by Jon Gerrard
Reed Braun sat in the back row of his Calculus 2 class and wished that he was anywhere else. Learning how to change the base of a logarithm wasn’t going to help him in the real world. Besides it was a beautiful day—80 degrees and sunny. Sitting cooped up in school on a day like today was a waste as far as he was concerned.
Closing his eyes he leaned his head back and banged it lightly against the wall. Mrs. Barber had just announced that she was coming around to check their homework. Of course he didn’t have it. He had been out late with Vanessa and by the time he got in he wasn’t in the mood to focus on something his teacher probably wasn’t going to bother collecting. This late in the year the teachers were as tired of school as the students. Most of them had stopped giving homework and even when they did they didn’t bother to check it. The SATs, ACTs, and the Regents were all done with. Acceptance letters had been coming in for the past couple of months and most seniors already knew where they would be going in the fall. Everybody knew that these last few weeks were just a formality before they got their diplomas and moved on with their lives.
Apparently Mrs. Barber hadn’t gotten the memo.
Maybe it was time for a bathroom break. Mrs. Barber wasn’t that bad, as far as teachers went. In fact Reed actually kind of liked her, even though she was always riding him about his class work. She was always telling him that he had potential, that if he applied himself he could get A’s in her class. As it was he was getting B’s without putting in a whole lot of effort. And that was good enough. As long as he didn’t actually flunk anything he didn’t think his college future was in jeopardy.
But the thing he liked the most about Mrs. Barber was that she never turned him in when he took one of his extended bathroom breaks. He could be out of the room for most of the period and she wouldn’t say anything. Of course the looks she gave him when he returned always made him feel guilty for taking advantage of her good nature. But not so guilty that he was willing to waste an entire period learning something that had no practical value in his life—especially when a gorgeous spring day was calling to him.
Reed looked out the window and watched a few clouds that were floating lazily across the brilliant afternoon sky. Oh yeah, this was definitely a day to—
The nudge on his arm dropped him back to Earth.
“Hey, Reed.” It was Matt DeLuca. Reed fought down a feeling of annoyance. He didn’t have anything against Matt, but at the moment he wasn’t in the mood to talk to anybody. Actually, Reed didn’t know a whole lot about Matt. Even though they had spent the entire semester sitting next to each other in the back of Mrs. Barber’s class they hadn’t said more than a few words to each other.
“What?” Reed said, hoping he didn’t sound as annoyed as he was feeling.
For a moment, Matt seemed like he was going to pull back. Then, “There’s going to be a bomb scare this period.”
Reed pushed himself up in his seat. Now this was interesting. There had been a series of bomb threats over the past several weeks. Everyone knew it had to be one or more of the students behind the prank calls, but so far they hadn’t been able to trace them back to anyone.
“How do you know?” Reed said.
Matt looked uncomfortable for a moment.
“I heard some kids talking by the lockers on the second floor. They’re going to make the call in a couple of minutes. I thought you’d want to know because they’re always blaming you for whatever happens around school. But I know you’re not the one who’s been making the calls and I figured you’d want to stay visible so they wouldn’t try to blame this on you, too.”
Reed felt his mood pop like a soap bubble. Matt was right. This was not the time to go missing. Unfortunately it meant that not only would he have to stay in class now, but he was going to be herded onto the football field with the rest of the sheep once the bomb scare was announced. He could feel the frustration building. The football field was behind the school and surrounded by fences on all sides. Climbing one of the fences was no problem, but he’d be spotted. Although he wouldn’t be trapped in a boring class, he wouldn’t be able to slip away by himself like he wanted to either. And right now he was in no mood to be stuck in the middle of a crowd of yakking airheads.
“It could be worse,” Matt said, optimistically. “Hey, maybe Mr. Reynolds will let us go home early. After all it is seventh period. By the time the cops get here and finish searching the building we’ll be well into eighth, and then it’s the end of the day.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Reed admitted. That wouldn’t be so bad. He might actually get to spend some extra time with Vanessa after all. She still needed a lot of work. He looked at Matt and managed a smile. “Thanks.”
