"Meet me? Where?" I looked back at my group, wondering if they knew something and forgot to mention it, but everyone looked as clueless as I felt.

Ikeisha's brows furrowed; she looked genuinely worried now. "We can't find him. We weren't worried before 'cause we thought he was with you, but you're here and he hasn't texted or replied to any of us."

What would he be doing then? Why would he say he was going to be with me? I hadn't spoken to him since we walked to school this morning. I couldn't say anything for sure, but images of Jesse and Horse-Face Hughes popped into my head, and I suddenly had a bad feeling.

He wasn't already dragged into my mess, was he?

"Guys," I said to my group. "I'm gonna go look for Aubrey. Stay here if you want."

"Nah, dude," Liam said, holding his hand out to help Jude up from the ground. "We'll go look around the classroom's and stuff."

"I'll go to the office," Goose said. "Maybe he went home early for some reason."

Ikeisha nodded. "Good point. We haven't checked yet."

There were fifteen minutes until the bell went for class. I didn't know for sure, but I think I had a feeling about where he might be. Without a word, I sprinted off towards the gym building and rattled the door open. It'd been locked. Ikeisha and Trey had followed me over here.

"Charlie, why would he be in here? They locked it for the day ages ago."

"Call it a hunch," I answered and sprinted around the side, looking for an open window. "The signal goes low from the closet we've met up in a few times. He might be locked inside."

My eyes grazed along the structure. The brick building had some old white plumbing coming down just near an open window. I'd have to scale it and hope it didn't cave under my weight.

"I'll get the building keys from the office," Ikeisha said. "Wait up."

Trey was still here, watching me climb across pipes. He had his hands up by my back, spotting me across. "Wait, but don't closets lock with a key from the outside? How would he get himself stuck when only janitors hold the key?"

"If he's in there," I panted, "then we'll find out."

It was scary, what I was doing. I walked sideways across the pipe with my body pressed against the brick wall. While it definitely helped that I was skinny so this wouldn't cave under my weight, I still had ridiculously big and clumsy feet that made this remain a challenge.

Soon, I reached the window. My leg was too low for me to pull up and through the gap, but Trey tiptoed and pushed my foot, giving me a little extra momentum. Then I was inside. I hit the floor with a resounding thud, barely missing a pile of steel pipes, very much unlike the white plastic one I just climbed. I think I was in a back room somewhere and had to find my way across all this crap.

Since I was trapped behind steel pipes, I had no choice but to stand on them. They wobbled beneath my feet, and soon they rolled and crashed all around me. The sound was high pitched and gave me a helluva fright. I stumbled off them and hit the floor, grazing both my knees.

"Ow," I muttered and picked myself back up. There were a few more tries of this as I finally reached the door. It was completely dark bar for what little light streamed through the window.

The gym building was, to put it simply, huge. It took some effort to find my way across the halls from an area I entered and had never been before, just to find the main gymnasium we all used. It felt like forever, but I finally got there. And there was the closet door, with a shelf pulled in front of it.