Revenge of the Homecoming Queen

by Stephanie Hale

  “Is she okay?” I ask, watching him bend over Mom to take her pulse. My heart is racing in my ears and I almost don’t hear him.

  “She’s going to be fine, Aspen.” He gets on a radio clipped to the top of his shoulder and starts firing off demands. Within seconds the tiny basement is filled with men in uniform. I’m cut free of the beam and chair by a particularly handsome officer of the law. Mom is carried up the stairs on a stretcher and rushed to Comfort Memorial.

  I walk over to where Angel is sitting and kneel down beside her. In one quick motion I rip the duct tape from her mouth. She screams at the top of her lungs.

  “That’s for saying I wear knockoffs. But just think, now you won’t have to get your upper lip waxed for a few more weeks.” I unwrap the tape from her other arm and legs and help her stand.

  “Very funny, Aspen.” She rubs her Angelina Jolie looking lips.

  “Seriously though, Angel, are you all right?”

  She smiles and nods. “She didn’t feed me much so I probably dropped a whole dress size. It’s all good.” She pulls on the front of her cheerleading skirt to see how baggy it is. Good old dim Angel. She gets kidnapped and almost killed and she’s excited about losing weight. If I didn’t despise her so much, I might actually like her. She reaches over and swipes the tiara from Amy’s head, pulling several strands of Amy’s hair with it. She places it back on her own head.

  The same officer who freed me wraps a blanket around Angel’s shoulders and escorts her up the stairs. As she walks up the stairs she turns to look at me and raises her eyebrows. I immediately recognize it as her trademark, “Damn, he’s hot” look. I kind of admire Angel. Not her fashion sense, because she has none. Not her loyalty, because she has none of that either. I admire her resilience. She just spent almost a week in hell and she’s already on the prowl. Maybe she’s not so bad after all.

  Amy stays seated, looking dejected, even after she is cut free. I guess the news about her not really qualifying for queen was just too much for her to handle. Just wait until she finds out that no one even realized she was missing. I’m thinking she is going to be standing in line behind Lulu for some intensive psychotherapy.

  Lulu is lying on the floor motionless. Her eyes are glassed over and she looks more like a lost little girl than a serial kidnapper. It must be hard to know that you used to be beautiful. I think it would probably be easier being born ugly so you don’t know what you’re missing out on. I can’t help but feel sorry for her, especially when I hear her stomach drop over all the other commotion in the basement. Her eyes go saucer-wide and she starts yelling. Her words aren’t making any sense so nobody is paying any attention to her.

  “If somebody doesn’t get her to the bathroom, like pronto, you guys are going to have to call in a biohazard team,” I tell the officer standing next to me. He and a few other officers stand Lulu up and lead her up the basement stairs. On her way up, she turns toward me, and mouths, “sorry.” I think she might actually mean it. She never meant to hurt anyone. Things just got out of control. Too bad she’s going to spend the rest of her life paying for it.

  Harry walks up to me and I have the distinct feeling I’m about to get the lecture of my life when he grabs me up in a bear hug. Eww … can you catch hair? Okay, it’s not really THAT bad. It feels safe in Harry’s hairy arms.

  He releases me and says, “Aspen, you should have come to me. You could have been killed.” He hesitates, and then continues, “But I probably wouldn’t have believed you. You did a brave thing today. You saved your mom and Angel. Who was that other girl?” he asks, confused.

  We enjoy a good laugh when I explain who Amy is. Amy finally agrees to be escorted upstairs and most of the other officers have cleared out. Something on the craft table catches my eye and I walk toward it.

  “Oh my gosh, look at these” I tell Harry, picking up one of Lulu’s creations.

  “Holy voodoo dolls, Batman.” He laughs, picking up a miniature version of himself.

  Lulu created miniature versions of all of us with painstaking detail. My doll is exquisite. Her hair is the exact same shade and texture of my own and her violet eyes match mine exactly. Mini-Aspen is dressed to the nines in a pink cashmere sweater edged with pink fur, a black wool pleated skirt and teeny black Prada stilettos. My eyes lock on the bag in mini-Aspen’s hand. Lulu custom-made a Dooney. It’s a pale pink bucket bag adorned with tiaras. OMG! I’ve got my own personalized Dooney! Could it be more perfect? I have to have this doll. Mini-Aspen makes Evening Gown Barbie look like trailer trash. Lulu is a genius, well, you know, for a psychopath and all.

