Higher Learning

by Clare Kauter

  Tim opened his mouth to reply, but a knock at the door interrupted us. Tim frowned and gestured at me to hide behind one of the shelves. I did as I was told, despite my legs’ protests when I stood up again. Tim walked to the door and opened it slightly. Seeing who it was, he opened it all the way and greeted the person.

  “You can come out, honey,” said Tim.

  I squeezed out from my hiding place and found that Tim’s visitor was Joe Winton – James McKenzie’s handler, I was guessing. Joe had also gone to school here and like James had been friends with my brother. Also like James, he was a cop who worked for Harcourt, so Tim and I abandoned our previous topic of conversation when he joined us.

  “Hi,” I said. “You here to check in with James?”

  Joe nodded, biting his lip to hold back a smile when he looked at me.

  I sighed. “You can laugh at the uniform if you must, but I’ll remind you that I’m only here wearing this because you cops didn’t do your job properly.”

  He released his lip and smiled, hands up in front of him. “Right you are. I’m sorry; it’s just so weird to see you like this. I’m having serious flashbacks.”

  There was another knock upon the door and Tim let James in. The room wasn’t huge to begin with, but now with three guys plus me along with two desks and a bunch of bookshelves, it was uncomfortably crowded. Unfortunately there wasn’t really anywhere else for us all to meet. Here we were safe from snooping students and teachers alike.

  “How’s it going?” Joe asked James.

  James glanced at me. “Well, it turns out Charlie is way fitter than any of us knew.”

  “You already knew that I was pretty fit,” I answered, then died of embarrassment. Why hadn’t I thought that sentence through before saying it? I was glad the lighting in this room was so dim. Maybe the others wouldn’t be able to tell that I was blushing. Argh, not only was I attending high school again, but now I was acting like a schoolkid.

  “Right,” said Joe. “Cool. Um, I kind of meant to do with the meth thing.”

  James shrugged. “I’m not having much luck. There’s a cheerleading meeting tonight to organise the tryouts later this week, so maybe I’ll be able to make some headway there.” James paused. “I think you might have pissed off the head cheerleader today, Charlie.”

  “I think you’re right,” I replied. “That’s what Abhati seemed to think, at least.”

  James nodded. “You partnered up with her today. Are you friends now?”

  I shrugged. “I think so. Obviously we’re not close yet, but she seems cool.”

  “You should use her as your in. She wasn’t close friends with the girl who died, but she’s on the squad,” James said. “She could be useful.”

  I nodded. “I just don’t get why Chelsea hates me so much,” I said. “We haven’t even talked. I mean, OK, so I outran her. Surely she’d want someone fit on her cheerleading squad so that the team goes better. I don’t understand why she’s so competitive.”

  My statement was met with silence and a lack of eye contact from all three men.

  “What?” I asked. When none of them answered, I repeated more loudly, “What?”

  “Charlie,” said James, “you’re the most competitive person I’ve ever met.”

  “That’s such a lie. My friend Joanna is the most competitive person you’ve ever met.”

  James conceded my point with a nod. She had once pushed him into a pool to beat him in a backyard obstacle race that we’d mostly set up to entertain a child. “OK, that’s true,” he said, “but she’s not a normal margin of comparison.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that amongst average people, you are what would be classified as a little over-competitive.”

  My jaw dropped open. “How dare you? I am not over-competitive!”

  “Then why did you keep running until you’d nearly passed out just so you could beat her?”

  “Because you said I needed to prove that I was a good choice for cheerleader. What was I meant to do – drop out early to save her feelings and risk jeopardising the case?”

  James folded his arms. “You and I both know that you only kept going because she laughed when you missed that buzzer.”

  I folded my arms right back at him, narrowing my eyes. “Fine,” I spat. “I kept running because she was mean and I wanted to beat her. I don’t usually win races, but I wasn’t going to give up on one I could win. There’s no need to be so mean. Just give me this.”

