Ransom X
Page 73
Chapter 48 Criminal Hem
Chess felt the rush as the last bell of the day sounded and the chairs squawked in unison as twenty students pushed away from their desks. The movement hid a small smile. “I got away with it,” She thought.
She’d spent the entire day in rebellious glory. She wore a small silver hair clip, keeping her flowing red hair from falling into her face. It was one that agent Wagner had offered the night before, when they’d talked about make-up.
The dress code at Cherished Hills Academy, called for school uniforms, loafers, tennis shoes only in gym class and only black hair clips were allowed. Chess had seen her friends flaunt the rules with pierced ears and colored nail polish, but she’d never participated in open rebellion until today.
She spotted her friends outside the classroom. She was sure they would notice her painfully obvious ride on the razor’s edge of the wild side. Chess strutted toward them like she was on a Paris catwalk.
“Bzzz, bzzz.” Chess’ phone startled her, and she jumped comically into the middle of the gathering of girls waiting for her. A cackle of laughter as Chess put the phone to her ear.
“Dad?” She asked.
“Who else would it be?” Legacy was stern curiosity.
“I meant, dad.” The question retracted.
“Chess, I’m having you picked up today. I just – you haven’t left yet, right?” he asked.
“No. Whatever.” She replied.
“Great, well –” An awkward pause from her father, something was definitely up; she’d ask him in the car.
“Bye, dad.” She pushed the phone deep into her coat pocket and looked up to see all eyes on her.
Trisha, the smallest of the group pushed back her long black hair and braved the waters of unbearable torment and stammered, “That was your dad? Can I touch the phone?”
“Pathetic Trish.” Chess answered and the moment passed. She didn’t mind having a father who towered over the other dads at parent teacher conferences, or even a dad who melted the hearts of her adolescent friends. What nagged her was that he was frozen in time, and he had no ability to accept that she was changing. He showered her with the same kind of attention that she needed at age six, even at age fifteen. She was beginning to feel burdened by the private “Saturday Evening Post” meets “Guns and Ammo” world that he had created. It would only get worse with the events of the day.
She listened to the basic flow of the girls’ conversations, waiting for someone to notice the hair clip, or the twinkle in her eye that would lead them to her secret. They talked of a report that was due soon and not even begun. Then her mind skipped like a record across time, following a totally different thread of thought in her mind. She was being picked up?
She’d practically forgotten about the old VW cabriolet that they had in the garage. Her father used it for educational day trips to historical sites around the capitol, but usually it was only for the weekends. This was a weekday. Where were they going? Something was not right. She thought approaching the large central doors of the school that spilled out upon a central rotunda and a faculty parking lot.
Megan, the gossip of the group, broke her trance, “What is that you have in your hair?” Chess turned to the voice, only to see that Megan was aiming at Cathy. Cathy was the flirt and tease of the group and she’d dyed a strand of her hair bright purple. Cathy had layered it under her natural hair and no one had noticed. She was nearing the door, the demarcation point at which nobody could put her in detention for purple hair. “Miss Riverton!”
Steps from freedom, the entire group froze as Vice Principal Graif, the hawk, called to them from down the hall. He had spotted the offending follicles from his perch in the school store. He wrote thirty minutes in detention for Cathy and then turned his eye on Megan’s skirt, which was an inch out of school specifications. An inch too long might have been acceptable, but upward meant thirty minutes detention, minimum. He tisked the girls with a disapproving click of the tongue, and then his eyes rested on Chess hiding in the middle.
“Why can’t you all look more like Ms. Legacy?” He asked, noticing everything in proper proportion, “She practically glows with a warm wholesome charm.”
Tension surged in the moments after he’d left, then it was gone. Trish cracked up, she pointed at Chess. “Principal’s pet.” Chess looked at all of the friendly faces encircling her, not a trace of annoyance or jealousy. What had she done to deserve her friends?
“What did your dad want anyway, Chess-a-pet?” Cathy asked shoving the detention slip into her plaid pocket.
“He’s coming to pick me up.” Even as she said the words, they sounded wrong. Chess got a strange feeling as she backed away from the group toward the main door. She realized that he hadn’t said “I’ll pick you up,” but no other arrangement of words made sense at all. He never let her share rides with friends even though some were the best sixteen-year-old drivers in the state. He wouldn’t even allow her to share rides with their moms and dads – it wasn’t a discussion. She walked home in a group.
Alarms went off in her head as she stepped out onto the front steps of the school. She saw the lights in the rotunda. “I’ll have you picked up” took on new meaning for her. Her entire cadre of friends stood in the yawning front door. They craned to get a look at Mr. Legacy, but instead they saw an incredible orchestrated abduction.