by Barry Lyga
Just then, from one of the houses, Lisa McKenzie skipped down the front steps. She’d changed her outfit since school, wearing an electric-blue double-breasted jacket over a matching skirt. From here, Dean couldn’t tell what color shirt she wore beneath. Her hair was teased and sprayed higher than usual, falling on the sides in a rigid phalanx to almost touch the broad shoulder pads in the jacket.
She turned left onto the sidewalk and walked down the street.
“What are we doing here, Jay?” Dean usually refrained from adopting any sort of authoritative tone around Jay. It was just counterproductive. But now he needed answers, and he put some muscle into his voice.
“Nothing.” Jay cranked the key and glided down the street, following Lisa at a distance.
“It’s still light out!” Dean hissed, looking around wildly. “We can’t do this again!”
“Stop being a grandmother,” Jay shot back.
They drifted along at ten miles an hour, hanging back. Just when Dean was beginning to consider doing a T.J. Hooker roll out of the car, Jay braked and pulled to the curb.
Ahead, Lisa paused at a corner. A car stopped at the intersection, and she got in.
“Yes,” Jay whispered, and began to follow.
“We did this already,” Dean protested. “Come on, man.” He thought of the knife. Jay’s backpack was in the back seat, but was the knife in there or back in its place under Jay’s seat? And why was he suddenly so worried about the damn knife?
Following the car with Lisa was both easier and harder than following the pizza-delivery guy. Easier because it was daylight out and there were more cars on the road to hide behind. Harder because… it was daylight out. And there were more cars on the road to lose Lisa behind.
But Jay channeled his inner Remington Steele with true aplomb. Silent, he steered through traffic, keeping an eye on the other car’s rear bumper. It was a late-model Ford, painted a too-bright green. Pretty easy to maintain a line of sight to it.
As the sun dipped overhead and headlights began blinking open into the twilight, the Ford turned into a parking lot at a restaurant.
Jay tapped the brakes, slowing down, timing it perfectly so that just as his car drifted by the parking lot, the doors to the Ford opened and Mr. Chisholm emerged, then darted around to the other side to hold open the passenger door for Lisa.
With an excited squeal, Jay accelerated, cranking the wheel around the next corner, where he stopped at the curb, hitting his hazards.
“Holy crap!” Jay erupted once the car was still. “They are sleeping together.”
Dean smirked skeptically. “They’re having dinner, not sex.”
“You think her parents know?”
“I don’t know.”
Overlooking the ennui in Dean’s voice, Jay pressed on, refusing to drop the subject. “Why would they be having dinner? Teacher and student?” Jay tapped at the tip of his chin, thinking. “Do you think he could get in trouble for this?”
Dean shrugged. “I guess. But who cares?” Then he realized: “Are you going to say something to your dad?”
For several seconds, Jay contemplated this. “No. He’s got his hands full with Mom right now. But someone should do something, right?”
“It’s none of our business, Jay.”
“It has to be someone’s business. Why not us?”
Dean lightly thumped the side of his head against his window. “What do you want to do? Go all Rockford Files and sneak in there and take pictures of them eating dinner? Who cares, man? Who. Cares?”
Jay strummed his fingers on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead. Just then, a car behind them honked, first a brief blip of a sound, then a longer, protracted BRAAAAAAAP!
Flipping the guy behind them the bird, Jay killed his hazards and gunned the engine, peeling away from the curb.
“I care,” he said.
They drove past Nico’s. The flesh on the back of Dean’s neck crawled until the neon sign disappeared in the distance.
It was darker now. Mr. Chisholm and Lisa would be tucking into their entrées. Did she call him Mr. Chisholm when they were alone at dinner?
He was surprised but not shocked to find them nearing the school. It was okay, he decided. A little time wandering the echoing halls, with nothing whatsoever to trigger his anger, would be good for Jay. Dean knew that Mr. Chisholm had—perhaps unknowingly, but maybe quite intentionally—skewered Jay through his core: his pride. Jay wasn’t capable of shaking something like that off in one go—it would take some time.