  James smirked. “I get it,” he said. “Trouble is, Chelsea is kind of sensitive about that kind of stuff.”

  “Why?”

  “Because until the last captain died, she was only the second best cheerleader,” he said. “She’s probably worried you’re going to usurp her throne.”

  I frowned. “You don’t think she gave the other girl the meth to bump her off, do you?”

  “That seems a little far-fetched,” said Joe.

  “I agree,” said Tim.

  “You haven’t met her,” James and I said in unison.

  “Are you guys serious?” asked Joe.

  “Maybe you should tread carefully, Charlie,” Tim said.

  I nodded. Chelsea was jealous, but would she be that crazy? I didn’t know. What I did know was that I needed to get my competitive side under control. I’d have to swallow my pride and suck up to Chelsea to become her friend or else I might not be able to solve this case. And I needed to solve this case. I didn’t want to spend any more time at this school than was necessary. I shuddered. I hadn’t even made it through a day yet and I was already looking forward to leaving. To be honest though, I’d been looking forward to leaving before I’d even arrived.

  CHAPTER NINE

  We discussed the case for a while before the bell rang and I had to head off to my last class of the day. While I’d sat there munching on my tempeh and kale sandwich, feeling very healthy and pious (and also grateful that the Baxter & Co. chef was such a pro at making healthy food not taste like arse), we’d discussed the case. James wasn’t making a lot of headway, presumably because students weren’t that big on discussing their problems with a teacher, no matter how hot and young they were.

  I stumbled downstairs to the science labs for my last class of the day, still unsure of how to approach Chelsea. I wanted to befriend her, but I had no idea how to go about it. Making friends wasn’t really my thing. Unless I automatically clicked with someone, I wasn’t much good at pretending that I liked them.

  I walked into the room and sat alone at a bench, dumping my bag under the table. There was a bunch of stuff on the demonstration bench at the front, presumably belonging to the teacher, so I assumed today was a prac class. The teacher was nowhere in sight, but I hoped it was someone who’d been here when I was a student so they’d know who I was and that I definitely couldn’t be trusted with a Bunsen burner. I wasn’t even allowed to use the oven at my house for fear that I might burn the place down. Letting me perform experiments over an open flame just seemed like asking for a disaster. If the teacher wasn’t someone I knew, though, how exactly was I going to get out of this? No one had sat next to me so it wasn’t like I could just palm it off on my lab partner. I had no out.

  When the teacher walked in, however, it became immediately apparent that I needn’t have worried.

  “Good afternoon, everyone,” he announced as he walked into the room. “I know everyone hates last period science, but don’t worry – today we’re doing a fun experiment, I promise.”

  My jaw may well have hit the floor at the sight of him. At first I wasn’t sure, but as soon as he’d spoken I’d known that I was correct – that was him, alright.

  Elliot Bicknell.

  My ex-boyfriend.

  He’d, uh, changed – and that was putting it lightly. When I’d dated him, he was a slightly tubby, geeky kid who wore stained, ripped T-shirts and (shudder) a fedora. Now here he stood, probably the same weight as before but carrying it on his arms rather t
han his front. He wore a white button-up shirt and a navy blue tie with matching navy pants. His face was clean-shaven and he had black-rimmed glasses on. His eyes flicked over me as he spoke and I wondered if he recognised me – or if he even remembered who I was. Surely...

  But he’d clearly bloomed since our relationship. Maybe these days I was one of many rather than the only girl who’d ever agreed to go on a date with him.

  Wow. The teachers at this school had certainly stepped the hotness up a notch since I’d graduated. I found myself gawking at Elliot and wondered if it was just the transformation that I found so fascinating or if he really was that attractive. I decided that the next time I saw Abhati – she didn’t seem to be in this class – I’d ask if she thought Mr McKenzie or Mr Bicknell was hotter. Or maybe I’d just stalk Elliot on Facebook later and get my grown-up friends to assess him. Yeah, that seemed like a better idea.

