Chapter #46The High School, Black Market Affair, part 3 by: Nostrum   You cool down your urges before stepping outside, noticing the trio of Audrey, Casey and Rebecca already gone. You check your wristwatch, noticing the first lunch period has already ended.
You also notice one of the janitors casually cleaning the area – an entry point so obvious, either side could slip in through one of them. Dodging them might cause alarm, so you react as Ms. Martinez would – walking past with a firm “excuse me, hope I’m not bothering”.
“Good day, Ms. Martinez.”
The voice and face look familiar – he's Jacinto, one of the few janitors you’re friendly to. “Buenas tardes,” you reply with a candid smile. You keep a steady step as you reach the stairs, glancing behind in case he acted strange. You move away from the basement, cursing your lack of insight while making a mental note to check them.
Ms. Martinez usually orders take-out from the cafeteria, but you choose to remain today. Eliza is there, but also Shirley Edwards – and between her in the teacher’s lounge and Ashley in the newspaper, you have all the gossip you need. (Shirley’s low profile also dismisses her as a target, at least before today.)
“Juli!” Shirley exclaims as she sees you with your tray, setting up some space. She’s thin and wears a gaudy one-piece dress with Mary Janes for shoes and a top knot straightening her curls by force. You never understood her enthusiasm when you took History classes with her; it seems she’s naturally so, but especially when gossip is afloat. “Did you hear about Coach Mathis’ affair?”
In the time it takes you to eat your meatloaf and veggies, Shirley has given you juicy info about the latest in the faculty. One note piques your interest, though – about Dorothy Hauser, an English and German teacher, deciding to change her look after last weekend’s date. You – Julia, that is – know that Dorothy rarely changes her attire, and the words “trying to look sexy” just don’t make sense to you.
Strategically, if either group was trying to aim for the teachers, she’d be a good choice. Easy access to the road connecting Edgefield, Tyneside and the other towns, a very solid grasp of German for coded calls, and a Tynesider for a boyfriend. If that guy was replaced, maybe they already did the switch. And if that wasn’t enough, the “pen case” she received as a gift blare worrisome alarms.
But of course, gossip is currency – both for Shirley and for the newspaper – and you’re forced to reveal your own date with Tony. Neither of them seem enthusiastic about him, and neither does Julia, but that changes when you tell them about Oceanside. (Shirley even asked if you slept with him. Julia would never – not that early – but your smirk is all you need to tell her.)
Yet, they can’t help but make that poignant question. “And what about Kinley?”
Well? You ask her. We spent last weekend with Tony. Which one do you prefer?
The answer is surprising. If Kinley doesn’t make his move...
You finish her thought as your response. “...maybe I’ll consider Tony’s proposal.”
--
It feels strange and cathartic to get one up on Claire after all these years. Compared to her attitude at home, here she’s respectful and attentive. You can’t let the opportunity to torture her a little pass you by – especially with something Julia hates with a passion. “Can anyone give me an example of the pluperfect past tense of the verb devorar in the subjunctive? Miss Anderson?”
She gulps, and you can see the sweat in her brow. “Uh... Si no fuera porque no estaba cocido, ya hubiera devorado la carne.”
Is that alright? You ask Julia.
She used the proper tense. You sigh, as even now she outsmarted you, but Ms. Martinez comes to the rescue. But she could have used a different conjugation.
You smirk. “Muy bien, Miss Anderson, but you could have used hubiese rather than hubiera. Think of the difference between ‘could have’ and ‘would have’.”
You study hers and the others’ reaction You don’t see Katie or her sworn rivals Phoebe and Krysta nearby, but you do notice a couple students baffled she made such a slight and insignificant mistake. (That’s what Julia’s telling you.) You notice she took it hard, though, as you see another friend of hers – Hayley Atwell – trying to comfort her.
You feel bad doing this, so you take the opportunity to be harsher with those who gave her the foulest looks. This followed as class ended, where you notice Claire having a brush with her archnemesis after another of the students in her class told the latter something. “You screwed up in Spanish, four-eyes?”
“It’s no big deal,” your sister replies.
“Besides,” Hayley claims in her defense, “good Spanish with a few mistakes is still better than no Spanish at all.”
