Brutal

by Michael Harmon

  He grimaced. “We're not done, Ms. Holly. Sit down.”

  “Why? So you can figure out why I would make up a story about Colby Morris?” I crossed my arms and rolled my eyes. “Let me guess. You think I beat Velveeta up, blamed it on Colby Morris, and Velveeta is protecting me because he's madly in love with the woman who tried to kill him in the boys’ bathroom? That would be convenient if it was a TV show. The only reason you're here is to figure out how the district can get out of this without losing a lawsuit.” I shook my head. “We're done.” Then I walked out.

  On the way past Ms. Appleway, I took my ID badge from around my neck and flung it on the counter. “This place sucks.” Halfway down the hall, I stopped. Class was in, and the place looked like a ghost town. I stood at the doors to the courtyard staring across the emptiness, then looked up, thinking about what Detective Doorknob said about pressing charges. I turned around and walked back to the office. “Ms. Appleway?”

  She looked up. My badge still lay on the counter. “Yes?”

  I leaned over the counter. “Remember when Theo and I switched ID cards?”

  She nodded.

  “How specific are they?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I thought. “I mean, if you pulled my name up on the computer, could you tell I was here right now?”

  “Not exactly. I could tell what time you came in the building, what rooms you entered and exited, and what time you left the building, which would give me a good idea. Unless of course you went through a window. Then it would only tell me when you came in, but it would pick up what building or room you went in next.”

  “So the sensors don't keep total track of you?”

  “No. Just the entry time and exit time.”

  “Does it keep a record of it?”

  “Yes, but only for three days. The system only keeps truancies on file for longer. Otherwise it would overload.”

  “Could you do me a favor?”

  “What?”

  “Look up Colby Morris for me? Tuesday between nine-thirty and ten-thirty?”

  She thought for a moment. “I've heard the story, Poe.”

  “Then you know what I want. He was in there, Ms. Appleway You know he did it.”

  Her fingers flew over the keyboard, punching in Colby's name. A few seconds later, she turned the computer screen toward me. “See that list? That's the list of all the sensors he tripped from nine-thirty to ten-thirty.” She studied it, then pointed. “Okay. There it is. He left second-period room 132, the metal shop, three minutes early. Twenty seconds later he left the shop building, and thirty seconds after that he entered the main building. Sensor number 2234 was tripped at nine fifty-two. It was tripped again at nine fifty-nine.”

  I swallowed. “What sensor is that?”

  She smiled. “The boys’ bathroom.” Her hands flew over the keyboard again, a sly look on her face, and a moment later she reached under the counter and pulled out a sheet of paper. “Here it is.”

  I took it, smiling as I folded it in my pocket. “That puts him there.”

  Her smile widened. “It would seem so.”

  “Will you get in trouble for this?”

  “I know of no policy disallowing it.” She shrugged. “I'm sure they'll make one up after this, but that's another day, now isn't it?”

  “Thanks.”

  She picked up my ID card. “You'll need this.”

  I took it, searching her face. She was different. Different from anybody in this school. “Why do you work here?”

  She looked at me, then smiled, brushing it off. “I was a teacher for twenty-two years.”

  “But you don't like this school, do you?”

  She looked away, her old lady glasses catching the glint of the fluorescent lights above. “Sometimes a school loses sight of why it exists.”

  I frowned. “How?”

  She smiled, patting the computer monitor like a mangy pet robot dog. “Us old hacks call the school system The Beast for a reason, Poe, and even though it serves a high purpose, sometimes common sense and logic are lost in the politics.”

  “You sound like Theo.”

  She chuckled. “I spent almost three decades coming to work for something I believe in. Still do. The pendulum swings, though, and sometimes”—she eyed me—”somebody needs to make it swing the other way. Now off with you,” she said, shooing me away.

  Chapter Twenty

  The only problem with living in a small town is that the avoidance factor is impossible unless you dig a hole and bury yourself. Everybody knows everybody everybody knows who knows everybody and you can't avoid anybody. It was like walking around in a fishbowl, and any kind of privacy was like politics and honesty. Impossible.

