The Philosophers' Game

Chapter 12: Honor Among Thieves

Chapter 12: Honor Among Thieves

I took one swift glance around the hallway to make sure no one was watching, then opened the closet door and peeked my head inside. Subsequently, Plato's arm reached out from the shadows, grabbed onto me, and pulled me forward. The door slammed shut behind us.

"There's no light in here. So admittedly it's not the best meeting place," Plato said, just as I bumped into a metal shelf and sent some unidentifiable, inanimate object crashing to the floor.

"What the fuck is going on?" I demanded to know. "Did you really lose the ledger?"

He sighed. "I didn't lose it. It was stolen, probably by one of the other Philosophers. Nathan doesn't know yet, but I'll tell him later. I wanted to talk to you first." 

"Oh, I knew we shouldn't have taken it in the first place," I muttered to myself, shaking my head.

"Yeah, right! You're just saying that because things look bleak right now. But trust me; we'll find the ledger and return it to Diogenes and fix everything." 

"And what makes you think I'll help you? It's not my fault the ledger was stolen from you."

"We're partners in crime. We help each other out. Honor among thieves kind of thing."

I scoffed, thinking his argument weak. "Correction: we were partners in crime. Sure, I helped you out, but you never explicitly helped me. Now find the ledger yourself, or come clean to Diogenes."

Still furious over the fact that Plato had lost such valuable leverage, I left him no time to respond and strode out of the closet with my head held high. I imagined him gaping at the door open-mouthed and deflated. Because the bell for class had already rang, there was no audience of students in the hallway to witness my tiny triumph, but at least Plato knew. I wasn't going to let him take advantage of me any more.

.

I dreaded going to Psychology, today more than usual. Every time I walked in, I felt almost like I was walking into a war zone. Things had been especially tense since the original theft of the ledger, and now I didn't even have the upper hand; that belonged to whoever had the ledger now, and whoever else who knew about it.  Plato's loss of the leather notebook, in addition to my being blackmailed, just gave me another reason why I needed to distance myself from him.

When I stepped into the room only a minute before the bell was scheduled to ring, Mr. Ross was not behind his desk or anywhere else in the classroom. What I did see, however, was a sea of faces staring rather blankly at me. Then the faces shifted, turning in waves back to face those next to them and to continue their interrupted currents of conversation. Not an unusual occurrence, but all of a sudden I felt sick to my stomach.

I had finally come to the realization that Psychology was a stage for the Philosophers just as much as it was a show for the rest of the class, the audience. All along they'd been there, watching and feeling and rooting for one of us Philosophers over the other; our jobs had always been to sway them, and we knew that. But I had overlooked the importance of the audience both during and after the showing of a play. I had forgotten that they weren't just passive objects of the game - they could be players, too. At any time, they could voice their own opinions. They could interrupt.

I really didn't have a clue as to who the blackmailer was. My pool of possible blackmailers had just enlarged to an indeterminable number, so I felt even less sure of my options and of myself than I did before. Maybe he was a Philosopher, and maybe he wasn't. Yes, the blackmailer being a Philosopher was still plausible, and perhaps even probable, but supposedly there was an outsider of the club still on the offensive after threatening Plato's expulsion and nominating me for homecoming queen. And maybe I was that outsider's target.