squeal from the alarm in the instant between James turning the key and Shak cancelling it with the gadget. James dived into the driver’s seat and reached across to pull up the little mushroom on the passenger door. By the time Shak climbed in, James had reclined his seat. He pulled the clear cover off the vanity light and unscrewed the tiny bulb and the silver plastic fitting in which it was mounted. Shak reached up and pushed in a specially constructed replacement that contained a listening device. Once it was clipped into place, James replaced the bulb and the outer cover.
Shak briefly rummaged inside the glove box, checking out the various receipts and scraps of paper for anything interesting. He laid a couple of bits out flat on the glove-box lid and copied them with the handheld scanner. James searched over in the rear seats and in the driver’s door cubby, but all he found was a road atlas and a mass of crumpled paper cups.
‘Is that it?’ James asked as he hit the recline lever, making his seat spring back up.
Shak nodded. ‘Now we just have to make it out of here without getting busted.’
James opened the car door, but as he stepped out, he noticed a reedy female outline emerging at the bottom of the staircase.
‘Damn,’ James whispered, as he quietly pulled shut the car door.
Shak sneaked a glance at the beanpole woman as she lit up a cigarette and puffed as though her life depended on it. The boys had no option but to crouch down low in their seats until she went back upstairs.
They gave it a couple of minutes before following after her. The mission plan called for the boys to hide in a desolate area behind the sports centre for the remaining half-hour of the school day, when they’d be able to walk out of the front gates alongside the real pupils.
As they passed the changing rooms again, James noticed that the PE teacher hadn’t locked the door when the kids had gone into the gym. Tantalisingly, more than a dozen pairs of the orange-piped Trinity trousers were scattered about the room.
‘Keep an eye out,’ James said. ‘I’m gonna whip me some trousers.’
Shak wasn’t exactly happy about James taking an unnecessary risk, but realised that he wouldn’t have wanted to travel back to campus with a giant crack in his trousers either.
James passed by the first few pairs. He was slightly above average size for thirteen, but these Year Ten kids were still bigger. James eventually found a pair that looked right. He ripped off his shoes and quickly slipped into them. Realising that there wasn’t time to transfer everything between the two pairs of trousers, he balled up the ripped pair and crammed them into his backpack on top of everything else.
James stepped out of the changing room and started walking back the way they’d come.
‘Wait,’ Shak said.
James turned back. ‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing. It’s just, while you were changing, I looked through the window and realised what’s on the other side of that door. Instead of walking out the front and all the way around the edge of the building, we can go out through there.’
James stepped across the corridor and peered through the frosted glass in the door. It clearly led directly to the back of the building.
James shrugged. ‘Why not?’
He pushed down on the handle and nudged the door open with his shoulder. As he did, a loud buzzing sound broke out from a plastic box above their heads. The boys exchanged a shocked look, as a burly PE teacher came steaming out of the gymnasium towards them.
‘What the hell are you two playing at?’
‘Run?’ James asked.
Shak didn’t answer; James just heard a squeal of shoe leather as his friend set off towards the entrance at full pelt.
3. HAIR
James’ sister Lauren had wanted to dye her hair black since she was six years old, but her mum wouldn’t let her, no matter how much she whined. The only thing that stopped Lauren doing it in the near two years since her mum had died was a sense that it would have been disrespecting her memory.
In the end it took heavy persuasion from Lauren’s best friend Bethany Parker, who claimed she’d bought black hair dye by mistake. Lauren couldn’t understand how you accidentally bought hair dye and didn’t believe Bethany’s claim for a millisecond; but once the dye was right there, on the bathroom shelf, she couldn’t resist.