  Anna Conrad waited at my locker after sixth period, her lip still swollen. I opened my locker. “How's your face?”

  She set her jaw. “We need to talk.”

  I stepped closer. The urge to take a handful of that beautiful golden hair and pull it out consumed every fiber of my being. I could almost feel the blond filaments clenched in my fist.

  She looked around, maybe hoping to find a friend, or an armor-plated Humvee, in the students swarming around us. “I didn't know Colby would do that.”

  I stared at her for a moment, and the anger slipped away almost as fast as it had come. I felt like I was staring at a first grader who'd accidentally set off a nuclear bomb and had no idea what was going on. “You're a sad little skank, you know that? Anna Conrad the pretty girl who didn't know. Boo hoo.” I grimaced. “Go make yourself feel better somewhere else.”

  She cleared her throat, then took a breath. Tears welled in her eyes. “Is he all right?”

  I stared at her. “No, he's not. But maybe you should drop on by with some cookies to make everything all better, huh?” I sneered. “Flip your skirt and show some ass and everything will be just fine, because we all know Anna Conrad can't do anything wrong.”

  She furrowed her brow. “What does that mean?”

  “It means you suck.”

  She looked me up and down, her face twisting in anger before she took a breath. “I'm trying to apologize.”

  “Is that what it says in the Anna Conrad handbook of how to do things right?”

  She looked down and away. “Shut up. It's not that way.”

  I laughed. “Yes, it is, Anna.”

  She hesitated, then drew herself up. “I was trying to apologize to you in the hall when you slapped me. About choir. I don't think it's right, but my parents pushed it. And I do feel horrible about the letter. I didn't think they were going to do that, and if I'd known, I wouldn't have written it. They said it was all in fun. Just a prank. Colby has had it out for Velveeta since he got here, but I never thought he'd take it this far.”

  “Well, he did, didn't he?”

  Her eyes flashed. “Yes, he did. But I didn't. And you can't blame me for that.”

  I shut my locker. “You're a rotten person, Anna, and the sick part is that you're too stupid to see it.”

  “It's not my fault.”

  I turned. “Don't worry, Anna, everybody knows you're an angel. Little Anna who didn't know is always a perfect little angel.”

  Her voice rose above the chatter of the few remaining students in the hall. “You're a bitch, you know that? You're the one who started this, and you know it, so don't put it on me.”

  I walked back up to her, ready to knock her teeth out. “What do you want, Anna? You want me to say it's all right? You want me to say you're not a rotten person?” I glared. “It's not going to happen. I don't like you and I never will.”

  Her hand came out of nowhere, and the slap echoed down the hall. Heads turned, and as my cheek burned, I stared. Her mouth was a slit, her own cheeks flush and red. “I told you I DID NOT KNOW it was going to happen. Any of it. And I don't want you to like me or need you to like me. I just wanted to try and make things as right as I could, because I know I was wrong.”

  She was ready, and I kn
ew it would be a heck of a fight. It surprised me. Anna Conrad had a backbone. I touched my cheek. “Wow.”

  She sniffed, then took a deep breath. “You're the one with the problems, you know that? Ever since you came here, you act like everybody is below you.” She stared. “You're the stuck-up bitch, Poe, not me.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “His car was totally smashed. We're talking baseball bat city. All the windows, everything.”

  Sunday afternoon waned away with the boredom only Benders Hollow could offer, and up to now I'd been wandering aimlessly around the house like an old woman with dementia. Until Theo knocked on the door.

  Now this. Theo and I sat on the front porch as a bruised and stitched Velveeta dug dandelions from his yard. I watched as he spit a wad of tobacco between his knees, bending back down to the never-ending supply of yellow-headed weeds infesting the lawn. He'd told me his aunt didn't believe in the chemical assassination of weeds on account of harming the environment. “You think he did it?”

  Theo laughed. “Who else would trash Colby's car?” He looked toward Velveeta. “The guy's got a death wish, Poe.”