  “Please tell me I’m not really this hairy,” Harry says, holding a doll that could double as a gorilla. The only reason I know it’s supposed to be Harry is because of the badge pinned to its chest.

  I stifle a laugh; after all he did just save my life. “Let’s just say that a trip to a professional waxer wouldn’t kill you.”

  “After seeing this, I think I’ll actually go.” He shakes his head and sets the doll back down. He picks up the Angel doll that is wearing a tiny cheerleader outfit. He flips her over and sure enough she’s got a miniature tramp stamp on her lower back. We both start cracking up.

  “Lulu’s so talented. How could she base her whole life’s worth on one guy dumping her?” I ask, picking up the Rand doll. The afro tells me this doll was made before his spectacular transformation. He’s still adorable though. I make mini-Aspen and mini-Rand kiss.

  Harry watches me and smiles. “I know somebody else who was pretty concerned with what other people thought up until just a few days ago.” He winks at me.

  He’s right. I could have ended up exactly like Lulu. The thought of being an overweight serial kidnapper who never leaves high school is enough to make me shudder. I owe so much to Rand for making me realize what is really important in life.

  “I’m lucky to have him,” I say, staring at the Rand doll.

  “He’s lucky to have you, too,” I hear Rand say from behind me. I spin around and jump into his arms, covering his face in kisses.

  “How did you figure it out?” I ask him, in between kisses.

  “I knew there was no way you would ever return Tiffany jewelry.” Rand and Harry share a belly laugh. All I can do is stare longingly at the gorgeous face I thought I might never see again.

  Rand gets serious and gazes down at me. “I thought I was going to lose you, Aspen. I don’t think I could go on if something happened to you.” He nudges my face up with his chin, looks deep into my eyes, and then kisses me like I’ve never been kissed before.

  Harry slipped soundlessly out of the basement while Rand and I were making out. We stopped making out when it started getting really hot. Doing it in Miss Hott’s basement isn’t high on my list of places for a quickie. We decide to chill out and sneak back to the guest cottage later for a proper reunion.

  “Look at these dolls she made,” I tell Rand, pulling him toward the craft table.

  “Damn. Mini-Rand wants to see if mini-Aspen is anatomically correct,” he says, trying to lift my doll’s skirt.

  “Excuse me,” I say, pulling my doll away from him. “Mini-Aspen does not show her goodies on a first date.” We both start laughing.

  “Do you think Harry will let me keep them?” I ask Rand while scooping up the rest of the dolls. There are dolls in the likeness of Mom, Dad, Rand, Angel, Harry, me, and Mr. Lowe, whose doll is wearing a tiny black leather mask. That one is too freaky. I decide to leave it here.

  “He’ll probably need to keep them for evidence,” he answers.

  “These beauties don’t belong in some smelly evidence bag. I’ll just have to sweet-talk him.” I laugh.

  We head up the basement stairs to begin what is sure to be hours of questioning.

  * * * *

  We are all sitting around on Lulu’s plastic-covered furniture eating pizza. Harry wanted the interrogation to be as easy on everybody as possible so he turned it into a little party. He’s really st
arting to grow on me.

  Dad already called from the hospital and said Mom is going to be fine. Apparently, Lulu had to be rushed there also to get her stomach pumped. My little chemistry experiment worked better than I thought it would. She’ll be fine and as soon as she is able to get off the toilet she’ll be moved to a maximum-security prison.

  I’ve already explained to Harry and the other officers what Lulu told me about mistakenly kidnapping Angel, Mom, and Amy, thinking that they were me.

  “So how did you figure out it was her, Aspen?” Harry asks me, holding his pen over his little notebook.

  “I kept having this image of Mr. Lowe with his freaky leather mask on. He kept asking me if I liked his rose. Then I smelled my mom’s perfume and remembered smelling it on Lulu at the dance. It was weird. All of the sudden these memories started fitting together. A picture of a skinny Lulu look-alike in her office, a pom-pom in her car, all the times she tried to get me alone that week. Then I remembered seeing a picture in Mom’s yearbook of the skinny blonde with my dad and heard Mom’s voice saying that he dumped the homecoming queen for her. All of the pieces were there. Then I called Mr. Lowe and he told me that Lulu gave him the white rose. I knew she was trying to set him up to take the fall for her.”

