Touchdown Tony Crowne and the Mystery of the Missing Cheerleader

by Peter Guy George

Tony was impressed with Judd’s new take-charge attitude. It must be the football player in him, he thought. When the game is on the line good players make good decisions. Tony cupped his hands to his mouth, leaned forward and yelled, “Excellent plan. Do you remember how to get to her house and all the possible routes?”

  Judd was halfway down hallway, heard Tony’s question, stopped running and hollered back, “Nope, don’t have to!” Judd raised his arm in a wave and burst through the school doors.

  “WHAT! Wait a minute! Where are you going?” Tony pleaded with a shocked face and outstretched arms as he ran a few tentative steps in Judd’s direction, realized he was too far away and pulled up. Tony ran his hands through his hair a couple of times, looked up to the ceiling and sighed, "Judd, what are you doing?"

  Chapter 9- The School Mission

  Ew, this is creepy, Tony thought as he crept down the dimly lit, deserted main hallway toward the school office. The last bell of the day had rung over an hour ago and, being a Friday, all of the students as well as the teachers had scurried away as fast as possible. Tony knew Miss Dingledine and Tom Pasquinel, the janitor/maintenance man, were usually the last to leave and lock up. He hadn’t seen Tom all day, but that didn’t mean anything. Tom kept a low profile unless someone threw up or a light bulb needed changing.

  As he approached the open door, he stopped a few feet away and began to tip toe. All he wanted to do was confirm that Ash was still in a meeting and hadn’t somehow gotten past him. He could hear papers being shuffled and little harrumphs resonating from inside the office. Miss Dingledine was definitely still there and the last thing he wanted was to have a conversation with her about what he was doing in the school after hours. He could feel his heart beating hard. His breathing getting shallow and that funny feeling you get in your stomach when you’re nervous as he inched toward the door.

  One more step, Tony estimated, ought to be enough to give me a good view into the office area.

  SQUEAK!

  Tony hadn’t kept his foot high enough on the last tip toe to prevent a sneaker squeak from escaping his shoe. The squeak was more impressive than normal because the empty hallway amplified the sound.

  Tony grimaced and called himself stupid. Miss Dingledine must have heard that for sure! Tony stood as still as possible and tried not to breathe so he could hear if she was getting up to investigate the noise.

  Options? Options? What are my options? Tony’s mind was racing at 100 mph. His gaze darted up the corridor and down the corridor. The school office sat exactly in the middle of a long annex that connected the front of the school with the classrooms located in the rear of the building.

  Hide somewhere? There was absolutely nothing that could give me cover and hide me from Miss Dingledine’s eyes. Option one? Disregard, he thought.

  He couldn’t bolt past the open door; she would see me for sure and probably tackle me harder than she tackled Judd. Option two? No way!

  I could just walk in to the office area and face Miss Dingledine—Option three? NO! NO! NO!

  Okay, okay, what about running toward the front door and veering off into the side hallway? The side hallway dead ends into the school cafeteria and at this time of the day the cafeteria doors were locked and the lights were turned out to conserve energy. That will give me cover! I can make it, I can make it. I know I can. Just don’t make any more noise! Option four? Do it!

  At the sound of the squeak, Miss Dingledine stopped shuffling her papers, cocked her head to one side and listened for a moment. She harrumphed, sighed, rolled her eyes and wondered out loud, “Oh, who could that be at this hour?” and pushed her chair away from the desk.

  When Tony heard her chair sliding out from her desk, he knew it was time to go. He figured it would take her at least three clickety-clacks to go from her desk to poking her head out of the door. He’ll need all those clickety-clacks to make it to that hallway, he thought.

  Clickety-clack! Tony’s legs felt like rubber as he tried to run fast and not make any noise. This is not an easy thing to do, he thought. I’m not running fast enough this way! Forget it, he reasoned, just run faster!

  Clickety-clack! Tony had a horrifying thought as the side hallway came closer and closer: how am I going to make that ninety-degree turn running full speed? I won’t be able to stop my momentum enough to avoid plowing into those metal student lockers!