  Crap. My friends! I’d almost forgotten that tonight was another one of Stacey’s ‘bonding’ activities. As far as I knew though, tonight was just a dinner party for our friendship group. Nothing as scary as the pottery class last night. My sculpture had been so terrible that the teacher had refused to put it in the kiln. Even Celia, who was usually encouraging of my attempts in Stacey’s many and varied classes, had thought it was a sculpture of a poo. I’d been trying to make a self-portrait.

  Yeah. Rough, I know.

  Elliot had brought up a document on the screen at the front of the classroom now, containing the instructions for what we were meant to do today. “Everyone split into pairs, please.”

  While everyone else in the class buddied up with their best friends, I sat awkwardly at the front. Elliot made his way over to my bench. Oh, god. Please tell me I wasn’t going to be that kid who had no friends and so had to pair up with the teacher.

  “Hey,” he whispered when he got close to me. “It’s been a while.”

  I guess he did recognise me, then. “It has,” I replied.

  “Don’t burn the school down, please,” he said. “Not in my class.”

  “Well, I was planning on it, but now that you’ve asked...”

  He grinned. “Hold on.” He stood up and pointed down the back of the class. “I believe I said pairs, girls.”

  “Aw, but sir –”

  “Chelsea, you come down the front here and join our new student – sorry, what was your name?” Elliot asked, turning to me.

  I fought back a smile. Elliot had my back.

  “Charlotte,” I answered.

  “Right. Chelsea, you come down here and join Charlotte.”

  Bingo.

  I heard Chelsea groan and stomp her way down to the front of the room. She plonked down on the stool next to me without glancing in my direction.

  She was next to me. Step one was complete. Now I just had to, you know, make her stop hating me.

  “Hey,” I said as cheerily as I could manage.

  “Hey,” she replied flatly, still not looking at me.

  “I’m really crap at science,” I said.

  “Wow, I’m so glad I got paired with you, then.”

  I swallowed. Now was not the time to get angry. Now was the time to compromise everything I believed in and pretend to be friendly. I was undercover – I wasn’t Charlie Davies. I couldn’t afford to lose my temper.

  “Yeah,” I said with a laugh. “Sorry. I’m not so academic. Sport is more my thing.”

  She set her jaw. “Are you trying to rub in the fact that you outran me?”

  I snorted. “No,” I said. “But how cool is it that you and I outran all the guys in the class?”

  “Pretty cool,” she said, although she sounded decidedly less enthusiastic about that than I was hoping. “If you hadn’t shown up today, I would have won.”

  “Oh, you totally could have beat me,” I lied. (It was a lie, right?) “I was about ten seconds from passing out when you stopped.”

  “Whatever.”

  Even my compliment hadn’t softened her icy exterior. I sighed.

  “You might have to man the Bunsen burner,” I said. “I’m like Seamus from Harry Potter when it comes to fire.”

  She looked at me blankly and I realised she didn’t know who Seamus from Harry Potter was. There was no doubt in my mind anymore: this girl was evil.

  “Fine,” she said, and she went back to ignoring me.

  Despite my many and varied attempts to engage her in conversation throughout the class, she simply answered in single words and then ignored me the rest of the time. She was not even impressed by my pun mastery. This girl was impossible.

  When the bell rang for the end of the day, I was both relieved and disappointed. Relieved that I could stop sucking up to her and disappointed that my sucking up hadn’t worked. I took my time packing up my stuff and putting it back into my bag until finally all the students had left and I was alone with Elliot. When the last student left, he closed and locked the door.

  “Don’t want anyone overhearing,” he explained.

  “Yeah, I got that,” I said.

  He smiled. “So... this is weird.”

  I nodded. “Yep. Incredibly.”

  “Wow,” he said, looking me up and down and shaking his head. His gaze made me a little uncomfortable.

  “You alright there, buddy?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just that seeing you in that uniform brings back memories. Although I have to say, you’ve changed a lot since we last spent time together.”

