I started talking before he could announce me. My nickname bore little resemblance to my real name, so there wasn’t much point in saying it. “My name’s...my last name’s Shaefer, but my friends back home called me Fi-Fi.” I folded my arms and stared at the other students. I could see a couple of guys open their mouths to say something, but I glared at them, and they drifted into silence. I created my own aura of intimidation and shook everyone up—almost.
The large guy sitting in the back row cackled. “Now I know why she looks like a dog.” The entire room laughed, pretty much ruining my forceful first impression.
“Clinty!” The teacher snapped. “Are you looking for another suspension? You know I’ll do it.”
Clinty shut up, and the rest of the class clamped down on their own laughter.
Mr. Haplin turned to me. “Sorry. Tell us about your look. It’s quite different. Is blue hair the thing in Indianapolis?”
“Not quite. Just in Broad Ripple. A lot of people dress like this, though nowadays you see more vampire children than anything else.”
Mr. Haplin nodded and smiled but kept any conclusions to himself.
“Well, class, take the time to welcome...Fi...Ms. Shaefer...on your own time. I’m sure you’ll have a lot to learn from each other.”
Hap grabbed a large spiral-bound booklet from his desk and held it out to me. “This is our material for Perionne Folklore. We’re reaching the end of it, but I suggest you study it on your own, as the material will be on the first test at the end of September. So, you only have a week. I’ve also attached a schedule. After that, we’ll begin on the textbook.”
I took the offered papers.
He turned, approached his desk, and sat on the edge of it.
“Now...Fi-Fi...this provides the rest of us with a unique opportunity. Turn to page twenty and tell me what you know about Gunther Stalt.”
I flipped through the handout as I replied, “Gunther who?”
“Oh, come on,” a student whispered.
I opened the handout to a newspaper clipping. A head-and-shoulders photograph of a middle-aged man stared back at me, his gaze glaring off the page. His hair, which hung down to his broad shoulders, appeared to be graying, though it was hard to tell from the Xerox®. The headline to the article read “Perionne Local Robs Bank.” A second clipping screamed the headline, “Stalt Still at Large.”
“You just handed it to me. How am I supposed to answer that question?”
“Puh-lease.” This time, I could tell the comment came from Clinty.
“I see,” Mr. Haplin said. “So, living in Indianapolis, you’ve never heard of Gunther Stalt?”
“No. Not a word. I guess he robbed a bank.”
Disbelieving laughter filled the room. Hap turned toward the group. “Class! Now, Fi-Fi. What would you say if I told you Gunther Stalt is as famous here in Perionne as, say, Kelly Clarkson or Donald Trump are around the world?”
“I guess I’d have to take your word for it.” On the next page, another headline caught my eye. Dated November of 1992, it read, “Ghost of Gunther Sighted by Former Girlfriend.” A sketch of a scarecrow-like apparition accompanied the article. The apparition extended its left arm, with a hook for a hand, foreshortened and out-of-proportion, as if the character were reaching off the page toward the reader. I couldn’t help but smile at the melodrama.
“This proves an important point.” Hap strode to the dry-erase board and started scribbling with a bright green marker. “A lot of folklore is regional.” He underlined the word. “In fact, most folklore is known only in a specific area. The Robin Hoods and Johnny Appleseeds are few and far between.” He turned toward the class and smiled at me.
I couldn’t help squirming. Oh, shit. I’m starting to become the teacher’s pet. This isn’t happening.
“Now. Who can tell Fi-Fi about Gunther?” He looked at the front row. “Steve?”
A clean-cut, average guy in a gray Nike® polo shirt answered. He looked at his desk as he spoke. I had a better view of the swoosh on his left pocket than I did of his face. “Gunther robbed the Perionne National Bank in 1978. He disappeared that night, taking the money with him, and he has never been seen again.” He lowered his voice. “Unless you count the ghost.”
The class tittered.
Hap chose to ignore the comment. “Right. Now, does anyone know why this was such a big deal?”