  Clickety-clack! At the beginning of the third clack, the shiny, tiled floor gave him an idea. About eight feet from the corner, Tony kicked his right leg out in front of him, tucked his left leg underneath and performed a baseball hook slide on the slick surface. As he slid on his left thigh and calf, Tony reached out with his arms and caught the joint of the wall with both hands enough to swing his body around the side of the corner.

  His momentum caused his body to spin wildly after swinging around the corner; he saw the lockers looming toward him and dug his fingers and toes into the floor in an effort to slow himself down. His feet barely missed the lockers and as the rest of his body whipped around in the spin, he jammed his fingers harder into the floor and braked to within an inch of ramming his head into a steel door. He lay on his stomach, panting heavily, with his arms and legs outstretched like someone had played a game of tug of war with him and he was the rope. He lifted his head up, quieted his breathing and listened.

  Miss Dingledine stuck her head into the hallway, looking left and then right. Not seeing anyone, she called out in her modulated voice, “Hello, who is there?” She took a few tentative steps to her left, a few to her right, peering down each darkened hallway. Still not seeing anyone and thinking she had merely heard a random sound like the building settling, she shrugged her shoulders, harrumphed and turned to enter the office area.

  Yes! I did it! She must not have seen me! Tony silently celebrated his little victory by raising his left fist in a triumphant pump.

  BAM!

  In his excitement, he didn’t realize how close his arm was to the locker until he fist pumped it by mistake. Tony covered his head with his arms in anguish. He scrunched his face as if he was in severe pain and rolled onto his back, shaking his head and staring at the ceiling. He wondered how long it would take Miss Dingledine to swoop down the hallway and pick him up by his ear.

  At the sound of the bam, Miss Dingledine stopped in her tracks, pivoted quickly and strode back into the hallway. She placed her hands on her hips and thundered, “I heard you that time! Come out now! Do not make me come after you! I would be extremely unhappy if I had to do that!”

  Tony sighed, got up onto his feet, hung his head in a shameful manner and came within a step of the corner when he heard two bams in rapid succession: BAM! BAM!

  And again two bams: BAM! BAM! Then three quick ones: BAM! BAM! BAM!

  Tony flattened himself against the wall and peeked around the corner slowly so as not to draw any attention. He saw Miss Dingledine with her back to him, her hands on her hips and a shadowy figure advancing toward her. Who is that? What’s going on here? She’s not afraid of him, of course, she’s not afraid of anything, so she must know him.

  The shadowy figure finally came into a ray of light in the hallway and Tony could make out that it was old Tom, carrying a rubber mallet.

  “Mr. Pasquinel, I assume you were doing all the banging?”

  “Ah yep, Miss Dingledine, there was a locker door that was twisted and I needed to bang it hard to get it re-aligned. Didn’t want to do it during school—too loud. Might scare the young’uns. I got another locker near the cafeteria I need to bang on too. Only take a minute, gonna do that then head on home. Are you ready to lock up?”

  What! Oh, no, Tony thought, he’s coming down here. Now what am I gonna do? There’s no place to hide in this hallway either! My goose is definitely cooked.

  “There is a student/teacher conference that has been going on for far too long. I’ll inform Miss Brady that she must wrap it up so that we may vacate the premises. Oh, one other thing, Principal Richmond’s desk dr
awer has been sticking. Would you be kind enough to inspect that before you fix the other locker door? He has been having a terrible time with it.”

  “Oh, really? Hmm, I just fixed that durn drawer not too long ago. I’ve got the tool with me that’ll take care of it.” Tom raised the rubber mallet, grinned and walked into the office area followed by Miss Dingledine.

  “Bingo!” Tony said under his breath. Great. Now I know Ash is still here and she’s coming out soon. I gotta get out of here while I can before old Tom comes down this way. Tony tip toed across the floor to the front entrance, gently opened the door with its push bar and backed out of the school slowly, trying not to make any noise. He softly shut the door until it clicked and turned to walk down the steps—

  “TONY!” Judd’s face was exactly one inch away from Tony’s face when he hollered his name.

  “Ah-h-h-h-h-h!” Tony screamed with a surprised look on his face, flung his arms up comically and stumbled backwards against the school door with a thud.

  “Yah-h-h-h-h-h!” Judd screamed back at him, with an equally surprised look on his face, jerked his arms up like Tony and almost fell down the front steps before latching onto the stair railing.

