Grit | under construction

4.

[continuation of last chapter]

Sami's POV

I stood around at my locker waiting for Josh. He always met up with me at my locker, and my friends wouldn't leave me until he did. He didn't tell me that he had somewhere to go or something to do, and he wasn't acting weird today, so I'm trying to figure out what's going on.

"Where could he be?" I asked Bethany, as she texted some of her and Josh's mutual friends in an attempt to get ahold of him. I don't allow my friends to have Josh's contact info, so that was really all she could do. She shrugged, "I'm sorry Sami but I don't keep tabs on him" she said, which infuriated me. "Well maybe you should start keeping tabs on him!" I yelled as her, she flinched at my voice.

"Wait" some brown skin girl said, approaching my friends and I, "you and Joshua are still together?" she asked. Technically we weren't, but I wasn't gonna tell some stranger that. "If we are, what's it to you?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. The girl laughed, "well I heard Mabel Cano and Bubba Romero in the bathroom. Apparently, Mabel is going to your alleged boyfriend's house" she said. Anger filled me, I just wanted to rip Mabel to shreds.

"What's your name?" I asked the girl, somewhat changing the subject. "Miranda" she replied, "Miranda Gupta." I nodded, "you look like you're smart, are you good with computers?" I asked Miranda. Miranda narrowed her eyes at me, "are you assuming I'm smart because I'm Indian?" she asked. I made a face before answering. "If I say yes will it trigger you?" I asked sarcastically, as my friends laughed. Miranda rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Yes, I'm good with computers. It's not because of my race though, but because I'm in 'tech club'" she said, getting back on topic.

"Great! We're gonna do something, and we need your help for it" I said. Miranda put her arms down and relaxed a little, "depends, what do you need me to help with?" she asked.

"You see, Joshua lives in an easy access area" I said. "He has a condo like home, and there's a side ladder the leads to his room. We (motioning to my group) just need to find a way to get inside his room, then we'll hide in the closet. You don't have to come with us, but I am going to need your phone number" I continued.

"Okay?" Miranda said, sounding more confused than confident. "May I ask why you need my number?" she asked. I giggled, "I'm going to take pictures of them, and you're going to photoshop the pictures to make them look bad" I said. "Bad" Miranda repeated, "like drawing a mustache and devil horns on her?" she asked. I made a face at her, "girl no" I said, "bad as in make her look topless and naked. Add some hickies on her body too." Miranda's eyes went wide, I could tell she was innocent.

"One last question before I agree to doing this" Miranda said, "what do I get out of it?" I rolled my eyes at Miranda's question, why can't people just do things out of the kindness of their heart? "I won't ruin your life" I replied with a fake smile, "and if you do good, I'll be nice to you!" I continued. "Whatever" Miranda said folding her arms, "I guess I'm in."

"It's three o'clock" my friend Bella said, interrupting Miranda and I's conversation. "We need to hurry up, because we don't know how long Mabel will be at Josh's house." I nodded, "she's right" I said, "but we can't ask my sister to take us, because Josh knows what her car looks like. If he sees it in his driveway or nearby, he'll know I'm around."

"I can have my dad take us there" Miranda chimed in, "but you guys will have to find your own way home. He won't want to take all three of you home." I shrugged, "that's better than nothing I guess" I said, "call your dad."

***

"Okay, so here's the plan: Miranda, you go hide somewhere. Behind a car, in the backyard, just go somewhere. It doesn't really matter because I don't think Josh knows you. Bella and Bethany will climb up the ladder with me. Since it's hot out, Josh most likely has his window open. We'll hop in through the window and depending on how much time we have, we'll scatter around the room. I'll go under his bed, Bella is small enough to slither behind his stack of shoes, and Bethany will go in his closet. We'll all have our phones on silent, and we'll send any pictures we each get to the group chat. Use whatever pictures you like best" I said.

Miranda sighed then nodded, "got it" she said as she walked around the corner of Josh's house. She almost immediately came back around, "they're outside!" she exclaimed. My eyes went wide and my mind went blank for a second. "Okay we can still go with the plan" Bella said. "We can see them from Josh's room, so we just need to make sure that they don't see us taking pictures." Bethany nodded, "we're just gonna have to take off guards" she added. I smiled at the thought of still being able to pull this off. "Okay, deal!" I exclaimed as Miranda walked across the street and the girls and I began climbing up the ladder.

"You go to that window, and I'll go to this window" I said to Bella. "Bethany, you lock the door. Make sure nobody tries to come in." Both Beth and Bella nodded, as they went to do as they were told. Joshua and Mabel appeared to be talking or playing some kind of game, but as I was snapping through pictures, I was able to capture Joshua taking off his shirt. There were sitting sideways, so I didn't get his face, but it was pretty obvious that it was him. From there I concluded that they were playing truth or dare.

"Yes" I said to myself as I looked at the picture. Suddenly, I fumbled my phone and it fell in The garden down below. "Shit!" I said as I watched to see if Joshua or Mable would look this way. They turned in our direction, but they didn't look up. When they saw that nothing was moving, they must've assumed that they were just hearing things, and went back to what they were doing.

"Quick" I said to Bella, "call Miranda and tell her to give us a distraction. I doubt Joshua or Mabel know who she is so it won't matter." Bella nodded her head and called Miranda. "Listen, Sami dropped her phone in Josh's little garden thingy. We need you to create a distraction that'll give us enough time to find the phone." I could hear Miranda laughing, and I rolled my eyes. "I got it" she said, "I'll go to the front of Josh's house pretend I got a really bad cramp that's making me struggle to walk. Then I'll have them help me walk over to his right side neighbor, since the ladder is on the left side of his house, sound good?"

"Sounds good" Bella and I said in unison.

As soon as we hung up, we could hear Miranda running to the front of Josh's house. "Help!" she exclaimed, "my leg is cramping, help!" She even fell over for dramatic effect. Miranda's fake calls for help worked, as Joshua and Mable came over to help. "I got this" Joshua said, as he went to go pick up Miranda. "No, I need extra support" Miranda groaned, insisting that Mabel help. "Sure" Mabel said, as he aided Miranda's right side. "Take me to the bench over there" Miranda said, pretending to sound weak. She pointed to a bench that was across and then down the street. It was a several minute walk.

As Mable and Joshua began helping Miranda, I diligently climbed down the ladder. As soon as I got down, I spotted my phone. When I grabbed my phone, I quickly skimmed through the pictures and felt that we had enough. Plus, there was also pictures on Bella's phone. "Come on guys" I said, as I peeked down the street. I saw that Miranda was almost at the bench, and it probably wouldn't take long for Joshua and Mabel to get back.

The girls got down the ladder and we ran in the opposite direction. Once we were on a different street, we texted Miranda telling her to meet us at a nearby meat shop once Joshua and Mabel are out of her sight.

Mission Accomplished.