“Yeah, well, anyone who routinely helps themselves to someone else’s property isn’t exactly a nice guy.”
“You think he stole something of yours?” Brian frowned.
“I’m not saying another word. If he catches me, I want you to honestly be able to say you didn’t know anything about this.”
Brian clenched his jaw. “He’s out in the quad. He spends lunch out there smoking with the guys while I clean up in here. The workroom downstairs is usually free until after lunch, and then we all meet here to clean up the mess after these hooligans.”
“Downstairs? In the B building?”
“Yeah. But you need a key.”
Jil smiled. “Already taken care of.”
Brian looked worried. “Jules…” Jil turned around. “Don’t get caught.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
Chapter Fourteen
Before she could reconsider, Jil ducked out of the cafeteria by the door by the stage. She went quickly through the R building and opened the doors to B. It was eerily quiet there. All the students were in either the R caf or the G caf, with a few loitering outdoors smoking and throwing balls around.
The B building was the oldest on campus, and the chipped sandstone gave rise to a musty, old odor that hinted at secrets and lies. She felt a shiver run through her, which could have had everything, or nothing, to do with the draft coming in from the old windows.
Down the corridor was the high-needs classroom. She could hear the shrieks and gurgles of the severely disabled children. She scurried through the door as one of the kids came down the hall in his wheelchair, being pushed by a tired-looking staff member.
Jil descended the stairs to the basement. This entire building was seldom used, but the basement classrooms were especially vacant, only occupied when no other room was available. Even the portables had higher traffic than this part of the building.
The lower door creaked loudly, like a dying crow. It was heavy and smelled like rusting metal. When she let it go, it slammed behind her, its hinges having died a long time ago. Her heart beat faster and louder in her chest, and she stopped dead for a minute, listening intently. There were no students on this level. She peeked into classrooms as she passed, making sure. Not a soul.
Slowly, she inched her way over to the custodians’ lair. As she did, she looked up discreetly. No cameras down here either. She wondered if that was deliberate. She paused outside the door, her ear to the crack, listening. Silence.
When she put the key in the lock, it opened easily. She crept inside, closing the door quietly behind her. She only had a few minutes at most, and the painful thudding of her heart made her regret this almost at once. It was dark and dusty down here. It smelled bad, and it was far too empty and discreet a place for a school. Schools should be lively and bursting with activity. They shouldn’t have these tucked-in alcoves and spots where people could go missing. Easily. She made her way to the row of lockers on the far side of the room.
Easy enough for her, the lockers were identified with the custodians’ names. She picked up the combination lock on the door that said “Marcel” and spun the dial once around until it hit zero again. Then she put the lock to her ear and slowly turned the dial, making note of each number that produced a tiny click: 10, 21, 46.
She tried the first combination. It didn’t work. She reset the dial to zero and tried reversing them. 46, 21, 10. Nothing.
There were six different combinations of this set. Four more to go. On 21, 10, 46, the lock finally burst open. Quickly, Jil scanned the contents. A coat. Some old work boots. Posters of half-naked women. Of course. And on the top shelf, a key. A key to what? A piece of paper fluttered down from the top shelf as she removed the key.
The water stain on it was familiar. Pocketing it for examination later, she scanned the locker one more time. No box. Leaving the locker door open, she prowled around the room, stiffening every time she thought she heard a noise.
No other lockers were open. The room contained a small kitchen—a microwave, a table and plastic chairs, a mini-fridge. There was a couch and a small TV. A table for checkers. A mat with overshoes and boots. Wait, why did Marcel not keep his shoes in his locker? In fact, he kept nothing on the bottom shelf at all.
She went back to the locker, then bent and felt around the bottom. The floor was loose. She grabbed the lifted corner and pulled out the entire bottom shelf. It came out easily, revealing an old tin box, its lid dented at the corners—probably from repeated use.
She fit the key into the lock and opened the lid. “Wow.” She mentally catalogued the items, shocked at how many valuables were in there.