  Chapter 10- The Walk

  Tony, bent over and with his hands on his knees, glanced up at Judd, laughed and shouted in a joking manner, “Don’t do that again! I almost had a heart attack. Do you know how ugly your face is that close up? Dang!”

  “Haw-har, Haw-har! I ain’t the only owner of an ugly face in this town! Whoa! You looked like an alien from outer space when you yelled and your mouth was wide open and that little thing in the back of your throat was jigglin’ all around. Haw-har. Haw-har!” Judd was swinging around on the stair railing like a monkey in the zoo.

  “Uvula.”

  Judd stopped swinging for second and asked, “What? What’s a yubola?” Then he went back to his swinging.

  “Uvula. U-v-u-l-a. That’s the name for the little thing in the back of your throat that was jigglin’ all around. Everybody has one. Even you.”

  “How do you know all this stuff?” Judd asked as he swung from side to side on the railing.

  “Dunno. I guess because I read a lot.” Then Tony suddenly remembered why they were at the school. “But that’s not important right now. What did you find out about Felicity? Where are they?”

  “They were right where I thought they’d be,” Judd said in a matter-of-fact tone as he became engrossed in swinging under the railing and making chimpanzee grunts rather than answering Tony’s questions.

  Tony had his arms crossed on his chest and was beginning to lose his patience. “And just where might this be?”

  “Down at Coach Tiny’s restaurant.” Judd made other odd noises besides the chimpanzee grunts, “Zing, zang, zooey!”

  Throwing his head back, looking to the sky and holding his hands up in disbelief, Tony barked, “How did you know they were going there?”

  Judd was doing a little tap dance up and down the stairs while holding onto the railing and pointing a finger above his head. “Lah, di, dah. Zipperoni. Dah, di, lah. I saw them there every day this week after school. Zingity, zangity, zooity! They love to share one of Coach Tiny’s monster banana splits. Doo, doo, dah, dah, di, doo. They were still eatin’ when I left. Zippity, zappity, doo, dah-h-h-h.”

  Tony smiled and said, “You know what? You’re a pretty smart cookie.” He teased Judd a little bit, “I don’t care what anybody says about you, you’re okay in my book!”

  “Huh?” Judd stopped dancing and looked at Tony.

  Ignoring Judd’s question, Tony frowned and said, “That’s awful strange that Felicity—”

  “And her toads!” Judd added.

  “Right. That’s awful strange that Felicity and her toads would make such a big stink to get revenge on Ash and then drop it and go have a banana split.”

  “A monster banana split.” Judd corrected.

  “Yeah, a monster split. It just doesn’t make any sense at all!” Tony closed his eyes, massaged his temples and paced back and forth. “They’re up to something. I just know it. But what? What are they going to do and when?” Tony caught a glimpse of movement behind the doors and warned Judd, “I think they’re coming. Don’t mention Felicity or the toads or the revenge plot to Ash or Miss Brady, ‘cause we don’t know for sure if they are going to do anything or not. There’s no reason to make her worried about nothing. If someone asks, we just happened to be walking by the school. Got it?”

  “Gotcha! You can count on me. Mister Reliable, that’s me. I won’t breathe a word. My mouth is on vacation.”

  The front door of the school building whisked open with Ash led out by Miss Brady.

  “Oh, look Ash. Judd and Tony are out here.” Miss Brady smiled, put her arm around Ash and said, “Ash told me she was good friends with you two.” Ash smiled and waved at them as Miss Brady eyed Judd and asked, “Did you come to walk her home by any chance? I don’t want anything to happen to one of my cheerleaders before the big game.”

  Judd, put on the spot because of Miss Brady’s question, couldn’t think of anything to say and stammered, “I think—I mean—Like, I don’t know.”

  Tony began to say, “Well, actually, we just happened to be walkin—”

  Judd blurted out in a long run-on sentence, “Ran down to Tiny’s Saw Felicity and the toads Eatin’ banana split Monster split Plottin’ revenge Ran back here Tony screamed at me I screamed at Tony We just happened to walk by and that’s the truth honest!” Judd slapped his hands on his face and covered his mouth.