Jay moved with purpose. He wasn’t here to blow off steam or enjoy some solitude and some rooftop time with his best friend. He was on a mission.
Chasing after Jay, Dean soon found himself in the science wing, outside Mr. Chisholm’s room. Jay patiently yet swiftly clanged through his keys until he found the right one and unlocked the door.
“What are we doing, Jay?” Dean followed Jay into the room. The lab benches sat cool and black, the Bunsen burners neutered and impotent. He suddenly flashed to a possible future: Jay turning on the gas to those Bunsen burners, letting it build up, tossing a match as he walked out of school.
No, no. That was crazy.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of our school went the old song, the one they used to sing while leaving on the last day each year, plunging deep into summer. We have tortured all the teachers, we have broken all the rules.…
Glory, glory hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
I been waiting at the door with a Colt .44
And she ain’t my teacher no more!
Just a song. No one was going to blow up a school. No one would shoot a teacher.
“Jay…”
“Take a chill pill,” Jay advised. He threaded through the lab benches and plunked himself down in Mr. Chisholm’s chair. “Let’s see what Jism has up his sleeve.”
There was no key on the ring to unlock the teacher’s desk. Dean approached, curious. Was Jay going to just rip the damn thing out of the desk?
No. Instead, he opened one of the side drawers. This sort of desk locked only the middle drawer, the shallow one above the kneehole. The filing drawers on either side could open.
Jay eased the top right drawer out, then gestured for Dean to help. Dean crouched and supported the weight of the drawer—it was jam-packed with folders and papers, and it weighed a ton. Dean strained to keep it parallel to the floor as Jay felt around behind it. After a moment, Dean felt the tinny vibration of something clicking loose, and the drawer—hitherto attached to the desk—came free in his hands.
He almost dropped the damn thing. “Give me some warning next time,” he chided, setting the drawer on the floor.
“What did you think I was doing?” Jay asked, his tone such a marvel of condescension that Dean could feel only astonishment, not anger.
Now the front of the desk had a massive, gaping wound. Jay poked his head into the empty square that had housed the drawer and then wormed a hand in there, too. Dean waited patiently.
“My mom has the same desk at home,” Jay said conversationally, and then—as he manipulated something in there—the middle drawer clicked once and popped open a sliver.
The side drawer had been haphazardly packed, disordered. The middle drawer was meticulously organized, with pens lined up together in one nook, pencils in the next. A little well corralled a herd of paper clips, with a stack of note cards off to one side. In the very center of the drawer rested a square light blue envelope. Jay plucked it up. Another envelope—also light blue—was under it.
The envelope in Jay’s hand was open, so they prized out its contents—a single sheet of paper with a blue-and-purple flower in the upper left-hand corner, crammed with tight, round female penmanship.
“Oh yeah…,” Jay murmured, and skimmed the letter quickly.
Dean blushed as he followed suit. Lisa was not shy about expressing her appreciation for the pleasures she’d experienced at Mr. Chisholm’s
hands. Fingers, more like. And tongue. And, of course—
“The girth of you inside…” Jay brayed a long, wild, horsey laugh that jerked Dean away at least a foot and had him checking to make certain the windows were closed. Anyone anywhere in the building would have heard that.
“Are you seeing this?” Jay held up the letter. “Are you seeing this?”
“Yeah. You were right. They’re banging.”
“They’re makin’ bacon,” Jay howled in a high falsetto. He thrust the letter at Dean and picked up the next envelope.
Just holding the letter made Dean feel dirty. It was none of his business. He glanced around for the envelope so that he could replace the letter, but Jay was already tapping the contents out of the next envelope. Another sheet of stationery. When Jay unfolded it, something fell to the floor at Dean’s feet, and without thinking, he stooped to pick it up.
It was a Polaroid. Of Lisa McKenzie. She wasn’t naked, but she wasn’t exactly dressed, either. She wore a lavender bra that was almost see-through, her nipples dark smudges against the fabric, and a matching garter belt with stockings.
