The Shadow Club

The Shadow Club is a book written by Neal Shusterman about two middle school students, Jared Mercer and Cheryl Gannett, who see themselves as the "second best" students in their school at the activities that they do best. They form a club called the Shadow Club, consisting of other students who also consider themselves to be "in the shadows" of people who are better than them at the things they are good at. They start out by pulling pranks to humiliate their enemies, the "unbeatables," but after another student, Tyson McGaw, catches them at one of their meetings, they decide to lay low to keep suspicion off themselves in case he tells people about their meetings. Despite their plan to stop playing pranks until someone really deserves it, much nastier things begin happening to the "unbeatable" kids. The Shadow Club is convinced that Tyson is playing the tricks to frame them, and they begin terrorizing him for revenge and to try to make him confess to the pranks, almost driving him to suicide.