Matt returned the smile and sat back again.
Reed glanced at Matt’s desk and saw that he hadn’t taken out his homework either. Maybe they had more in common than Reed thought. In some way that he couldn’t explain he had always felt comfortable around Matt. Even though they had never really spoken to each other before, he had always felt some kind of a connection with him. That was unusual for Reed. He didn’t get along with most people. It’s not that he had a lot of enemies or anything, he just didn’t like a lot of people. People could be jerks and he always thought of himself as kind of a loner. He had a couple of good friends and that was enough.
As Mrs. Barber got up and started checking papers, Reed looked toward the front of the class. As usual the goodie-two-shoes were in the front row, sitting directly across from the teacher’s desk. Seated front and center was Manny Trujillo. Manny was one of the senior class officers. Not the president or vice president, but treasurer, secretary, number one suck-up or something like that. Actually, that wasn’t fair. He’d never done anything to Reed. They’d even been assigned to work as partners on a class project once and he’d been an okay guy. He didn’t act all full of himself like most of the other popular kids. It just got to him the way Manny always had his hand up. A real teacher’s pet.
Right next to Manny was Tom Gallo. Tom was the captain of the football team. He was also their star running back, which was weird because Tom wasn’t a hulking brute like most of the other players. Reed was six-foot-two and Tom was several inches shorter than him. But whereas Reed was tall and lanky, Tom was compact and toned. And there was no denying his skill on the field. Reed had seen Tom bowl over players a lot bigger than him when it seemed like he was going to get creamed. Other than that he didn’t know a lot about Tom either, except that like Manny he always sat up front and always seemed to know all the answers.
Actually, Reed usually knew the answers too, when he was paying attention. He just couldn’t be bothered answering questions in class. He did okay on the tests and that was all that mattered. Had he been sitting closer to the front of the room however, Reed would have been surprised to see that one of the two darlings in Mrs. Barber’s class didn’t have his assignment today either.
Manny Trujillo held down a job outside of school as a part-time manager at the “Grillin’ Chicken,” a local chain restaurant. Last night one of his people hadn’t shown up for the late shift and Manny had been forced to stay and close up. By the time he got home it was well after midnight and he was bone tired. Although he had dug out the assignment and started to work on it as soon as he got home, he had fallen asleep at his desk before he could even finish the first problem. He only woke up when his mother shook him awake the following morning. By then his alarm had been going off for half an hour. He had barely made it to school on time.
As Mrs. Barber stepped up to his desk, Manny dropped his head into his hand. The teacher continued past his seat without a word. Tom was sitting right next to him and did a double take. He couldn’t believe it. Mrs. Barber always had something to say whenever a student showed up without an assignment. While she didn’t try to embarrass you in front of the class the way some teachers did, she never let a missing assignment go without comment either. But he had watched her walk right past Manny’s desk as if she hadn’t even seen him.
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br /> Tom waited until she had moved down the row, then punched him in the shoulder.
“Ow,” Manny said, as he looked over at Tom. “What was that for?”
“How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Mrs. Barber. She walked right past you without saying a thing about you not having your homework.”
Manny glanced over his shoulder. Mrs. Barber was talking to someone in the back of the room.
“I guess she didn’t notice,” he said.
Tom frowned. “I don’t think so, dude. Mrs. Barber doesn’t miss a thing in her class.”
“So what, you going to turn me in?”
“Of course not. I just don’t get it.”
Manny shrugged. “I guess I just got lucky. That’s all.”
Tom sat back and narrowed his eyes at him.
At that moment the PA came on. There was another bomb scare. Everyone started grabbing their stuff. Tom and Manny got up with the others and headed into the hall. At least this time it wasn’t raining.
Chapter Two