Trouble | Billy Tepper -Toy Soldiers-

Seven

As she woke up, Shmem pulled the blankets closer to her and buried her head into the pillow. She had forgotten where she was for a second, but a loud banging on the door quickly reminded her. Some of the boys started getting up.

"Come on, Shmem, we have to get up." Joey said while yawning and shaking her gently. She groaned and sat up.
They all got dressed and went down stairs for breakfast.

In the cafeteria, they all grabbed bagels and drinks and sat down at a table.

"Joey, do you think you could draw the terrorists in this notebook?" Billy asked handing Joey a notebook.

"Sure, but how are we going to sneak this out? Throw it over the gate or something?" Joey asked.

"No. We'll think of something later but right now, we need to gather all the information about these guys in that notebook."

"What if they take the notebook and we get caught?" Snuffy asked.

"We're not going to get caught." Billy said.

"But what if we do?"

"I guess if we get caught, we get caught." Billy said.

"We have to at least try it. If we don't do something? Who will?" Shmem asked.

"Maybe someone else is planning something. We don't know." Hank said.

"Take a look around. Do you really think any of these other dick heads are up to something?" Billy asked.

"Who knows" Snuffy said.

"Guys, let's just do what we have to today, okay?" Billy told them.

"Fine" they all said.

After breakfast, everyone lined up for head count to go outside. The Headmaster told the freshmen boys, that he would like to see them outside, so Derek and Ted had to go with him.

Once they were outside, Billy turned to Shmem, Ricardo, Hank, and Snuffy.

"Stand over there and try to see what's happing outside the gate without getting caught." Billy told them.

"Joey and I will go talk to Gube. He brought a breakfast tray up to the guys on the roof. We're going to see if he saw what kind of guns they have."

"Okay" Ricardo said.

Billy and Joey walked off. Hank tried to look through the little opening of the gate's doors

"Guard!" Ricardo whispered. Hank stepped away quickly as a terrorist walked by.

Ricardo started smiling at Shmem, like he knew a secret.

"What?" Shmem asked him.

"I know you like Billy." He said.

"What makes you think that?" She asked.

"The way you look at him...how you pretend to like his ideas..."

"I'm not pretending when I like his ideas."

"You have to admit, they sound pretty crazy."

"You know what's crazy? Terrorists taking over the school and doing nothing about it...now, will you please stop acting like a little bitch and just do what Billy tells you to do?"

"We are doing what Billy is telling us to do. We're just scared." Snuffy said.

"I'm scared too. So is Billy and Joey. We're all scared but what can we really do?" She told them.

Billy and Joey came back.

"We got the information we needed about the guys on the roof. During lunch, I'm going to deliver a tray to the guys in the bell tower...get to work on those drawings, Joseph." Billy said grabbing his shoulder.