I certainly didn’t. Judging from the silence that followed, no one else did, either.
“Ah,” the teacher declared, his tone chastising the class as a whole. “You all thought you could fake your way through the discussion without reading the material, didn’t you? Thought you knew everything about Gunther? Chuck, why is he such a big deal?”
Chuck shrugged, but offered up, “I guess because people started seeing his ghost afterwards.”
“Well, that’s true. The ghost of Gunther.”
A quiet murmur buzzed around the room.
Hap waited for the class to settle down. “In general, folklore has a habit of tying back to the supernatural or fantastic, and Perionne folklore is no exception. The facts behind the folklore relate to someone who died under mysterious circumstances. In this case, Gunther Stalt.” He waved a hand in the air to dismiss the topic. “We’ll get to that in a minute. Why did people start seeing Gunther, though? What created the excitement?”
Nobody answered.
“Think, kids. How many bank robberies have occurred in Perionne?”
Not too damn many, I would guess, but nobody raised their hand.
A hint of frustration leaked into Hap’s easygoing façade. “You kids remember Hank Simone last year? They picked him up the next day in Michigan. Remember Fred Lionel? What happened to him?”
One student called out, “His girlfriend found the money crammed in his mattress.”
A few people chuckled.
“Correct. What happened to Gunther?”
Steve raised his hand. “Nothing. He was never caught.”
“That’s right, Steve. An unprecedented situation. It had never happened before, and in fact, hasn’t happened since. Now, here’s what you would have found out, had you read your articles.”
I had scanned the article while Hap talked and found the answer a few seconds before he asked, but thought it might compound my popularity problem to volunteer a correct answer.
“Gunther’s bank heist is the only unsolved robbery in Perionne.” Hap paused to let the fact sink in. “Think about where you live. We’re a fairly closed community. Everybody knows everybody. What do we know about each other? Clinty smokes marijuana in his Dad’s tool shed. It’s not something I normally bring up in class, but Michelle McKinley and George Lewis were discovered messing around behind the large pine tree near Baptism Lake last month.” Hap raised his hands, wiggling his fingers into a pair of quote marks while saying “messing around”.
I cringed, wondering if Michelle and George attended the school and would have appreciated being used as scandalous examples. American Folklore Lesson Number One: Better be careful, or I could wind up as an example in next year’s class.
“Gunther robbed the bank wearing a white mask. There was no clearly identifiable picture taken of him by the security camera, but all the eyewitnesses positively identified him. Why? Because they knew him. They recognized his jacket. They knew he had his hand in his pocket to hide the prosthetic arm and hook. They knew his walk. They knew his voice.”
Silence settled into the room. At last, Hap had everyone’s attention.
As if he sensed enlightenment dawning upon his class, Hap’s voice grew more animated.
“In theory, it’s nearly impossible for a local citizen to commit a felony in Perionne. Quite simply, you’re going to be found out. From a parent’s perspective, it’s one of the great attractions of living in a small town. I’m not saying that to scare you. It’s just a fact. Yet...the article tells us Gunther escaped authorities. It was many hours before the police found the body of J
eff Crimley—Gunther’s accomplice—dead in the hospital parking lot.”
Hap scrawled a second word on the board: mystery.
“Okay, class. What mystery are we talking about?”
Hands shot up around the room. I listened while scanning an article about a middle-aged lady who’d seen Gunther’s ghost staring at her on numerous occasions. The article featured an accompanying photo of Gunther Stalt and a young woman, petite with dark hair and a wide smile. The year under the photo read 1966; the article’s dateline read 1990. The article identified the woman as Mary Steeber, Gunther’s high school sweetheart, and further claimed Gunther’s ghost stalked her almost every night. Apparently, the ghost got its kicks torturing the exes.
The smiling image of Gunther held me for several seconds before I turned the page. Even in the old photograph, his aggressive, mesmerizing personality shone through.
“They never found the money,” one student said. “Dad says Gunther still has the money, and it’s cursed.”
