Crucible Crisis

by Amberley Faith

  As Ellie stitched together the swatches she'd overheard, Ellie realized the Reverintendent had orchestrated the investigation without anyone's knowledge. So, had the Reverintendent hand-picked Remuel Hardy? Did he have an unknown motive? Would the investigation reward the rumor-starters?

  Mr. Hardy interrupted Ellie's thoughts. "Well, now that we have assent among those present, let's get to the bottom of this. How did you first hear of the activities involving drugs?"

  The Reverintendent cleared his throat and replied, "It all started a few months ago with my niece and a back woods party that I stumbled upon. A group of teenagers were dancing around a fire after sunset. It was a remote location, even by our standards. I only came across them because I was hunting. What drew my suspicion was their erratic behavior." Hnh hmm. "I believe I saw someone naked. When they realized I was there, they all started screaming and running away. Why would they run if it was innocent fun?"

  Mr. Hardy answered with another question, "Did you question your niece?"

  "Of course. I can hardly be expected to control a school system if I can't control my own house! She said that they were just collect—"

  "No," Mr. Hardy cut him off mid-sentence. "Don't tell me. I want to hear her answers for myself. Please call her to your office."

  A few minutes later, Ellie heard Tai's voice, "Yes, uncle? You summoned me?" Ellie was shocked. She hadn't realized that Tai was the Reverintendent's niece.

  "Taiteja," her uncle said, "this is Mr. Hardy. He has a few questions for you. We are trying to get to the bottom of Bettina's claims that she was drugged."

  "And how would I know anything about that?" Tai huffed. "Shouldn't you be taking a urine sample? The little tramp lies all the time." Ellie could almost hear Tai's eyes roll.

  "Well, young lady," replied Mr. Hardy, "that is none of your concern. But for your information, she has already been tested. The results were inconclusive." He paused, and his voice changed direction.

  "For those in the room unfamiliar with the science," he continued, "THC drops below detection limits after three to twelve hours in non-habitual users. But if you're so eager for testing, Miss Jensen, we could easily take a sample from you. Regular users can test positive for THC for up to a month."

  "Well, if anyone should know about that, it's Gale Guillaume," Tai deflected. "She is the one who is into herbs and gardening crap. Besides, it was her idea for us to go out there in the first place. Why don't you call her up and ask her if she slipped anything in those granola bars we ate beforehand? She said they would keep us grounded and fearless. And you know what? Not one of us was too scared to sneak out and party with her in the dark in the middle of nowhere. Maybe there's a reason why." Her defiant tone would have been more impressive if it hadn't been punctuated by the smacking of her bubble gum.

  "Niece, this is not the same account you gave me." The Reverintendent interjected. "I will not have calumny in my own house! Get your story straight, or it will come back to haunt you – not me."

  "I'm telling you I am innocent!" Tai responded loudly. "Bring GG here and ask her what was going on! I have nothing more to add." Tai proclaimed.

  The next thing Ellie heard was Mr. Remuel Hardy's voice on the intercom calling Gale Guillaume to the office. Gale came in through the back entrance and passed right by Ellie. She acknowledged Ellie with a nod of the head. Ellie had a sudden urge to explain her presence.

  "I'm here waiting for a meeting with Principal Danvers and the superintendent," she blurted. Gale nodded again but said nothing as she entered the principal's office.

  Remuel Hardy began questioning GG right away. "Miss Guillaume, we have reason to believe that you initiated some type of party in the woods on the night of the twenty-third of May. We also have reason to believe that some of the attendees may have consumed illegal substances at your hands. We would like you to explain what happened in your own words."

  GG replied quickly and quietly. "This is all one big misunderstanding." She sounded controlled but exasperated. "Yes, we went out to collect leaves the night before our botany final. Yes, we were out past curfew. Yes, we built a fire to keep warm and to light the darkness. Yes, we danced. But there is no need to get your knickers in a knot. The dancing was just a bit of excitement in this dull town. There was nothing illicit going on."

  "We will be the ones to determine that, Miss Guillaume." Mr. Hardy interjected. "Now, who was at the party? I need the names of all participants."

  If Ellie thought that GG would refuse to name names, she was mistaken. GG began her list almost before Mr. Hardy finished asking. "The twins Eve and Eden Mathews were there along with Tai. Then there was Angelica - Jelly Sarka." A pause. "Oh," she added. "Bettina Roberts was supposed to go, too, but she chickened out at the last minute and went running back to her house before we'd walked more than thirty yards."

