Chapter Eighteen

We all just stood there stunned as Mr. Sfinkter lay dying at our feet. I think part of our immobility came from shock, part from disbelief, and part from some dark little corner of our minds that thought it was for the best. But not Chill.

Chill dropped down, started to perform cpr and yelled to the principal to call 911, which snapped us all awake and we did what we could to help.

It seems that if you save someone’s life, even if you’re partially responsible for almost bringing it to an end, a multitude of sins can be forgiven. Chill and I were allowed to take our exams and complete the semester. Our punishment was to spend the first three weeks of our summer holidays restoring the mural to its original, approved, form. There was no iPod this time and no tarp, as the principal and Ms. Surette were by at least twice an hour to check on us.

After we finished, Chill had to do another month of “volunteering” down at the station for his Crime Stoppers stunt. His mom figured out what happened after seeing the painting, and though she didn’t tell anyone else, she wasn’t going to let him off no matter what the motive.

During that month the station manager saw some of his drawings and gave him a part-time job doing courtroom sketches. Then he got another with the police doing, you guessed it, composite drawings.

I was put under a month of parental house arrest and had to clean the garage and do all the yard work for the summer. Mom and Dad were both impressed by my book, though, saying that it showed a lot of promise. For my birthday they got me a new laptop, one gift certificate for our local bookstore and another for the stationery store.

There was never an investigation because Mr. Sfinkter decided to retire, saying that teaching wasn’t his true calling. The last I heard, he was working on a book about his near-death experience and all the people that he’d met there in the light. They didn’t want him to leave, but he knew his work on earth wasn’t done—when it is his time, he apparently has an “in.”

I didn’t say anything to Chill for a while about everything that happened. Though he saved Mr. Sfinkter’s life, he blamed himself for having to. Just like with that kid in elementary school, he’d never meant it to go that far. It was well into the summer before I finally brought it up.

“Chill?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“What you did, it was cool.”

“No,” he told me, coldly and firmly, looking up at me from his drawings. “It wasn’t,” and then he lowered his head again, returning to his sketching, and we never spoke of it again.

Well, he never spoke of it again...