You Must Remember This

Chapter 26: The Syndicate

For an unrehearsed operation, the office moved impressively quickly the morning Frank walked in with a Manila folder containing the list of names. He proceeded to the principal's office, who cross-checked it with the emailed copy before giving Frank a hearty pat on the back thanking him for his good work. Not even before Frank left, the list had been passed to the office staff, who immediately began typing out roughly one hundred summons to detention. By now Alan was comfortably in Mr. Ivanov's class, when a harried office aide walked in with a fistful of yellow papers and handed a few to a shocked Mr. Ivanov, who took a few moments to read the names. It did not take long for word to spread about who was targeted, and more importantly, who was to blame: Alan.

"It's almost beautiful, isn't it?" Alan remarked to Mr. Ivanov while watching through the window the long chain of students headed toward the gymnasium to serve their time.

"What makes this beautiful?"

"Justice. Everyone getting what they deserve. The scales tipped back in honest people's favor. However you want to phrase it."

"Why do you think they all deserved this?"

"It goes without saying."

"Yes, I know they all were caught in that juice sting, but does that mean they deserved this?"

"Yes, yes, I believe they did." Alan appeared hopeless, so Mr. Ivanov went to talk to other students, who unsurprisingly were more interested in discussing the breaking news than doing physics; to be fair, he was too.

During a passing period, Regina took the bold move of texting Juliet, who responded immediately expressing her confusion and polite dismay and then went silent when Regina said she got caught too, and because of Tom, no less. She wandered the halls looking for Alan or somebody who could apologize for this injustice. She could find nobody, or at least nobody who wanted to talk to her without grunting excessively. One sophomore pointed her out to his buddies and did a mockery of the dancing at the bonfire, flailing his arms wildly above his head; his friends began drumming on their binders and clapping along. Regina thought she was popular—she didn't deserve to be abused like this. She couldn't find any friendly faces in time, and so she went to class despondent, hoping that everything would blow over in sufficient time.

Ted did not find himself holding a grudge against Alan: he had beaten him fair and square, and Ted had nobody to blame but himself; the same could not be said for Alan, he thought, who undoubtedly had still been blackmailed by someone else. For this reason, Ted greeted Alan with a fist-bump in English class and not with a fist to the face. Ted and Alan had recently begun bonding over a new common interest: pranking Juliet. Alan saw this as the first step to romance, and Ted, who was long consigned to being a bachelor, was only too happy to pass on the torch to someone else.

"We have a simple game, Ms. Liu: I drop the pen, she picks it up," Ted explained sweetly after Ms. Liu had watched this routine repeat itself a few times.

"And what's the point of this?"

"Why not?" Alan interjected after nudging Ted's pen slightly to the side. Every time Juliet gracefully bent downward and reached, returning the pen to Ted with a predictable smile.

"Is this a game you can play outside of class? I mean, instead of now? I don't want to speak for everyone, but some of your peers appear distracted."

"Well, I don't know if we ever would have the means, motive, or opportunity."

"How about during a club meeting?"

"I don't go to those anymore, and besides, she wouldn't allow it."

"She wouldn't allow it?" Alan worried that Ted would somehow not do the club justice:

"We have different standards for authority. None of this casual informality. Juliet outranks us, it's as clear as that, and if during a club meeting she wants us to pick up pens off the ground we have no choice but to do that. One time we were even split into teams to play '52-card pickup,' which is a far more strategic game than this. It's like that. This is our only opportunity to turn the tables a little, even the score, so I'm sure you understand."