“Kim’s hotter, right?” Jay peered over Dean’s shoulder and spoke in an utterly neutral tone that still hinted at… something. Dean couldn’t tell what. But Jay rarely if ever brought up Kim, rarely if ever discussed her appearance.
“We shouldn’t be doing this.” Dean itched to get the Polaroid out of his hand, but ceding it to Jay seemed like a bad idea. “He was a jerk to you, yeah. But come on.”
Jay grunted noncommittally, still enrapt by the photo. Lisa was staring rather dully at the camera, arms at her sides. Dean had seen sexier poses in catalogs and bra ads on TV.
“We should get out of here.” Dean spoke slowly. “If you’re gonna do something, do it. But we shouldn’t just be hanging out here, reading dirty letters to our chem teacher.”
Jay’s eyes never wavered from the photo; his fingers tightened on the envelope in his hand, crimping it at its pristine edges.
“He shouldn’t have embarrassed me.” A hoarse whisper. Dean knew exactly how much effort it was taking for his best friend to admit to that vulnerability, that frailty. That he gave a single solitary crap what anyone else thought about him.
“I wasn’t hurting anyone.” With what seemed both a physical and spiritual effort, Jay tore his eyes from the Polaroid, refocusing on Dean. “I wasn’t hurting anyone. I wasn’t doing anything. I just spaced out a little. He shouldn’t have done that.”
“Yeah, I know. I know, man.” Still crouched by the chair, he stretched out his free hand and patted Jay on the shoulder. The big clock on the wall above Mr. Chisholm’s desk clicked loudly into the silence, slaying seconds as they stared at each other.
Dean thought he’d counted thirty of the clicks. He plucked the envelope from Jay’s nerveless fingers and tucked the Polaroid back inside. “Let’s go, man.”
Jay nodded, then sighed. “I’ll clean it all up.”
The shortest, straightest path from the science wing back to the car cut through the locker warren where Dean and Jay both had lockers. Jay led the way, Dean trailing behind, then almost colliding with him when Jay suddenly stopped short.
“I have to pee.” Jay said it in an almost mesmerized timbre, his eyes unfocused and distant.
Dean sighed. The lavatories were maybe ten steps away. Why did Jay have to be so dramatic? He’d been borderline catatonic since they left Mr. Chisholm’s room, his gait stiff, his demeanor blank. Now he stood limb-locked at the edge of the locker maze, seemingly unable to take a step farther.
“Jay…”
“I have to pee.”
“So take a piss!” Dean flung an arm out, pointing to the alcove that led to the men’s lav just a few steps away.
Jay turned slowly, half facing Dean, then rested his palm against the closest locker. “This is Gimble’s locker, right?”
It was. So what?
The empty space around them filled with the metallic shush of Jay’s fly unzipping. Dean hopped back a step as Jay fished his penis out of his pants. The sacred Bathroom Rule was in full effect, even though they weren’t standing at urinals; Dean averted his eyes. Jay’s expression was still flat as he braced himself against the locker one-handed, fumbling.
Dean realized without looking to confirm: He was probing for one of the locker’s vents.
Jay went still. His countenance relaxed as a hissing sound filled the air along with the slight tang of urine.
It took only a moment or two, and then Jay tucked himself back in and turned to Dean with a huge grin plastered across his face. They stared at each other.
And then Jay cracked up, laughing as though he’d just watched Eddie Murphy from the front row. Clutching his stomach, he howled, staggering backward and crashing into the other row of lockers.
Dean couldn’t help it; he started with a soft grumble of mirth, then broke down into full-on hilarity.
They collapsed against each other, then sank to the floor, heaving and chortling until they managed to catch their breath and compose themselves. Dean wiped tears from his eyes.
“Well,” Jay said with bright eyes, “I feel a lot better now!”
Back in the car, the adumbrative night protecting them as they pulled—headlightless—out of the parking lot, Jay suddenly said, “That pizza guy. Remember him?”
With a hollow laugh, Dean said, “Sure. We exchange Christmas cards.”