  “I could say the same to you,” I said. “Where’s your ripped Halo T-shirt with the food stains?” And the hat? I thought, but I didn’t want to ask that last question aloud in case I somehow summoned it.

  He smiled. “I threw that shirt out, would you believe.”

  “No, a treasure like that?”

  He rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling. “Anyway, it’s good to see you. What’s this I hear about you joining the cheer squad?”

  “Well, that was the plan, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen,” I said. “Chelsea’s not exactly my biggest fan.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Sat next to a boy and beat her in the beep test.”

  Elliot’s eyebrows rose so far they met up with his hairline. “You beat her in a running test?” He shook his head. “Wow. I don’t even know you anymore.”

  “If it makes you feel better, I didn’t decide to get fit by choice. I was forced.”

  “That feels much better, thank you,” he said. “You want to be on the cheer squad so you can get to know all the cheerleaders and maybe figure out the meth supplier, right?”

  I nodded. “But I don’t know if I’ll be able to convince her to let me on the team, even if I do somehow miraculously learn to cheer in the next day or two.”

  “Leave it with me,” he said.

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m one of the coaches,” he explained.

  I snorted.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that I know that James McKenzie is also one of the coaches and I don’t remember the two of you being all that close.”

  Elliot rolled his eyes. “To be honest, I can’t stand the guy, but I don’t really have a choice.”

  I forced a smile. “Right, yeah.”

  There was an awkward silence as I tried to figure out what to say. Elliot had known me in my McKenzie-hating era (which spanned most of my life), but now I was in a new era. The post-kiss, are-we-friends, will-they-won’t-they era. Of course, I couldn’t tell Elliot that. No one could know about that. That knowledge was only imparted on a need to know basis, and no one needed to know.

  My phone buzzed in my hand and I silently thanked whoever was on the other end for interrupting the awkward conversation. (The calls from my normal mobile were being diverted to my new undercover phone.) I apologised to Elliot.

  “Sorry, I’d better take this,” I said. “And I should probably head home.”

 
He nodded. “OK. See you tomorrow.”

  “See you.”

  I answered the phone as I left the classroom and walked out into the corridor.

  “Stace,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “Hey, Charlie,” she replied. “Do you think you could grab some wine on your way home tonight?”

  Of course. There was a dinner party tonight. I’d almost forgotten.

  “Uh...” I looked down at my school uniform. No one would serve me while I was wearing this. “I might have to come home and get changed first, but sure. I’m coming now.”

  “What? Why are you coming home so early?”

  I realised that Stacey didn’t know about my undercover mission.

  “I have the coolest story to tell you tonight,” I said. “Top secret.”

  “I love it already,” she breathed. “Come home now. Maybe I’ll just get C to bring the wine. I want to hear your story.”

  I checked in at the library before heading home to see how Tim was going. When I walked into the office, I found Tim talking to James.

  “Good effort trying to befriend her,” Tim said when he saw me. “Don’t think it did much good though.”

  I shrugged. “I did my best.”

  “You didn’t even yell at her when she was being a total bitch. You might have some potential with this undercover thing yet.”

  “You didn’t make any progress?” James asked.

  I shook my head. Tim said, “Not on the case.”

  James frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “She definitely made some progress flirting with her science teacher.”

  I felt my face going red and glared at Tim, praying to Aphrodite (the only god or goddess I could ever remember) that he would shut up. I finally managed to bring myself to glance at James. He looked amused by the whole thing, which just made me more embarrassed.

  “You mean Elliot?” James asked.

  Tim nodded. “Yeah. There was some serious banter going on there – right up until the part when he said he hated you, James, and Charlie panicked and left.”

  James put his hand over his chest. “I’m so flattered that you defended my honour.”

  I glared at him, angry that he didn’t seem to care that I’d been flirting with another guy and furious at myself for caring about that. Had our kiss really meant that little to him? OK, so it had been ages since it happened and we hadn’t addressed it yet. Was it just a silly spur of the moment thing? Well, if James was so unconcerned about it, then I supposed it was time for me to move on as well.