Mojo

Mojo

All Dylan wants is mojo. What is mojo? It's power. The ability to command respect. It's everything Dylan doesn't have. He gets no respect at school, and when he finds the dead body of a classmate, even the police push him around. All the thanks he gets for trying to help the investigation with his crime drama skills is a new nickname at school: Body Bag. So when Dylan hears about a missing rich girl from the other side of town, he jumps at the chance to dive into this mystery. Surely if he cracks a case involving a girl this beautiful and this rich, he'll get not only a hefty cash reward, but the mojo he's looking for.  His investigation takes him into the world of an elite private high school and an underground club called Gangland. As Dylan—along with his loyal friends Audrey and Randy—falls down the rabbit hole, lured by the power of privilege, he begins to lose himself. And the stakes of the game keep getting higher. Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews , March 15, 2013: “Tharp’s plotting moves swiftly and succinctly; he injects just the right number of left turns and amount of humor to keep his readers guessing and laughing… Flawless fun.” TIM THARP lives in Oklahoma, where he teaches at Rose State College. He is  the author of the highly acclaimed YA novels Badd, Knights of the Hill Country and The Spectacular Now, which was a 2008 National Book Award finalist. Chapter 1 I never set out to look for Hector Maldonado. I was just minding my own business, walking home from my part-time grocery-sacking job. This was fall of my junior year, and I was one of the carless crew. So my skinny little work buddy Randy Skivens and I were plodding down the side of one of the busier streets in our Oklahoma City suburb, not far from the high school, having our usual conversation about nothing. Randy’s like, “In my opinion Death Race is the best racing video game of all time.” I wasn’t exactly the world’s biggest fan of racing games, but just for the sake of argument, I told him I thought Adrenaline Monster was the all-time best. He gaped at me for a second. “Are you kidding, Dylan? Even Supercharger Pro is better than Adrenaline Monster.” I’m like, “No way. That red car in Adrenaline Monster is the coolest car ever.” “You mean that classic ’69 Mustang?” “Yeah, I love that car. Matter of fact, as soon as I get enough paychecks put away, I’m going to buy one just like it.” “No you’re not.” “Sure I am. It’s going to be the fastest thing anybody’s ever seen. I’ll pull into the high school parking lot and everybody’ll be like, ‘Check that out. I’ve never seen anything so awesome.’ ” “No they won’t.” “You don’t think people are going to be impressed by a ’69 Mustang?” “Oh, they’d be impressed all right, but you’re never going to get one.” “Why do you say that?” “Because you don’t know anything about cars, and you’re never going to save enough money to afford a ’69 Mustang.” And that was when these two ape men in an orange Camaro drove by, and the guy on the passenger side unloaded a half-full beer can that hit Randy right in the crotch. Randy wasn’t a big guy, but he did have a big mouth and wasn’t exactly a genius, so he screamed one of his favorite obscenities and, in the direction of the Camaro, launched the single-finger salute, a.k.a. the “F” sign. As in “F” for fool. Because that’s what you have to be to flip off a couple of nineteen- or twenty-year-old vo-tech-dropout gearheads on a weeknight bender. The Camaro squealed to a stop. Randy and I looked at each other, bug-eyed. “You are an idiot,” I informed him. And Randy’s like, “Ruuuuuun!” So away we ran. Over the curb. Around our high school field house. Past the practice field. Onto the senior parking lot. Here, I have to admit I carry a few extra pounds, so I’m not exactly a track star. And it didn’t help when Randy stopped all of a sudden. “Wait a second,” he said. “What the hell are you doing?” He bent over and plucked something up from the ground. “I found a dollar.” He held up the bill like it was a winning lottery ticket or something. “Are you kidding me?” I said. “Come on!” Luckily, the Camaro couldn’t follow us directly but had to take the road to the east. Still, they’d hit the entrance to the parking lot just ahead of us, and doom would hammer us straight in the face if we didn’t do something. “Split up,” I hollered. “They can’t follow us both.” Without bothering to check which direction Randy took, I headed west and around the high school to the back of the building--behind the cafeteria where they dump the spoiled milk and the leftover rubbery Salisbury steaks. The slamming of car doors echoed through the cool fall-of-junior-year evening, so I knew the ape men were close at hand. There was nothing to do but hide, and with the streetlight glaring down, I didn’t have any shadows to duck into. So, reluctantly, I flipped back the lid of the nearest Dumpster, hoisted myself over the side, and plummeted into the dank refuse of high school. With the lid closed