“There was no body,” a second, feminine voice called out. “Gunther is still alive and pretending to haunt people. He’s living in another town and coming through Perionne every now and again to scare people. That’s what I think.”
Hap paused. “Ah...right. You’re all correct in one way or another. There’s no money, no body, and not one policeman found any clues, except the getaway car. Gunther eluded authorities until the trail ran cold. Which brings us to our next topic. What happened? Jen touched upon one of the more colorful ideas going around, although I admit, it’s more plausible than the ghost sightings we’re always hearing about.”
“Hey,” Clinty called out. “My pa told me he saw Gunther. He was driving North on Summit street, and he looked out the window and saw this guy hitchhiking, only the guy was holding out a hook. Pa got so freaked, he skidded his car onto the shoulder of the road and went right through the body.”
“Yes, Clinty. Fantastic stories like your father’s keep everyone talking about…”
“Are you calling my pa a liar?” Clinty’s beefy fist pounded the tabletop.
I cringed, fully expecting foam to spew from Clinty’s mouth. A laugh, sharp and purely involuntary, escaped my lips. The rest of the class had kept their responses to a quiet murmur, so my outburst proved loud and cutting—unfortunate for me.
Clinty turned in my direction. His look said it all: You’re dead meat.
Great. Just what I need. Clinty as an enemy.
Hap, oblivious to the drama playing out in the form of exchanged glares, pressed his argument. “I’m not calling your father a liar, Clinty. The situation has created the proper conditions for people to think they’re seeing a ghost, because that’s what they want to see. Such as the Loch Ness monster that is really a floating log.”
“Pa didn’t drive through a floating log, Hap,” Clinty said. “You can’t drive through anything but ghosts. Gunther is dead, all right, but he has a score to settle. We just don’t know what it is yet. That’s what my pa told me.” A hint of intelligence lit the blustering bully’s eyes. Only for a moment, and then it flickered out.
No one spoke. Nobody else wanted to contradict the volatile redneck. They didn’t care to be next on Clinty’s shit list—right beneath me.
“Well,” Hap said. “This has certainly stimulated passionate conversation. Let me ask you kids. How many of you believe in the ghost of Gunther?”
Clinty’s hand shot up, along with the rest of the back two rows. Certainly not an accurate poll, but five others—over half of the rest of the class—raised their hands as well.
I listened without comment, even as the opening notes to “The Twilight Zone” theme played in my head.
* * * *
I opened my locker and stashed the photocopied handout on the shelf. When I reached for my English book, two pairs of hands grabbed me from behind and pinned my wrists against either side of the locker frame.
The old locker ambush. Clinty couldn’t wait until lunch or after school. He wanted to get into it right here. Stupid me had expected something clever—or at least subtle—from him. I wouldn’t make that mistake, again.
Between the two of them, Clinty’s eager helpers subdued me with ease, whipping me around to confront him face-to-face. I didn’t fight. The pair of large brutes could easily manhandle my 105-pound frame even if I did struggle.
Panicking wouldn’t help me, so why bother? Besides, the anger flaring in Clinty’s eyes at my decided lack of cowering made it all worthwhile.
The two thugs made quite a show of jerking me from my locker while keeping my arms pinned to my sides, pulling me into the middle of the hall for everyone to see. I cursed my own stupidity and Clinty’s lack of forethought at this attack, but I knew my chance would come. I just had to wait him out.
They didn’t realize where I’d come from or what I could do. On my old turf, I had to fend off the drunks and drug addicts looking for an easy mug-and-grab or looking to steal something they could trade for another fix. Then, there were the college linebackers. After a couple of drinks, they all thought they were God’s gift. All I needed was a little persuading.
These pricks would be simple in comparison.
The two laughing buffoons, mistaking my submission for defeat, had already loosened their grips on my arms. The thug on my right even released one hand to scratch his head. I restrained a reaction, even when Clinty circled behind me. I could feel his eyes checking me out. I wasn’t at all surprised when a large hand prodded against my shirt and groped one of my boobs.