“Bastard,” she muttered as she retrieved it.
At the bottom, in the right-hand corner, was a blue velvet box. Jil snapped the lid open, and saw a white gold tension-set diamond ring. Bingo. She pocketed the ring and put the empty box back inside. Unless Marcel examined his treasures daily, she should have a short reprieve to distance herself. She frowned. If she only took back those two items, he’d know immediately it was she who had found his treasure.
She rooted through the box and carefully picked out four other articles that looked the most valuable. With luck, he’d be so distracted by the missing rings and tennis bracelets that he wouldn’t notice the loss.
A small leather box, dented at the corners, caught her eye, and she pried it out from under the weight of all the other odds and ends Marcel had packed into his box. She opened the lid and found an old-fashioned metal seal, a stick of crimson wax, and a small pile of familiar watermarked paper. She turned the seal over and saw a scripted SoA carved into the metal surface.
Who did these belong to? And what was the SoA?
Well, if the idiots didn’t have their precious seal and wax, perhaps they’d send fewer notes. She decided to keep that too. She was just replacing the box and the key when she heard a loud squeak—like a dying crow—followed by a loud bang. Shit. The door down the hall. Someone was coming.
She eased the locker door shut and snapped the lock tight, turning the dial back to zero just as the deadbolt shot back on the door to the custodians’ room. She tensed, her heart in her throat.
“Hey, Marcel!” she recognized Brian’s Eastern lilt from down the hall. The door stopped opening. In a flash, she ducked behind the door to the bathroom, holding her breath as her pockets bulged with her recovered loot.
Brian and Marcel entered together. “The boss is complaining about the mess in the senior caf,” Brian said. Jil heard a locker open and close.
“Yeah, well, tell ’er we’ve got lots of extra work to do with that damn graffiti. We don’t have time to worry about ketchup and mustard spills.”
Brian laughed nervously.
Jil leaned back against the wall, as far back from the door as possible, praying Marcel didn’t have to use the toilet.
“C’mon, we’d better go,” Brian said.
“Hang on. I’ve got something to do. You go ahead.”
“Naw, I’ll wait.”
“Go ahead!” Marcel growled.
“What? You gotta take a leak again?”
“What’s it to you? Wanna listen, faggot?”
Brian laughed again—strained and harsh. There was no help for it. He’d have to leave. “Don’t take all day,” he said. The door to the hall opened and shut.
Footsteps approached the bathroom. Jil was sure he could hear her heart beating. It felt like it would detach and slip right into the bottom of her abdomen, the way it was thundering. She fully expected him to close the door and find her. But he didn’t.
She heard the shifting of a lock and the squeak of the cabinet door opening. A box lid lifted and something dropped inside. The door shut and the lock slid back. Another hiding spot? How many did he have around the school?
Jil bit her lip and waited. Would he find her now? Shut the door to take a leak and get the surprise of his life? She’d have the advantage for a split second. She was pretty sure she co
uld take him.
But he didn’t close the door. Didn’t see her standing there. He left the bathroom.
She waited until she heard the squeak and bang of the door down the hall before she finally let out the breath she’d been holding and crept out of the bathroom.
She didn’t look back as she exited the custodians’ room and hurried back up to the part of the school that daylight reached. She purposely detoured to pass by the senior caf, catching Brian’s eye through the window. He barely looked up, but she knew he saw her. His slight nod and the relaxing of his shoulders gave him away. Marcel’s back was turned to her, and she didn’t wait for him to turn around. Instead, she headed toward the staff room to check her mail before bailing for the day.
*
Once at home and changed into comfortable clothes, Jil tucked the box with the wax and seal safely into the top drawer of her desk.
Then she took the ring out of her jacket pocket and studied it. It was beautiful. Expensive. Could it have been from Jess’s husband? She held it up, watching the diamond sparkling in the sunlight that streamed through her bay window. It seemed that the ring was making up for all the time it had spent in a box. She studied the inscription on the inside. L.A. & J.B. Who was L.A.? Her husband’s initials were M.B. Which was probably why the ring was in a box and not on her finger.
