Ever wonder what The Godfather would look like in a grade school?
Mac and Vince are a couple of enterprising sixth graders who have their own business. But where most other kids might run a lemonade stand or mow lawns on the weekends, these two, along with their muscle, Joe, solve kids' problems. Need help cheating a test? Want help to impress a girl? Want an M-rated video game? Mac's got you covered. Naturally his services don't come for free, but if your need is great he'll make an exception.
Lately however, those exceptions are hard to come by due to the fact that the Chicago Cubs are a hair's breadth away from the World Series, and Mac and Vince are desperately trying to save up enough money to buy a seat. Unfortunately, when a kid named Fred walks into their "office" those plans get put on hold thanks to Fred's crushing dilemma- a local legend named Staples is after him, and he needs protection. See, Fred used to work for Staples, taking bets on sports games usually at the Middle school and High school level. Staples rigs the bets to make sure the kids always lose. His agents are in almost every school in town, and he does not take betrayal lightly.
The book has two sequels, titled The Fourth Stall: Part Two and Part Three respectively. In Part Two, the duo meets a girl named Trixie Von Parkway who has it out for a new science teacher, while the school's new Vice Principal is introducing a new form of standardized testing called "the SMARTS."
In Part Three, Staples is back once again, this time in desperate need of the duo's services. Mac and Vince aren't interested in helping him as they've discontinued their business, until a new kid named Jimmy steps in, asking them if he can take over their legacy. After agreeing to let him do so, the two find out that they're not the only ones in the problem-solving business.
The books are fairly humorous, but delve into serious topics and even Black Comedy at times. Chris Rylander wrote the first book in 2011, the second in 2012, and the third in 2013.
The Fourth Stall series contains examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: Pretty much every adult in the series is either clueless, abusively neglectful, a disciplinarian, or downright evil. The two major exceptions are Mr. Kjelson and the janitor.
- The Heist: Each book has one, and they get progressively bigger. In the first book, Mac and Vince break into a kid's locker before school hours to find evidence of him associating with Staples. In Part Two, they break into the school after hours this time to rig the SMARTS test with the help of the bullies. In Part 3, they break into the admin offices during school hours to steal information off the computer system, using the help of an arsonist to distract everybody by causing a small fire.
- Noodle Incident: All over the place. Some are brought up and then explained in later books, but many go completely unanswered. Mac Lampshades this a few times, claiming to know the real stories behind incidents that are nothing but noodles to his fellow students.
- Poor Communication Kills: Pretty much every book has an example of Mac and/or Vince being manipulated by somebody because they weren't up front with each other, or someone else. In book one, Staples tricks Mac into thinking Vince has betrayed him simply by giving Vince money in a public place, as Vince doesn't know what Staples looks like. Then, when Mac accuses Vince of stealing his money, Vince assumes Mac is the one who betrayed him, and throws him out without trying to defend himself. In Part Two, Trixie/Hannah manipulates Mac into going after the science teacher Mr. Kjelson, who looks rather guilty when they ask him about her, making Mac think he's the one trying to shut down the school. Instead, it turns out that Hannah was merely forgetting to mention Mr. Kjelson's her father. In Part Three, Mac loses four thousand dollars to a robber he can't see in the dark, and assumes it's Staples. Then, when he confronts Staples right before they go after Kinko, Staples' sister, he rides off before Staples can even respond to the accusation. Turns out it was actually Jimmy all along.
- Serial Escalation: The stakes in the first book are high, but parts two and three make them feel nostalgic. In the first book, Staples almost breaks Mac and Vince's friendship and hurts some people but finally gets taken down without too many consequences. In Part Two, the entire school almost gets shut down by the school board, Mac and Vince get kicked off the baseball team, have to do hours of community service work, and almost get expelled. In Part Three, Mac actually does get expelled, the school suffers multiple crippling disasters at the hands of Kinko, and there's practically an all-out battle between Mac's friends and Kinko's friends at the end of the book.