  Ah. There's the missing piece of the puzzle. If the girls teased Bettina for being a coward, Bettina could retaliate by saying they'd given her drug-laced granola bars. Ellie knew from experience that high school girls could be cruel. Times might have changed since Ellie was a teen. Mean-girl tactics had not.

  Ellie suddenly realized she was eavesdropping. Principal Danvers had forgotten about her meeting. If he wanted her, he would call for her over the intercom. He was too busy to notice her absence, so Ellie decided to use the rest of her planning period to get some work done. She stood up to return to her classroom.

  Just then, Principal Danvers stormed out of his office. He blinked at her for a moment, then shoved something into her hand. She looked down to see a crumpled piece of paper. With his back to her as he walked away, he said, "Watch what you leave lying around the school Miss P."

  Ellie un-wadded the paper and found her rap from the previous week, the one she had written before they'd started the play. The torn paper had her name written in red ink. Some words had been crossed out and re-written by hand. It looked like a work in progress.

  School is whack.

  Students are slack

  Give them love? They attack

  Stab their teachers in the back

  No ambition, no hope

  Everybody's smoking dope

  Hung by their own rope

  All they do is mope

  Teachers don't care

  Act like it's not their

  Responsibility to share

  Or help the students prepare

  For the trials that they'll face

  In this God-forsaken place

  Constant worries, too much strife

  Bullet, drug deal, or a knife.

  Is how this all will end

  Why bother to pretend?

  -Ellie Pelletier

  As Ellie's stomach dropped, she wondered who had altered her words. How had she been so careless? And how much trouble was she in now?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  FABULOUS FIND

  That weekend, Ellie pushed her conflicted feelings aside and tackled a project of another kind. Ellie went to The Jewel to battle her angst in the form of plaster that needed removing. She left a plate of fruit and bacon for the girls and a ready-filled espresso machine for Julien. She scribbled a quick note.

  Meet me at The Jewel

  I wanted to get an early start!

  Love, Ellie

  Ellie grabbed her bag - packed with a headscarf, a face mask, and a water bottle - and crossed herself with holy water as she left. It was barely six o'clock in the morning, but Ellie itched to get started. Chipping away the plaster was a tedious job, but it would chip off some frustration, too.

  While a construction team did the heavy work, she and Julien decided to remove the plaster covering the original brick walls themselves. They'd been covered in white dust after only a few minutes work. She and Julien looked like bakers covered in powdered sugar, except for their face respirators. They had to stop every few minutes and wipe their goggles. They'd had to hose themselves down before they could get in the car to drive home.

 
As dirty a job as it was, however, Ellie found it satisfying. She loved chiseling off the layers of plaster, revealing the original surface. No two exposed bricks were alike. They must have been hand-made. The resulting brick surface was uneven and added to its charm.

  She enjoyed working in solitude for a few hours before Julien and the girls arrived. It gave her time to think and to process everything that was wrong in her classroom, her garden, and her head. Something would have to change, and she wasn't sure what it would be.

  As she struck down pieces of plaster, she felt a sense of accomplishment. Maybe she couldn't strike down her own problems as easily, but seeing immediate results of her hard work was addictive. Unlike teaching school, it provided instant gratification; it was exactly what she needed.

  The rhythmic tap-tapping of her hammer against the chisel lulled her into a trance. She

  reached a place where workers had removed a room partition. This patch of brick had been covered by an interior wall to divide the space into separate rooms.

  In a foot-wide section, Ellie saw the imprint left behind from the wooden support beams. This part would be easy to clean since most of the plaster had already fallen away as a result of removing the partition. As she hammered, tapped, and wiped, Ellie noticed that the mortar in one section was a different color from the rest.

  Hmm…will that be ugly or charming? Well, we can always cover it with a painting or a shelf.

  One of the bricks in the discolored section moved slightly when Ellie tapped at the plaster. She wiggled the brick a bit to test the sturdiness. The brick moved too freely; it would have to be replaced. Ellie used her chisel as a lever to tug it out of the wall, making a mental note to ask if it could be repaired.

  As Ellie continued working, another brick came loose, then another, and before long Ellie had removed several bricks, revealing a little hollowed-out space. She couldn't see inside, so she stuck her gloved hand in and felt around. In the process, a few more bricks came loose to reveal a niche in the wall.

  Why would someone cover up such a lovely little niche? As she cleared away the pile of loose mortar and dust covering the bottom of the niche, Ellie's hand ran over something solid in the pile of rubble. She wiped and tugged and eventually pulled out a small package covered in tattered fabric, with a thick coating of dust.