Jil slipped the ring onto the ring finger of her left hand. Watched the diamond sparkle a little longer. Imagined her own diamond ring being placed there. Someday.
She quickly took it off and placed the ring on the table. Now that she had it, she didn’t know what she was going to do with it. Presumably, she was the only one who knew it was missing (besides Jess, and the thief himself). She couldn’t very well replace it without explaining where she’d found it. Even if she snuck in to her office to replace it, she was sure Jess had scoured the place looking and would never believe she could have overlooked it. She could leave it in her mailbox, but Jess would know it was her.
She thought hard as she opened her laptop and began the first page of the report that would set her free from St. Marguerite’s. And by the time she crawled into bed that night, she’d come up with a solution.
The next day, Jil supervised the atrium. She saw Bex walking through on her way to her first period class. Good. She kept the ring in her pocket for all of her prep period, during which she learned that two of the senior science teachers—neither of whom she had met—were married. Really married. Living together. With seven children. They attended church on Sundays and six of their seven children were enrolled in Sunday school. That ticked two off her list. Finally, some good news.
When the bell rang for second period, she stood outside the hall to her classroom. The students filed in. From down the hall, Jil saw Bex approaching, eyes on the ground, as usual, and alone.
Jil quickly dropped one of Marcel’s stolen gold bracelets on the ground next to an empty locker, and retreated into the room. She heard Bex stop. Heard her breathe, “Wow.”
She came in, nodded to Jil, and took her seat.
“Hi, guys,” Jil said. They smiled back. Some yawned. Jordan put his head down on his desk.
“Miss, this winter is seriously long,” Joey complained.
“It’s only November.”
“It’s seriously gray, though. There hasn’t been sun for like four days.”
Jil looked out the window. They were right. It was cloudy, gray, and snowing for the three-hundredth time. “And just think, we’ve got four more months to go!”
“Miss, can we have like a party or something?” Kyle asked. His foot jiggled against the foot of the desk, sending a jolting rhythm through the floor.
“To celebrate what?”
The class groaned. Jil noticed that some of them were paler than they should have been. Joey had dark circles under her eyes. Wiley’s hair was greasy and hung in limp strands. She could hear a few stomachs growling. They weren’t in good shape.
“Okay, listen up. I appreciate that school is long and hard sometimes. But there’s still some stuff we have to get through. We have a test on Thursday, don’t forget.”
The class groaned collectively. Joey looked like she was about to cry.
“But,” Jil continued. “I have a proposition.”
“Yeah, what is it?” Kyle wondered out loud.
“Shut up, tard, and she’ll tell you,” snapped Wiley.
“Yo,” Kyle said, subdued by Wiley’s outburst. “Chill.”
“Whatever,” Wiley muttered.
“I want every single one of your butts in these seats on Thursday,” Jil said. “And if you score over seventy percent as a class, I’ll bring in Tim Horton’s donuts for breakfast on Monday.”
“Yeah!” Kyle yelled, thumping his desk. Joey grinned. Even Wiley cracked a smile.
“Timmie’s donuts!”
Jil smiled back at them, a little surprised at how well her simple tactic had worked. She realized that St. Marguerite’s was a mixed-background school, but she hadn’t expected such a response from a simple sugar fix.
Joey’s face dropped. “Miss, I’m dumb. I can’t get seventy. I’ve never got seventy on anything in religion.”
“Yo, me too,” Kyle said. “I’m not good in this class.”
Jil was amazed at the way they flaunted their deficiencies. Basic level religion. She’d thanked her lucky stars that she’d been assigned a basic level, but now she was starting to realize the implications. Her students really were struggling.
“I guess you’ll have to study,” she said simply. “Partner up. Make study dates. Take this seriously. And let’s see what we can do.”