“Like I need to know another language. The world knows English – that's enough for me.”
“Then why d’you need to point that out for me?”
“Because I find it funny that you take all this effort learning another language that won’t help you in anything and still fail. It’s laughable.”
You feel something awaken in you. You notice Claire’s wounded look – she may be a bother, but you won’t let anyone else mess up with her. “I suppose you must have stellar grades in English, then?”
Phoebe shudders, steeling only as she notices you flanking your sister. “Not the best, but passable.”
“Miss Anderson is a very good Spanish speaker, and I’m quite sure she’s a spectacular English speaker. I’d find laughable that you try to insult someone out of envy and have nothing to prove yourself.”
She huffs, but you know you’ve wounded her. “I don’t need to be a genius that speaks two languages to succeed in life.”
“You don’t need to speak more than two languages to be a prick.” Your response causes the school to howl in approval, particularly when you lean towards the dirty blonde menacingly, handing her a pink slip. “If I don’t see this in my office tomorrow, signed, you and I will have a deep talk, young lady.”
Phoebe looks at the slip and screeches. “Detention!?”
“Rooms 5B and 5D, young lady. After school. Don’t be late, alright?”
As Phoebe storms away, Claire turns towards you, confused. “Miss Martinez, why did you do that?”
“She had it coming, didn’t she?” You wink at her before returning to the classroom. She may never know it was her brother who did that, but this should make her day.
--
Classes have finished for the day, but you have one last important thing to do before you can return home. You know the school newspaper club doesn’t reunite on Mondays, being publishing day, but there will be people inside nonetheless, handling the week’s sales.
You step inside the clubhouse, noticing Ashley White and Joanna Kuntz talking to each other. You knock, calling their attention. “Hello there, girls.”
“Ms. Martinez!” Ashley responds. “Wasn’t expecting you here.”
“I wanted to talk to you about something,” you request. “Could you come to my office for a few minutes?”
After ordering Joanna to remain, and after following you to your office, you make her an immediate and poignant question. “Have you noticed something odd about your companions? I’ve noticed something’s wrong with David Anderson, but I was wondering--”
“You noticed it too?” Her response feels like she dropped a burden. “He’s freaking me out.”
“In what way?”
“Well... He feels distant. Like... he’s not there. It’s not affecting his work – I mean, he has always struggled with writing articles--”
Writing articles isn’t easy, you tell to yourself. And it’s not like anyone supports me.
“--but he’s the only one who doesn’t mind layout duties, and when he’s sent to cover something, he does a decent work. But the last week or so, his responses have been robotic.”
“I’ve noticed the same in my classes too. Have you noticed similarly odd behavior in fellow students? Something out of place for them?”
“Not exactly. Why?”
You take a great risk by demanding this from Ashley, but you could easily set this into a trap. You could create plausible deniability by pinning this on your replacement’s behavior and gather intel this way, but ultimately it’ll create a trail of breadcrumbs leading to you. You only hope Ashley feeds you enough clues before something else happens.
Of course, you must create the excuse first. “I’m worried, that’s all. You know how social media can influence young people into harming themselves, for example. Getting to them before they can do self-harm would help them in the long run.”
“You think David might want to harm himself?”
“I don’t think so, but I’d suggest having Wilma talk to him.” (That would be Wilma Richards, one of the school’s counselors.)
“Hope that helps him. I’m not sure if he’s journalist material, but he’s not a bad guy.”
“Will you keep me informed of similar cases?” you demand again.
“Sure, sure. Anything else?”
“That’d be all. Thanks.” As she leaves, you realize you just uncovered other people that could be potential threats. If the rogue agents replaced the counselors in school, they’d have access to potential recruits from kids seeking guidance for their future. And what better guidance than to test-drive adulthood through wearing skins of older people?
--
You arrive at your home after buying a notepad, ready to unpack all the intel. Today was recon; tomorrow, you’ll start sniffing them out.
As you set some pre-packaged dinner to eat, you receive a call from the burner from an unknown number. You answer it, and you hear the same synthesized voice. “GOOD EVENING. AM I TALKING TO JULIA MARTINEZ?”  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
| Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author