The Fourth Stall

The Fourth Stall is a 2011 contemporary realistic middle grade novel by Chris Rylander. With the help of his best friend and business manager Vince, sixth grader Mac runs a secret business as a “fixer” in his elementary school: He solves problems and provides services for fellow students—for a price. When Mac takes on a customer requiring protection from Staples, a legendary local criminal, he must decide the best way to deal with Staples’s harmful impact on his school while keeping his employees and himself safe. The Fourth Stall was a Texas Library Association 2012 Lone Star Reading List selection, a North Dakota Library Association 2012 Flickertale Award Winner, a Kentucky Library Association 2012 Bluegrass Award Nominee, and a 2014 Illinois Reads Selection. This guide refers to the 2012 paperback edition by HarperCollins Children’s Books. Content warning: Mac, the first-person protagonist, uses the term “pissed off” twice.

Plot Summary

Sixth-grader Christian Barrett is known to his elementary school student body as Mac. Mac is a “fixer”; for a fee, he can get needed items, provide services, and fix customers’ problems. He meets his customers in the fourth stall of the boys’ bathroom in the relatively abandoned East Wing of his school; the janitor keeps Mac’s office a secret from teachers and staff because he once utilized Mac’s services. Mac’s best friend and business partner, Vince, keeps the financial Books needed for their operation, while Mac keeps the Books that detail customers, their skills and needs, and what they might owe in terms of favors at any given time. Mac aims to help customers with any fixes they need and profit by doing so, leaving everyone satisfied.

As the story opens, Mac meets with Robert, a football player who needs tickets to an R-rated movie that he is not allowed to see but to which he already promised to take a girl. Mac fixes Robert up with the name of a movie theater employee who owes Mac a favor; this former customer will let Robert and the girl into the forbidden movie. Mac notes that Robert can pay with cash plus a future favor.

Then Fred, a third-grade customer, enters the stall. Fred nervously reveals that he just quit his role as a bookie placing bets in an illegal gambling ring headed by famed local criminal Staples. Fred now fears Staples and Staples’s henchmen. Alarmed that the legendary Staples is actually alive, Mac agrees to protect Fred. He arranges for a fellow third grader, Brady, to protect Fred during class, but Mac must bring Fred into the East Wing bathroom during early recess, lunch, and afternoon recess—his office hours for customers—to keep Fred safe. Fred uses the time to game on his DS quietly.

The next morning Mac arrives at his office early and is attacked by the Collector, the student Staples employs to collect past due debts from his gamblers. The Collector threatens to hurt Mac if he does not stay out of the conflict between Staples and Fred. Vince shows up early, and the Collector takes off. Mac planned to hire Tanzeem, a seventh grader, to provide Fred with more protection, but Tanzeem does not show up to meet with Mac. Mac’s bodyguard Joe learns that Staples’s henchmen beat up Tanzeem before school. Mac and Vince are hesitant to get embroiled in a conflict with Staples, but the more students lose their money to Staples, the fewer who will have cash for fixes from Mac. Mac and Vince have a lot on the line: Their business profits are almost enough to buy World Series tickets (a lifelong dream of theirs) if the Chicago Cubs win their next playoff series. They decide to try to rid the school of Staples’s influence altogether.

It is trouble from the start. Mac attempts to garner information about Staples from Ears, a trusted but cheap informant, only to learn that Ears already sold out details about Mac’s business to Staples. After school, Staples’s henchmen, including his right-hand man PJ, chase Mac, Fred, Joe, and Vince to beat them up. They all escape, but Mac decides they need reinforcements to take out the Collector. He hires nine of the school’s most infamous bullies, and they manage to catch the Collector at recess and scare him with threats and humiliation. As a result, Mac finds a dead mouse in his locker and is chased by a seventh grader working for Staples. With the help of his scariest bully, Mac defeats the seventh grader, but the next day all but three of his bullies are beat up and tied in an alley near the school. They quit, fearing more action by Staples.

Mac realizes someone in his operation is a snitch who feeds info to Staples. He, Vince, and Joe sneak into school early to check the locker of another bookie, Jacky Boy. They see that Brady owes more than he can ever pay in cash and assume he is the rat. Mac fires Brady and then decides to take down Staples’s head bookie, Justin Johnson. Mac and Vince go to a lake house Mac’s parents rented for the weekend, where they argue about the money the bullies are costing them. Staples vandalizes Mac’s house while the family is out of town, and Mac and his parents discover the damage when they return home.

On Monday, Mac agrees to meet Justin at the school’s storage shed the next day. Staples is in Mac’s kitchen when Mac arrives home. Staples offers Mac a job to end their feud, but Mac refuses. That night, Mac discovers a discrepancy in the petty cash account.

At the last minute, Vince cannot attend the meeting at the shed. After sneaking a look at Vince’s numbers, Mac determines that Vince is the thief. Upset and angry, Mac focuses on the shed meeting. Mac hides Joe and his three remaining bullies in the shed to jump out and take down Justin. Justin arrives, but PJ comes along and, knowing Mac’s plan, locks the shed door. Justin, PJ, and two other boys beat up Mac. That night, he confronts Vince about the cash discrepancy; Vince admits he took a few hundred dollars to help pay bills when his mother lost her job. Fearing that his business is falling apart, Mac tells Joe, Vince, and the three bullies there is still a snitch among them. He secretly hires Tyrell Alishouse, an excellent spy, to trail the others. Tyrell catches Vince on video meeting early the next morning taking money from Staples. Hearing this, Mac cuts school to bike home, where he discovers that the rest of their business accounts—almost $6,000—is gone. He assumes it was Vince who stole it.

Realizing his business is done, Mac sends word via Justin that he will work for Staples. In a final effort to save himself from that fate, Mac calls out the favor Robert owes him. Through his father, a police officer, Robert learns from Mac the true identity of Staples. He is Barry Larsen, a local criminal with a long rap sheet. The next day, Mac goes with Tyrell to Barry’s office, an old shed on his property. They find incriminating evidence of his gambling ring and a DS, which only shows received messages from Fred about Mac’s business. Mac now knows the true snitch. He returns to Vince to apologize.

The next day Staples comes to Mac’s office for Mac’s surrender, but Mac threatens Staples instead, telling him Vince and the others are at Staples’s office taking evidence and finding the stolen money. Staples attacks Mac, who tries to flee; Staples runs Mac down and drives him to the Yard, an abandoned construction site. Mac thinks he’s in for a dangerous beating when PJ and other high school boys arrive, but Vince, Joe, Fred, and the three bullies show up on their bicycles. After seeing the imminent trouble, PJ and the others abandon Staples. Mac and his friends defeat Staples in a physical fight and offer to help him run a legitimate business. Staples refuses their help and leaves town.

Though their friendship is repaired, Vince and Mac do not go to the World Series because the Cubs lose in the playoffs. Mac decides to add Fred to the payroll as an official recordkeeper. Mac’s reputation for defeating Staples brings his business to new levels of success.