For the rest of the class, there wasn’t a peep out of them. She reviewed all the information that they had covered in the past unit, promising to do it again tomorrow. The bell rang. The students got up from their desks. As they filed out, she heard Wiley and Kyle talking.
“What’s your problem, man?” Kyle said.
“Nothing. Leave me alone.”
“Whatever, fag.”
And then, a loud metallic thud, like a locker falling over. Jil jumped up from her desk and ran into the hall. Wiley had Kyle pinned to the locker. “Shut up. Do you hear me? Don’t talk to me, you fucking moron. Shut up with that shit!”
“Wiley!” Jil said. “Let go of him.”
“Yo, get off me, asshole!” Kyle said, his face red. He shoved back and Wiley let him go. Then he took off down the hall before Jil could catch him.
Kyle smoothed out his hoodie and shoved his hands in his pockets. His spiked hair had been flattened a bit at the back, and his skinny jeans were revealing even more of his boxer shorts than ever.
“You might want to look in a mirror,” Joey said, then giggled nervously.
Kyle just scowled at her. “What the hell’s his problem?”
“You guys need to cool it,” Jil said. “If you see Wiley, tell him he needs to come see me in my office.”
“Yeah, Miss. Okay. He’ll really want to hear that from me.”
“Aren’t you guys friends?”
“Usually. I don’t know who the hell pissed in his cornflakes.”
“Language,” she said tiredly.
“Sorry.”
She squeezed his shoulder. “Joey’s right. You should go look in a mirror.”
He might have smiled back at her. Just faintly.
When the mob scene had cleared, Jil went back to her desk. Bex was still sitting in the room. She’d almost forgotten about her.
“His dad just got deployed,” she said.
“Who? Wiley’s?”
“Yeah. He was home for a year, but has to go again next week. “
“Oh,” Jil said softly. “That’s hard.”
“He doesn’t want to tell anybody. Plus, let’s be honest, nobody wants to be called fag around here. And, Miss? I found this outside.” She opened her hand to show Jil a gold bangle.
Jil pretended to be surprised. “Wow. That’s nice.”
“Who do you think it belongs to?”
She shrugged.
“What do you think I should do with it?”
“Give it to Mr. Weekly. He’ll know what to do with it.”
Bex made a face, but hurried off. Jil counted five seconds, then followed her down to Buck’s office. She watched through the window as Bex handed Buck the bangle. He took it, a quizzical look on his face, and she saw Bex gesturing to the upstairs corridor where she’d found it.
As predicted, Buck got up and strode out of the office. Bex met her eye quickly then ducked down the hallway in the opposite direction. Jil made her move, almost bumping into them. “Oh, Buck. Good, I was just looking for you.”
“Hello, Ms. Kinness. I’m sorry. I’m just on an errand. Can we talk later?”
“You look busy.”
“Well, a student just turned in something rather valuable. I’d like to have a look at where she found it.”
“Was that Bex?”
“Yes.”
“She found a bracelet or something outside my classroom upstairs. I suggested she bring it to you.” Never waste an opportunity to score points.
“That was good advice.”
Jil followed him up to her classroom. The corridors were practically empty—all the students now in class or at lunch.
Buck scanned up and down the hallway, frowning.
“What are you looking for?” Jil probed.
Buck frowned. “This isn’t the first time something like this has happened,” he muttered vaguely. “We have a magpie in this school.” He strode over to Jil’s classroom and turned around, retracing the steps Bex would have taken to the exit. He ran his hands along the lockers and found the empty three that stood at the end of one row.
“Was it here she found the bracelet? She said it looked like it had just fallen out of a locker.”
“Maybe,” said Jil, though she knew perfectly well where it had been found.
Buck opened the first locker and scanned it, then opened the second. He ran his hands along the bottom of the metal box and found the loose flooring. With one short wrench, he’d pulled up the false bottom and stuck his hand inside. “Bingo,” he muttered, pulling up the box of tennis bracelets and Jess’s ring that Jil had placed inside.
UnCatholic Conduct Page 16