Verse 21: Debt Phones and Candy Wrappers

Elena yanked open a drawer and hissed, “Bingo.”

I rushed over. Inside was an old Nokia brick phone, the kind you’d expect to survive an apocalypse and still have two bars of signal. It was duct-taped to the underside of a thick blue folder labelled STUDENT INFRACTIONS.

“Oh come on,” I whispered. “Is this real life?”

Elena peeled the duct tape away carefully, lips pursed in focus. “It’s real enough. Let’s move.”

I glanced around nervously. The room was quiet except for the hum of an ancient ceiling fan and the distant thud of something crashing out in the hall. Probably Malik testing the structural integrity of a janitor’s cart with his body.

Elena flipped open the phone. The screen glowed a ghostly green.

No password, obviously.

Just a list of contacts.

“Wait,” I said, scanning the names. “These are just student names. No numbers, just first names and... dates?”

The top contact said “Tariq – 400 Kraps owed – 04/17”

“That’s... next week.” Elena’s eyes narrowed. 

She started scrolling. More names. Some she recognized. Some she didn’t.

My stomach sank. “Is he... tracking who owes him money?”

“Or who he’s planning to fail,” she said, voice tight.

We heard a sharp knock outside the door. Not from the hallway. From the janitor’s closet inside the office.

Elena froze. I instinctively stepped in front of her, which was dumb — I have the upper body strength of a tired squirrel.

The knock came again. Then a voice:
“Hey! Who’s in there?”

It wasn’t a janitor. It was a student. A senior, judging by the irritated tone and the confident turn of the doorknob.

“Shit,” Elena hissed. “Plan B?”

“What’s Plan B?!”

“Improv.”

She yanked open the cabinet under the desk. “In.”

“In?! That’s a crawl space!”

“No time, Davis!”

We dove in just as the office door creaked open. Through the slats in the desk, we saw a pair of boots walk in, pause, and shuffle around.

Then: a bag crinkled. A candy wrapper?

“Langston’s still hiding Skittles in the drawer,” the voice muttered.

The student — whoever he was — rummaged for a bit longer, then left. The door clicked shut.

We didn’t move for ten more seconds.

Finally, Elena exhaled and bumped her head against mine.

“That... was the worst Plan I’ve ever used.”

“Do you have a Plan C?”

“Yeah. Run.”

We bolted out the door, Elena clutching the phone like it was cursed treasure. Down the hallway, Malik spotted us and shouted, “GO, GO, GO!”

Sheila pushed over a trash bin dramatically. Keisha ducked behind a vending machine with Remy, who for some reason had binoculars

Where the hell did he get binoculars? And why was he using them with his sunglasses on?

We slipped out just as Sheila came running around the corner.

“Abort, abort! Langston's TA is on the warpath!”

We all scattered like roaches when the lights came on.

“Who’s there?” a voice boomed from the hallway.

Remy tripped over a mop bucket. Malik somehow ended up sprinting with two vending machine snacks he didn’t pay for. Keisha threatened the janitor with a citation she made up on the spot.

We didn’t stop running until we were back in the Loophole Club room. The door slammed behind us, and Noah turned with a grin like he already knew we’d made it out.

“You got it?” he asked.

Elena nodded and held up the phone like a prize on a game show. “Langston’s debt log. Names, dates, everything.”

Malik whooped. “Yo, we’re legends!”

“No,” Elena said, tired. “We’re witnesses.”

That sobered the room.

Noah took the phone and flipped through the contacts. “I thought it was an iPhone or something. What are we supposed to do with this?”

My question exactly.