Still, I yelped, and my face flushed.
Clinty sauntered in front of me. “Laugh at me, will ya? Think you’re so smart, do ya?”
A crowd gathered to see if they could get their sensibilities assaulted.
The two henchmen pinned my arms around my back, then shoved me toward a grinning, drooling Clinty. “Three against one. Pretty brave, assholes.”
Clinty reached out and gripped a handful of hair, pulling until my eyes watered. “Wha’s this? It’s a blue-haired bitch in heat!” He snorted a whistling laugh. “Hey,” he said, thrusting his chubby face so close to mine, I could smell rancid chewing tobacco on his breath. “Is this all the blue hair you got? I’m curious.”
One thing I’d learned in Broad Ripple—when a stranger underestimates you, play the game, but make it count. Surprise only works once.
I made it count.
I kicked out. The toe of my combat boot connected with his shin. It cut through his jeans, and he yelped in pain. His grip slackened on my hair.
Throwing out my elbows, I dropped toward the floor and slid through the hold his cronies had on me.
I thrust my hand into my jacket pocket, where I kept a studded leather strap for situations like this. The looped leather eased over my knuckles. I pulled my fist out of my pocket, drew back, and smacked Clinty in the face with everything I had.
All three hundred pounds of redneck staggered, his head whipping sideways from the impact.
My other assailants turned and bolted.
Clinty shifted his head back into place. A look of stunned stupidity slipped across his features. Blood poured from his nose. It seemed to dawn on him that his friends had disappeared. His panicked gaze darted around the growing crowd, realizing that whatever the outcome, this fight had become public.
People started yelling. Whether they cheered against him or for me made no difference to me.
He screamed and charged, but I had already moved away from the lockers, punching at his chest while I backpedaled down the hall. I waited a few beats, sidestepped his attack and set my legs. I drew both arms back, hand wrapped around the studded leather. I waited until he charged me, then I slammed my fists into his rib cage.
The blow made a popping sound that brought a hush to the crowd. Clinty teetered and veered toward the wall, losing control of his knees. He went down with a crashing thud, right into the row of closed lockers, and more closely resemble a falling oak tree than a human
being.
Something snapped inside me, and I lost control. “Small town shit! I’ll kill you!”
The crowd burst into an enormous cheer—not that I paid much attention.
All the frustrations from the last few days gathered in my dinky, lightweight body and then erupted. I pounded Clinty’s face, chest, and stomach. I kicked and punched and clawed and screamed until two teachers and a group of students managed to pull me away.
The vice principal wasn’t amused. Neither was Mom. She pulled up right behind the ambulance.
Both Clinty and I got suspended. The Vice Principal told me to go home. Clinty would be taken to the hospital. The school nurse said Clinty had a broken nose, needed stitches, and probably had several cracked or broken ribs. I seriously doubted the part about the ribs, but that didn’t keep the school nurse from saying it loudly and often to any teacher or faculty member within hearing range.
I walked the gauntlet to Mom’s SUV, overhearing the awed whispers of my classmates.
I stood near a small group in various branded shorts, T-shirts, and running shoes. Apparently gym class had stopped so that everyone could gather to watch the paramedics wheel a moaning Clinty toward his ride.
His gaze found me, and his body jerked like a wild animal. “I’ll get you for this, you bitch!” I grinned back at him and waved, knowing it would infuriate him even more. Lying on the gurney, beaten and bruised, his threats fell flat.
The crowd turned as one, taking a step back to give me room or make sure they weren’t next. I thought I saw stares of respect—or fear.
* * * *
Mom did not take the news of my suspension well. She hadn’t said a word the entire trip home.
With a distant feeling of dread, I sat in the living room, sinking into the darkened leather couch. No sense trying to avoid the inevitable. Part of my mind admired how the matching leather chair and glass tables fit so much better in this new house than in the old one. After years of wondering about my mother’s taste for big, expensive furniture, I realized she’d finally found the big, expensive house to match.
Haunting Blue Page 2