Over the next week I fretted about getting caught. The first classroom was a free-bee, but when we did the teacher's lounge we escalated this incident to a greater severity.
Not only that, I thought to myself obsessively, but, we f'd up. We must have left our little finger prints all over the place. My fingerprints were on the door knob to the teacher's lounge, and both Scott and my fingerprints were smeared all about in the teacher's lounge; on the refrigerator, on the table, smeared with food.
The way I figured it, there was a slim chance the police wouldn't identify us before the school week was out.
Once they were able to identify children's fingerprints at the scene of one crime, they could compare those with fingerprints left at the first crime. They wouldn't know who we were, but they would know damn sure by now that a couple of kids were responsible.
If kids were doing this, then chances were, they went to the same school they were vandalizing.
My fear was a police detective showing up to class to finger print all of us, when they got to my class, as soon I gave them a fingerprint sample, they'd have me caught red-handed.
I thought for certain this would happen. After all, I'd watched detective shows-- the first thing the police do is dust for fingerprints-- and in this case, they'd know right away the culprits were kids, after that, it would be a cinch to catch us.
Only thing is, my greatest fear, of a police detective showing up to my fifth grade class to ask all the kids to give a fingerprint sample never happened.
I don't know why it never happened. It just didn't. I think I know why now, but at the time, it didn't make any sense. When the week was up, and we didn't get caught, I breathed a sigh of relief, I figured, if they hadn't come for us within the week, they probably wouldn't.... as long as we stopped. Which is what I had every intention of doing, as a matter of fact, I didn't even have any intention of even sneaking on campus anytime during the weekend.
Scott had other plans however, and on the following Saturday, I found myself listening to my own nightmare-- Scott asking me to go across the street to the school and look for anther classroom to access.
It went like this. Earlier we had conversed and we agreed we would stop this non-sense immediately. I had meant to explain to Scott why it was so important for us to stop, why we were so lucky we hadn't been caught already, but he quickly agreed not to do it anymore and so I didn't bother to explain it, I assumed he'd figured it out for himself.
So, we had been playing for most of the day at Scott's house, and we got bored, or should I say Scott got bored. Scott became disinterested in doing whatever it was we'd been doing. He just sat there and acted completely bored. I suggested all kinds of things we could do, but none of it was appealing to him.
"So, what do you want to do then?" I asked exasperated.
I could hardly believe my own ears when Scott sheepishly said, "Let's go across the street"
"NO! WE AGREED!" I shook my head, "NO WAY!"
Scott's expression on his face looked like he just learned that his cat had just died. He looked depressed, and kind of scared. It didn't make any sense to me.
I looked at Scott quizzically and said, "Don't take any offense to this but, you're not to bright are you?"
He gave me a momentary pensive look, and then back to a clown's frown.
I tried to explain to him why we were lucky the police hadn't already caught us.
"You're being paranoid," Scott said.
Scott looked so sad, so pathetic, so, something else, that bothered me, something like he was afraid of something, I didn't like it, because I didn't understand it.
"Come on, just drop it. Cheer up." I said.
Scott just sat there with his head hung low, like, well, like his cat just died.
"Let's play ball," I said.
"Don't want to," he said.
"Let's watch TV," I said.
"Don't want to," he snapped right back without lifting his head up; he just hung his head looking at the carpet.
"Scott?" I said, "Even if we went across the street to the school, there 'ain't no damn chance in hell that they'll be any unlocked doors or unlocked windows, and the police are probably waiting, just sitting and waiting."
Scott remained silent. He didn't even look up.
"If I went with you over to the school..." I started.
Scott suddenly lifted his head up and looked me in the eyes with anticipation. "Yea?" he asked.
"If I went with you, just to show you that every door and every window will be locked up tight, do you promise we turn around and come back home?"
Scott nodded enthusiastically.
Alright let's go.
We went across the street to the school, and we did a systematic check of all the doors and windows of classrooms on both the south perimeter and then on the north perimeter. Just as I had been certain, there were no doors or windows left unsecured. We had even checked the teacher's lounge.
"There, " I said, "Are you satisfied? Now let's go home." I said.
"Sure, " Scott said, "...but, let's just check the office, it's on the way."
"THE OFFICE!" I exclaimed; stupefied actually.
"Yea, " Scott said, "The office is on the way back," he said.
I thought that the odds of the office; the most important building on the school campus, and the most secured, was, under ordinary circumstances about a thousand to one odds of having a door unlocked or a window open, and considering the school had been attacked by vandals two weekends in a row and this being the third weekend, I upped those odds to a cool million to one.
I looked at Scott square in the eyes, "OK, Scott, we'll check the office, to see if the door is unlocked," I spoke to him as if he were retarded, and I had no worries what-so-ever, because there was no chance that there would be easy access to the f-ing office.
I was, as they say, humoring my friend, and when we got to the office and tried the door and saw that it was locked, and we needn't check any windows because the office didn't have any windows that opened, the office was air controlled - you know air conditioned / heated.
We got to the office and I tried the door and of course it was locked, and putting my hand on my hips, and with a hint of anxiety in my voice I said to Scott, "Can we now please get the hell out of here?"
"Check this out," Scott said, pointing to the security glass to the left of the window.
This was a large single pane of bullet proof glass-- it was about an inch thick, and it had security tape on it, in a big square all around the glass. The security tape would activate an alarm if the window were to be broken.
My jaw dropped open when I saw what Scott was pointing at. On the far right of the plane of glass within reaching distance of the doorknob was a small hole cut through the one inch thick security glass cut with precision; a perfect circle.
"Look at this," Scott said.
"Why would somebody cut a hole that small in the office glass?" I asked, "certainly not a burglar, the hole's way to small for him to stick his arm through." I said.
"I bet you could get your arm through it," Scott said.
I shook my head, "I don't think so, it's too small," I said.
"Nah, I think your arm will fit," Scott said.
"Why don't you try it," I asked.
So Scott did. He was able to get his forearm through easy enough, and even his upper arm to the elbow, the problem was that Scott's arm wasn't quite long enough for him to reach the doorknob on the inside and open the door.
"You try it-- You're arm's longer than mine-- I bet you can do it," Scott said.
I didn't think I would be able to, but I stuck my forearm inside, and pushed my upper arm through to the elbow. That was the part I didn't think I'd be able to do-- i thought my upper arm was to big, but surprisingly enough I got my arm in to the elbow, and when I reached toward the doorknob on the inside to open the door I found that I was able to reach it without a problem.
I turned the knob and Scott pulled the door open from the outside.
We were inside the sanctified walls of the office, after hours when the school was closed.
The chances were a million to one I said.
-- Edited by The Phantom on Tuesday 6th of July 2010 02:31:18 PM
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"Sometimes when you open your mind to the impossible, you discover the truth." Walter from Fringe.