Jay huffed a syllable of laughter. “Do you think we should do something about him?”
“Do something? Like what?”
“I don’t know. I wonder if he saw my license plate.”
Dean cleared his throat. He’d wondered the same thing. And the fact that so much time had gone by with nothing happening had imbued in him a confidence that they’d dodged any consequences of their actions that night. But all he knew for certain was that he’d dodged a bullet once. He didn’t plan on putting himself on the firing line again.
THE PRESENT: LIAM
Liam’s lunch bag had never contained anything as prosaic as plain old peanut butter and jelly. Pop had always managed to jazz up anything he packed for Liam, and even though Liam was on the cusp of graduation, Pop still insisted on packing his son’s lunch every day. Today was a nice, crunchy brioche with aged cheddar, horseradish, and prosciutto. Plus grapes, granola, and some funky crackers that looked as though they had spores on them but tasted amazing.
He was halfway through the sandwich when El arrived with the others.
“I figured it out,” El said, plopping down her tray. It was taco day. Pop would have been horrified at what the school claimed were tacos.
“Figured what out?” he asked.
“We need the police records from 1986,” she announced.
Wait, what?
“She’s right, you know,” Jorja said. “To see if anything weird was going on. That’s the next step.”
“Next step?” He managed to swallow the chunk of bread he’d been chewing through. “Next step in what? It’s over.”
Marcie blinked at him owlishly from across the table. “Didn’t you watch the video of the Chisholm campaign event last night? It was on YouTube.”
“Peter was there, too.” Jorja leaned in conspiratorially, as though anyone around them cared to eavesdrop. “So he couldn’t have been the guy to break into El’s garage.”
“And when I went through the box of stuff your dad brought over, guess what? One of the tapes was missing. Which means whoever broke into my garage—”
“Not Peter,” Jorja said, as though he already needed to be reminded.
“—and took one of the cassettes. That must be the person who’s connected to the knife,” El said triumphantly.
“Or—and follow me here—someone at my dad’s work dropped the cassette behind the fax machine.”
El rolled her eyes. “When they took the stuff after the break-in—”
“Second break-in,” Jorja added helpfully. Marcie nodded in solid
arity.
“—they had to give me a receipt. I checked it. They only logged one cassette. There were two in the time capsule. So whoever went into the garage—”
“Not Peter,” Liam said quickly, before Jorja could. Marcie scowled at him, but Jorja just shrugged and bit into a taco, which obligingly crumbled in her hands.
“—took that second tape. And that’s the person we’re after now.”
Oh, holy crap. She wanted to keep going. She wanted to keep doing this.
It was insane. It was over. They’d gotten so lucky already. They could have easily ended up in jail for kidnapping Peter McKenzie. Now they should lie back, settle back into life.
“Guys, are you serious?” he asked.
Jorja looked at Marcie. Marcie looked at El. El looked at Liam. “Of course we are. We’re not done.”
“Well, I’m done. My dad ripped me a new one last night. And two is about all I can handle. Can you imagine if he ripped me a third one?”
El seemed shocked by this. Couldn’t she just give it a rest?
Well, no. She couldn’t. Of course not. She’d never been very good at giving things a rest.
Looking at her, he knew he would cave eventually. Might as well start now.
“Fine,” he said. “How do you plan to get the records?”
“I saw online that you can request documents and stuff from the town. You just fill out a form.”
“That’ll make my dad happy. I’m sure he’ll get right on it.”
El frowned at that. She obviously hadn’t considered who would eventually see that request.
“I bet Indira could do it,” Marcie suggested.
Jorja’s face lit up, and she leaned over to peck Marcie on the cheek. “Great idea!”
Liam mimed gagging. El was already on her phone, texting.
“You’re just jealous,” Jorja said smugly.
Liam laughed as though it couldn’t possibly be true.
ELAYAH
Turned out that as part of her ongoing research, Indira had already requested the police records and had had a bunch of interns scan them. El traded the image of the I’m sorry note for a link to a Dropbox folder containing the scans.