  “And I suppose Colby thinks he did it.”

  “Oh yeah. Football man is on the warpath. Even with the little ‘investigation’ going on. He told Mark Garvey he was going to bust Velveeta's arms, and I believe it.”

  “Great.”

  Theo shrugged. “Monday will be interesting.”

  I'd told Theo about Detective Worthy, and he'd met my story with the typical Theo sarcasm I loved. I shifted from one butt cheek to the other. “So he gets away scot-free and Velveeta's going to die. Great.”

  “Life in rural America isn't what it seems.”

  “We've got to do something.”

  “I've been thinking about that, too.”

  “You have?”

  He fiddled with his shoelace. “Yeah. If we sneak up and hit him on the head hard enough, most likely from behind and with something large and heavy, we can drag his body out to a remote vineyard, chop him up into little pieces, and feed him to the squirrels.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Brilliant.”

  He shook his head. “Not really. I couldn't remember if squirrels were carnivores or not, but I think they might be if they're hungry enough.” He leaned back. “I'm also squeamish about cutting people into small chunks, so that poses a problem unless you do that part.”

  I watched as my dad pulled into the driveway. “I'm not the murdering type.”

  “Me neither, but I could be an accomplice or something. Like a Pulp Fiction type of gig. You saw it, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Travolta rocks, but Samuel Jackson made it what it was. Legendary shit.”

  Dad walked up the path. He nodded, a sack of books in one hand. “Hi, guys.”

  “Hi.”

  He gazed over at Velveeta, then focused on us. “What are you two up to?”

  “Nothing.”

  He smiled, nodding to the books in the sack. “Hey, we're going to be putting on an anti-harassment seminar at the school tomorrow to promote awareness. Would you two like to attend?”

  Being a good puppy in front of my dad, Theo agreed enthusiastically. I rolled my eyes. “Sure.”

  “You don't like that idea, Poe?”

  “Isn't that like inviting criminals to drop on by the jail and turn themselves in?”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps, but we've got to start somewhere.” He opened the screen door. “You'll get out of sixth period.”

  I smiled. “I'm there.”

  After Dad went in, I smacked Theo on the side of the head. “Loser.”

  “Hey, what? I'm always into social awareness programs. Anything to make the cogs in the collective machinery run smoothly.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  He laughed. “Well, he's right in an oddball kind of way.”

  “It's bullshit. So a bunch of victims and bleeding hearts get together and talk about how bad their lives are, have a good cry, then my dad and Halvorson get up and tell them how to be better punching bags. I've seen it happen before, and this place is no different.”

  He shrugged. “Well, if you're going to be a punching bag, be the best one you can be. That's what my dad always says.”

  “It's just stupid.”

  “Of course it's stupid, but at least he's trying. It's not like he can unleash a herd of meat-eating squirrels in the halls and watch the carnage begin.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, but it's lip service.”

  “We'll see. Sixth period tomorrow. Be there or be square.”

  Chapter Twenty two

  Monday burned by like a slow day in hell.

  The rumor mill was buzzing on high frequency, though, and by second period it was like a riptide sucking everybody under with it. Colby's pissed. Velveeta's dead. Did you hear? Oh my God, the shit is going to hit the fan. I was so sick of it by current affairs third period I almost left. Velveeta was nowhere to be found.

  I knew Halvorson knew about the car thing. You'd have to be dead not to know what was going on, and by the looks he gave Colby, I was right. I couldn't tell if he was expecting World War III to erupt or was praying to the god of public education for a break in the action.

  I figured Velveeta was lying low because he knew Colby would be after him, but I wasn't sure. I wasn't even sure Velveeta bashed his car. I hoped he hadn't, but I knew it didn't make a difference anyway. Colby Morris and Velveeta were going to meet in the end in a bad way, and nothing could stop it.

  Mr. Halvorson chose to give an hour-long monologue concerning the intricacies of the Patriot Act, which, while protecting us, has given the Homeland Security De part ment carte blanche to rip the Constitution to shreds. He thought differently, though, basically explaining that the security of our free nation was more important than focusing on trivial things like freedom.