  Harry sits staring at me in amazement. When he finally speaks he says, “Aspen, I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I’d be proud to have you for a partner any day.”

  I beam with pride. It is kind of amazing that I put it together before he did. But in his defense I think it worked in my favor that the perp was a female. A male wouldn’t ever truly understand the horror at the thought of going to a formal dance without a date.

  “Okay, so we’ve established that Angel wrote the lipstick mirror graffiti. Angel, did you put the pornography in Aspen’s locker?” Harry asks.

  Angel gets a guilty look on her face and I have a feeling it’s not because the hottie officer has his arm around her shoulders.

  “Yeah, I did it,” she admits. I stick my tongue out at her.

  “Where in the world did you get so much porn?” I ask.

  “My dad brought back suitcases full of it the last time he went to Vegas. I guess they just hand it out on the Strip.” She gets a sad look on her face. “He and my mom split up over it.”

  If the amount of porn in my locker was any indication of his addiction I can understand why they split up. That does suck for Angel though. No wonder she is so close to her little sister. I have to admit that she’s starting to grow on me a little bit, too. I can’t believe what a softie I’m turning into.

  “Why the hell did you want everyone to think I was gay?” I ask, curious.

  “Um, hello, your best friend has a boy name and she’s a total dyke. It really wasn’t that much of a stretch. Besides, I wanted Lucas for myself,” Angel answers.

  I cannot believe even dim-ass Angel knew Tobi was gay. I’m so glad I’ve started working on my powers of observation. I couldn’t handle being one-upped by Angel too many times.

  “Angel, you slashed Aspen’s tire, right?” Harry asks, trying to get us back on track. He knows that one false move and this whole night could end in one big catfight.

  “Excuse me?” Angel asks, shocked.

  “It’s okay to admit it, Angel. You aren’t going to get into trouble, we just have to get everything correct for the report,” Harry adds.

  “I did not slash your tire.” Angel yells, glancing disgustedly over at me.

  I roll my eyes. So much for her growing on me; why can’t she just admit it and move on? She’s so freaking immature.

  “Angel didn’t slash your tire. I did,” Rand says from next to me.

  Everyone gasps and turns to look at Rand, who is now turning crimson.

  “I wanted to give you a ride home. I was tired of waiting for the right moment. I decided to make my own right moment.”

  Everyone ohs and aws. I’m stunned. All this time I thought that Rand was 100 percent good guy. Now it turns out he’s got a little bit of bad boy in him after all. Just when I thought he couldn’t turn me on any more.

  “I’m going to assume you don’t want to press any charges?” Harry asks me.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll extract the damages somehow,” I say, winking at Rand.

  “Okay, so Lulu admitted she took your inhaler, right?” Harry asks, trying his best to ignore all the teenage hormones raging in the room right now.

  “Yeah, I faked an attack and she brought my inhaler to me.”

  He shakes his head and jots something down.

  “I guess that means that Lulu is responsible for taking the pictures of you, Rand, Tobi, and Pippi and writing that sex note about you and Mr. Lowe, and stealing your dad’s bike.” He looks to me for confirmation.

  I nod. “I think she thought she was going to humiliate me so much I’d go off the deep end.”

  “Instead, you showed up here with a knife stuck in your butt crack and a box of tainted chocolates hoping to save the day?” He laughs. I notice a strange-looking officer eyeing the evidence bag holding the knife. I have a feeling he’s going to cop a sniff when the rest of us are gone. Gross!

  “Well, I did, didn’t I?”

  “I think Angel’s nine one one call helped a little bit,” Harry answers.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, confused.

  “Rand came to the station and was in a panic that you had been kidnapped. We were trying to canvas the entire town searching for your car when a nine one one call came in from Angel’s cell phone. We could hear you and your mom fighting with Lulu. That’s how we knew where to find you.”