  Tony looked at the ground and wondered how the super-confident football player he had just been talking to could change so quickly.

  “Oh, I see, I think,” Miss Brady said while squinting her eyes and unconsciously shaking her head no. “Well, you threw a lot of words at me in a short period of time.” She eyed Tony this time and asked, “Does that mean yes, you are going to walk Ash home?”

  Good, she didn’t understand much of Judd’s gibberish, Tony thought. “Yes, ma’am. We were just walking by and I remembered she mentioned having a meeting with you. So I said to Judd, let’s stop and walk her home.” Tony glanced up at Miss Brady, grinned and added, “And here we are!”

  Ash said her good-byes to Miss Brady, skipped down the steps, turned and waved to her. “See you at the game tomorrow!”

  Miss Brady waved back and yelled in her best cheerleader voice, “Go ‘Cats, beat those Lions!” and then disappeared into the school building.

  “So, what are you guys up to?” Ash asked as they walked down the school promenade toward Adena Avenue. “And don’t give me Judd’s two second version. I could only make out Felicity’s name and the word banana. Judd, why are you so nervous?”

  “Oh, that. Well, I—lemme see—I, uh—I, uh—” Judd rubbed his head, looked behind Ash at Tony and silently pleaded with him to jump in.

  “Aw, we saw Felicity and the toads down at Tiny’s having a monster banana split and Judd thought they were gonna get after him again like yesterday for calling them toadies so we came up here to wait for you. Plus, Miss Brady kind of makes him a little jumpy too, for some reason.” Tony stuck his hands into his pants pockets and looked at the sidewalk hoping Ash would drop the subject. The longer she talked about Felicity, he reasoned, the more opportunity Judd would have to spill the beans.

  “Judd, you’re twice the size of those girls. Don’t let them scare you. They don’t scare me.” Ash lectured with a sniff of her nose.

  “No, no, no. My Mom and Dad says under no circumstances am I to hit a girl. No, no, no.” Shaking his head, Judd added, “When I was little, I hit my Mom one day and made her cry. My Dad about hit the roof. He was so mad at me, he said I should be ashamed of myself and if I wasn’t ashamed of myself then he would be ashamed for me. Ever since then, I’ve never hit no one exceptin’ on the football field.” Judd picked up a gnarled tree limb and absentmindedly began poking the sidewalk with it as they walked home.<
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  “Well, I didn’t mean it that way, Judd,” Ash glanced up at him and continued, “I just meant that you shouldn’t become a scaredy cat when they raise their voices at you or point their fingers. Just because they’re loud doesn’t make them right and just because you made an innocent mistake in calling them toadies instead of ladies doesn’t mean you should let them walk all over you.”

  Judd nodded solemnly at her and poked the sidewalk a little more with the tree limb and said, “Oh, I know, I know, but my Dad said always treat people with good manners and they’ll treat you right and if they don’t then it’s not your fault. Besides, I overheard Felicity talkin’ about—”

  “AHEM!” Tony cut in sharply and changed the subject, “So Ash, what did you and Miss Brady talk about in your meeting?”

  “Hmm?” Ash looked upward, then over at Judd, then back over to Tony as they neared Lake Shore Drive and answered, “Isn’t that strange? I can’t remember what we talked about.”

  “Yeah, that’s really weird.” Tony muttered as he knitted his brow and wondered how someone could completely forget an entire meeting.

  “Hey! Look who’s waitin’for us at the edge of your yard! Come here, boy!” Judd clapped, flapped his arms like a bird, jumped up and down, slapped his thighs, clapped again, ran in place, danced his own peculiar ballet, but to no avail. Curly calmly sat and watched Judd perform his gyrations, occasionally tilting his head to one side when Judd would make an especially interesting pirouette. “Hey, what gives? We’re only a block away, surely he can see us?” An out-of-breath Judd panted to Tony.

  Ash, with both hands up to her mouth, is giggling too hard to answer and Tony has his face buried in the crook of his arm as he leans against a streetlight pole, his whole body shaking from laughing at Judd’s antics.

  “Come on, guys! I’m serious, I wanna learn how to get Curly to obey me. I thought I was his pal!” Judd begged as he stood with his hands on his hips in front of Ash and Tony.