  Next came PE, and with so much on my mind, I'd given up on the uniform issue. I'd be a peon and wear my stupid shirt. When I got to the locker room, most of the class had already suited up and were in the gym, and as I took my uniform from the shelf in the locker, I sighed, stared at it, thought about what I should do, then put it away.

  I walked into the gym wearing the shirt I'd worn to school, and Coach Policheck stood in front of the girls, hands on her hips. She glanced over at me, her jaw set in what my mom called angry stone. She raised her voice. “Are you happy now, Ms. Holly?” I stopped, looking at the line of girls. At least half of them, including Anna Conrad, wore their street shirts. No uniforms. I didn't reply but stepped past her and took my place in line. Coach Policheck shot me a look. “Well, now that everybody is here, we may begin. Those students who chose not to wear a uniform to class will immediately excuse themselves to the locker room to change. If not, punishment will follow. Mutiny is not allowable at this school.”

  I kept my smile inside. If mutiny was allowed, it wouldn't be called a mutiny. Vice Principal Avery would need a bigger office, it seemed. Coach Policheck stood waiting, even tapping her toe, and nobody stepped out. Coach took a deep breath in through her nose, then exhaled, her voice echoing across the gym. “This ENTIRE class will be given detention for three days if those who are not wearing their uniforms don't excuse themselves to the locker room.”

  Nobody moved. The boys at the other end stared, smiling, laughing, and shaking their heads. Coach Policheck grunted, taking up her clipboard and pen while she walked down the line, checking names. Once finished, she faced us again. “I will be speaking to Vice Principal Avery about suspensions for each of you not wearing your uniform.” She pointed to the bleachers beyond the volleyball nets. “You may take a seat until such a time that you wear your uniforms. Excused!”

  Half the class, over twenty-five girls, sat on the bleachers watching the other half play volleyball. I sat on the top row, my back against the wall. Anna Conrad hopped up next to me, silent.

  I looked across the gym, knowing the answer before I asked it. “You did this, didn
't you?”

  Silence.

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I quit choir today.”

  “Why?” I said, holding back my surprise.

  “My own reasons.”

  “You think this changes anything?”

  She stared across the gym. “I don't care if it changes anything.” We sat for a few moments, all the while Coach Policheck throwing us disgusted glances. “So this is what it feels like,” she continued.

  “What?”

  “Not doing what you're told to do.”

  I sat back, the brick wall cool. “You always do what you're told to do, don't you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So now you want to be a rebel.”

  “I've spent my whole life doing everything I'm supposed to do. Being an angel.”

  I smirked. “Well, I still don't like you.”

  “I don't like you, either. And the hair is stupid.”

  I laughed, looking at her low-cut tee with her cleavage hanging out. “Better than letting my boobs hang out so people will pay attention to me.”

  “Same thing, isn't it?”

  I thought about it. Damn, she was making it hard to hate her. “I guess.”

  “You have no idea how much trouble I'm going to be in.”

  I smiled. “My mom is a doctor. Rebellion isn't well liked around our place.”

  “Let me guess. Gone all the time and on your case when she's around.”

  I nodded. “Same with you?”

  She shook her head. “No. They're always around. It never ends. My mom thinks she's me.”

  A wave of guilty pleasure ran through me, but the guilt, something I wasn't too familiar with, seeped a bit deeper than I liked. “Why'd you quit choir?”

  She watched as a ball sailed into the bleachers, bouncing toward us before a girl caught it and threw it back to the court. “It's unfair what they did to you. You're better than I am.” She paused. “My parents went off the wall about it, you know.”

  I smirked. “So why did you quit, though?”

  She shrugged. “I hate singing.”

  I sighed, catching a fractious glimpse of the side of her life I didn't want to know about. The reasons why. It sucked, because I understood what she was talking about. Having a mother who wanted you to be something other than you were sucked, and it could make you hate the things you really loved. “You're awesome, though.”