  I look over at Angel for an explanation. She looks up from her cat-and-mouse routine she’s got going with the hottie and says, “When your mom cut my arm free I was finally able to get my cell phone out of my cheerleading briefs. So I called nine one one. I totally saved the day,” she says all cocky.

  I’m shocked. Not that I have to share my glory of saving the day with Angel, but that she wears anything under her cheerleading skirt. I never would have guessed. But Angel won’t be so cocky when she sees the big chunk of bangs that Miss Hott cut off to put with the fake kidnapping note. Life is good!

  I lean back against Rand and he squeezes my shoulder. I can’t wait to get out of here and be alone with him. I wonder if he’ll like my Yummy thong? The thought makes me giggle a little bit. Harry senses everyone’s desire to be done with all of the kidnapping stuff for the night.

  “Okay, I guess that about wraps it up,” he says, standing to escort everyone out.

  “Wait. What’s going to happen to Lulu?” I ask, genuinely concerned.

  “She’s looking at four kidnapping charges, attempted murder for stealing your inhaler, and various other crimes. Let’s put it this way. The only designer outfit she’s going to be wearing for a while is an orange jumpsuit and flip-flops.” I shudder at the thought. Poor Lulu. All she ever wanted was to be loved.

  “Is there anything I can do to help her?” I ask.

  Harry looks up with a surprised face. “I might be able to get her into an institution instead of jail. If … you would be willing to testify?” he asks, unsure. I nod my head yes. He looks very happy. I think he still has a soft spot for Lulu and wanted to help her, too, but he didn’t want to make me feel like I had to do something I didn’t want to. I think I’m actually going to miss having Harry around when life goes back to normal. Whatever that is anymore! I’ve just done him a big favor so now would be the perfect time to slip in my doll request.

  “Can I keep these?” I ask, pulling the dolls from behind my back.

  Harry looks them over and makes a quick judgment call. “All right, but I might need to see them sometime, so don’t be doing anything nasty with them.” He laughs. I toss Angel her doll and she squeals with delight upon seeing her doll’s matching tattoo.

  “Where’s mine?” Amy asks, finally breaking her silence.

  “She didn’t make one for you. Sorry
, Amy.” I shrug.

  Poor Amy. This was the final straw. She starts sobbing uncontrollably and Harry puts his arms around her.

  “Come on, Amy. Let’s get you home. I’m sure your parents are worried sick.” He looks at me and makes a face like he hopes they are or Amy might end up sharing a room with Lulu at the loony bin. Before Harry gets to the front door, he pauses, then turns around and looks at me.

  “Aspen, I’m sorry I failed your mom. I was so close. I made a huge mistake not asking Mr. Lowe who gave him the flower. I was already suspicious of your principal because every time I tried to meet with her she would ditch me. I was so close, but this could have ended really badly and part of that is my fault.” He shakes his head miserably.

  I run over and hug him. “But you did find me and you saved all of us without hurting Lulu. You’re the reason this ended as good as it possibly could have. I’d be glad to have you for a partner any day,” I tell him, repeating what he told me earlier. He smiles and leads Amy out to his monster truck. I just thought of something that I have to know. I run out the door yelling for him.

  He lowers his window with a concerned look. “What’s wrong, Aspen?”

  “WWDHD?” I ask, breathless.

  He smiles, then answers, “Come on, Aspen. I expected better from you.” He takes off down the road, but not before yelling, “What would Dirty Harry do?” out the window. That hairy guy is a trip!

  * * * *

  Rand and I stop by the hospital to check on Mom. When we get to her room, she and Dad are curled up together spooning each other in her dinky hospital bed. It’s enough just to see her sleeping peacefully for tonight. We tiptoe away so we don’t wake them.

  The sexual energy pulsing between Rand and me is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. We sneak back into the guest cottage and I show him my Yummy thong. He likes it. Actually, he likes it four times.

  I have my head lying on Rand’s chest, listening to him softly snore. I’m way too keyed up to sleep right now.

  I can’t believe all the drama that has unfolded in just one week. I lost the homecoming tiara, suffered countless humiliations, my ex cheated on me, I had a near-death experience, found out my best friend is gay, wore clothes that should have never been allowed to exist, and got kidnapped. I am so in need of a spa day. But, best of all, I fell in love.