- Shout-Out: Not only is the cover design and plot reminiscent of The Godfather Mac considers the film trilogy to be his favorite, and loves quoting it.
- And the Adventure Continues: The first book ends talking about Mac's next big customer, with Mac concluding that the tale is better left for another day.
- Badass Family: Tyrell is Mac's top spy, and it's shown that the rest of his family is just as devoted to his spy antics.
- Contrived Coincidence: The only reason Mac and Vince figure out how Staples' dad factors into the equation is because he happened to be visiting a random crazy woman who lived near a log cabin Mac and Vince happened to be staying at that weekend.
- Crazy-Prepared: Tyrell apparently not only knew Staples owned a pit bull, but also brought a two-pound steak with him in advance for just such an occasion.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Mac gets extremely irked when Staples insists on calling him Christian. Likewise, Staples reacts like he got slapped in the face when Mac first calls him Barry.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The reason why Staples is doing all this? It has nothing to do with his deadbeat father and everything to do with getting his little sister out of the foster system.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Staples tries to accuse Mac of getting in his way and forcing Staples to take him out, calling him a wannabe gangster. In response, Mac takes him down a few pegs:"No. This was your fault, Barry, not mine. I’m not the one with a dirty business. I make my money by providing a service, not by cheating kids. Plus, you did want to hurt me. How else can you explain sending Willis and that other kid after me, or trying to kill me with your car? You’re jealous, aren’t you? That’s why you’ve had it out for me from the beginning. You’re jealous that I have a business that works without cheating, that some little kid can run a smoother, more profitable business than you. And you’re jealous that I have a dad who’s not some drunken deadbeat slob."
- The Reveal: Fred was working for Staples the whole time. He was forced into it though, and he ends up working for the duo.
- 0% Approval Rating: After Mac and the gang unknowingly cause the whole school to fail the SMARTS his locker is filled with hateful notes and graffiti. Vince doesn't fare much better.
- Arc Words: "Girls are more dangerous than shotguns."
- Batman Gambit: Dr. George correctly predicts that Mac and Vince will, without him having to do anything, rig the SMARTS to give everyone a good grade. He merely replaces the test key with a false one, causing the duo to give everyone failing grades instead.
- Engineered Public Confession: Hannah uses her skills gained in AV club at the end to capture Dr. George screaming obscenities at Mac and Vince and ranting about how they ruined his plans. She puts the video up on screen in the theatre in front of all the parents, the Principal, and multiple other admins as well.
- Genre Savvy: Mac is pretty amused to meet a kid whose problem is how bad school lunches are, remarking that school lunches are supposed to be bad. Although the problem now isn't that they taste bad, but rather that they're extremely unhealthy.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: When Dr. George comes to try and catch Mac and his friends using the East-wing bathroom as their office, Tyrell vanishes like a ghost.
- Wham Line: At the very end, Staples comes back."I need your help, Mac,” Staples said, his smile as wide and as dangerous as it ever was. It still looked like he had more teeth than any human being needed. “Please?”
- Heel–Face Turn: Staples tries to turn over a new leaf, giving up his illegal business ventures and even helping Mac and Vince when they have to reopen their business. He's more devoted to getting his sister than ever, but this time he's doing it the right way.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Kitten sacrifices his carefully constructed image of being the school's Nice Guy and Book Worm (at least to the adults) by attacking a group of school admins with spray paint to buy Mac the time he needs to hack the school computers.
- Pyromaniac: Mac helps a kid named "Matches" of all things get an M-rated game called "Arsonist." And later on, uses him to distract the entire school so that Mac can hack the computer in the admin office.
- Serious Business: Great White, a bully originally from England, gets "marked" by Michi Oba, meaning she writes on his face with a permanent marker. She has an amazing talent of writing the one word you would most hate having on your face- for Mac it's "Narc" which is definitely a serious insult to a guy like him. What does Great White get marked with? "Manchester United.""But, Mac, I’m from Liverpool! Liverpool! I can’t have this rubbish on my face!"
