Framed

Melissa comes to Griffin’s basement with a digital phone that she links to his anklet. She tells him that once the monitor in the basement is turned off, the police department will still receive an unbroken signal. They test the device by turning on the cell phone and turning off the monitor. Griffin is able to walk out of his house and across the street to the neighbor’s yard. The green light on his ankle shines solidly. The garage door starts to rise, and Griffin sees his father standing inside. Griffin dashes into the house without his father seeing him.

To lure his parents out of the house, Griffin sends them an email from their attorney requesting a meeting at a diner halfway between Cedarville and New York City. His parents become excited at the prospect that the attorney has good news and agree to meet him at 7:30.

Logan, staring at a Hail Caesar playbill in the middle school, catches a glimpse of the pack rat from the corner of his eye. As he races toward it, Celia enters the building and the two collide. Celia tells him that she is proud of him. She says that since he has escaped Griffin’s orbit, he will be able to accomplish good things with his life.

The auditorium is packed for the performance of Hail Caesar. The posse notes that all four of the prime suspects are in the crowd. Even as he gives an inspiring performance, Logan keeps an eye on the various suspects seated in the audience.

The team uses nine rat traps, placing three on each level of the school. They bait the traps with a rolled ball of aluminum foil, which will attract the rat, and spray some of the special lure that Shank says will attract any nuisance animal. As they wait on the upper floor, Shank teases Griffin by grabbing the cell phone and asking if he can throw it 200 feet. As they talk, Mr. Curtis walks down the hallway. He is holding something in his hand that Griffin thinks might be the Super Bowl ring; it turns out to be a candy wrapper. As they watch him walk away, Shank points out that a rat is moving toward one of the traps.

The posse gathers at the pack rat’s cage. When Shank cannot take the rat out of the cage, Savannah takes over, painting her palm with peanut butter and putting a harness on the rat as it eats. They set it on the floor, attached by fishing line to a fishing pole that lets the rat run back toward its nest.

As the posse works on Operation Dirty Rat, Griffin’s parents at the diner have discovered that the attorney is at an opera. They realize that they’ve been tricked and ask out loud who could do such a thing, and “[w]hen the answer came to them, they both blurted it out in near unison. ‘Griffin!’” (194).

The team follows the rat through the hallways, trying to let it run without letting it get so far away that they cannot see where it has gone. As it increases its lead, Shank, who is holding the fishing pole, leaps over a chair and bumps into a door that locks behind him. The posse has no idea where he has gone. Since he does not have a walkie-talkie, they don’t know how to contact him.

The posse catches up with Shank, running through the hallways after the rat. He informs them that they ran across the stage during the play and everyone saw him and the rat. He says to Griffin, “Caesar says yo” (203). Knowing that they have been seen, others try to persuade Griffin to go home so he will not get in more trouble. He refuses, saying if the team gets in trouble, he will as well.

The rat leads them downstairs to the basement where it climbs to the rafters and hides inside the ceiling, 20 feet above the floor. Pitch scales the walls to the rat’s nest and sees the Super Bowl ring.

Because Pitch is too large to get into the ceiling and retrieve the ring, the posse makes a hoist of her rope and pulls Ben to the ceiling so that he can crawl inside. As the posse raises Ben to the ceiling, first Darren and then Tony enters the basement. Darren says he wants to sell the ring and will split the money with Griffin and the others. Tony insists it is his ring, so no one else will have it. Griffin says the ring belongs to the school. Once at the ceiling, Ben grasps the fishing line tied to the rat’s harness. The rat holds onto the ring as Ben is lowered, bringing the rat out of its hiding place as it descends. The rat lets go of the ring, which falls to the basement floor. Darren, Tony, Savannah, and Melissa dive for the ring, with Darren coming up with it. After a struggle, Darren breaks away and heads for the basement door, calling “Later, losers” (213). The kids realize Dr. Egan is watching them.

Arriving home, Griffin’s parents discover him gone. His mother sees that the anklet hub is turned off and, without thinking, turns it back on.

Dr. Egan asks Griffin to explain what has happened. Uncertainly, Griffin explains what has happened, with the pack rat stealing first his retainer and then trading it for the ring. He concedes, “It was the kind of story that your own grandmother wouldn’t believe, much less the toughest principal on Long Island” (216). Celia enters the basement, immediately assumes Griffin and his friends are guilty, and threatens the entire group, especially Griffin, with severe consequences. Dr. Egan confronts her, saying they have been wrong about Griffin, that he has been innocent the entire time. Realizing that they are off the hook, the posse relaxes, only to see that Griffin’s anklet has begun to blink.

When the light on the anklet turns red, Griffin realizes his parents have rebooted the monitor in his basement. He knows he will be arrested even though he has been vindicated. Dr. Egan grabs him and drags him through the crowd leaving the play. Driving frantically, Dr. Egan rushes to Griffin’s home, arriving before the police, who are closing in behind them. Dr. Egan pulls Griffin into the house and orders his parents to pretend Griffin has been home the whole evening. Detective Vizzini is amazed to see Griffin sitting innocently with Dr. Egan on the sofa. The principal holds up the Super Bowl ring and tells the officer that they found it in the school and that Griffin is innocent.

Celia resigns from the paper after giving Logan the only good review after Hail Caesar. She says she will write a book about Tony Bartholomew’s attempt to prove ownership of the Super Bowl ring, which Dr. Egan contends belongs to the school.

Griffin accompanies his father to an orchard to demonstrate the efficiency of his father’s new device, Vole-B-Gone, in capturing destructive voles. Secretly, Griffin has brought along Shank’s lure to spray on the traps, which attracts scores of voles.

Shank, at Griffin’s request, gets out of JFK and attends Cedarville Middle School, where he joins the football team. He helps Pitch get into a game in Darren’s uniform. With her one opportunity to carry the ball, she outruns all the other players and scores a touchdown.

Griffin reflects on how fortunate he is to have a group of friends who did not give up on him even when he gave up on himself.