  The package was about the size of an old family Bible. Ellie set it aside to finish clearing out the hollow space. It was perfect. The niche would make a wonderful focal point with a plant, some softly burning candles, or maybe a display of one of Julien's favorite photos. She cleaned out the little recessed area, wiping down the bricks with a damp cloth and clearing away as much debris as possible, eager to show Julien her unexpected find when he arrived.

  After Ellie had staged the niche with one of Julien's framed pieces and a fern, she backed up to see her handiwork. It still needed something low in the center to balance it out. A book would be ideal, but Ellie wanted it to look old - like a period piece from The Jewel's heyday.

  It was then that she remembered the dingy old package. She cleaned it off as best she could, wiping away the dust and plaster, then set it in between the fern and the frame. Perfect! It looked so authentic.

  Placed there in the niche, the package seemed like an ancient gift just waiting to be opened. Maybe it was a birthday present, hidden so well that it had been forgotten. That had happened to Ellie more than once. Perhaps it was a collection of old love-letters, too precious to be discarded but too incriminating to be displayed. Could it be a journal, a Bible, a photo album?

  In fact, the more she looked at the tatty package, the more intriguing it became. Ellie's imagination was in overdrive. She was torn; she wanted to open the package to see what it contained, but it looked so picture-perfect with its ragged cloth askew and the aged twine tied around it.

  As she debated with herself, Ellie thought of Zyla. What would she do? Surely a history teacher would want to see if the package had any historical significance. Well, if Zyla would do it, then so would Ellie. If she opened it carefully, she could probably save the old fabric and use it to redress an empty prop box.

  And that settled it. Both curiosity and reason were satisfied, so Ellie took off her gloves and removed the package from the niche. She sat down and began unwinding the layers of cloth and twine. She set aside the fabric and looked at what lay beneath.

  She had been right; it was some sort of book.

  For a minute, Ellie sat and stared. The book was bound in brown leather. Some of the edges were cracked, but it was not falling apart. Despite the book's wrappings, dust still obscured the cover.

  Ellie swiped her hand across the cover and felt a tingling sensation run up her arm and down her back. It was not as sharp as static, but it felt electric, nonetheless. Wow! She thought. If this old book is giving me chills, I wonder how Zyla would feel!

  Ellie took a breath and opened the front cover. The binding crackled with age, and she began to wonder if she should take it straight to Zyla. With her love of history, Zyla would probably know exactly how to proceed with an old book like this one.

  Ellie had read somewhere that handlers wore gloves in the Vatican library. She pondered whether to put on her gloves again. But the books in the Vatican were hundreds of years older than this could possibly be. And besides, if she put her gloves on, she wouldn't have the dexterity to turn the pages one at a time like she wanted. So, Ellie continued her bare-handed exploration of the book.

  The handwritten title page looked more like a list of names and initials. The authors, maybe. Some of the first entries were illegible, but as she continued skimming the list she could make out a few items.

  Taken from J.J. by C.B., 1603

  Taken from C.B by T.I., 1610

  Taken from T.I. by A.W., 1692

  Taken from A.W. by E. B. P., 1693

  Released from E.B.P.R. to E.A.P., 1721

  Taken - what did that mean? Taken down by scribes? Could the information have come from people who couldn't write for themselves? And the last entry. It said released. If it had to be released, what was it being released from? Prison? Could this be an old prison journal? At the end of the list, there was the cover's matching emblem, albeit much smaller and crudely hand drawn. This time Ellie could make it out better.

  The emblem was a simple one that reminded Ellie of some of the indigenous art she'd seen in the Caribbean and Latin America. It looked like a cross between an hourglass and a primitive flower design. She moved on to the next page, excited to see what type of stories had been taken down over the years, deciding instantly that the book must be a collection of sorts - folk tales, planting advice, weather tips, home remedies. Perhaps she had found the original Poor Richard's Almanac!

  Or maybe it was some forgotten volume like the Appalachian FoxFire series she had loved so much as a girl. Ellie and her cousin had spent countless hours concocting recipes in the moonlight that were supposed to do everything from removing her cousin's abundant freckles to making Ellie's flat chest develop womanly curves. Disappointingly, neither one of them got what they wanted, not through FoxFire recipes nor through modern technology, and both grew to love themselves as they were -- freckle-faced and flat-chested.

  While old memories flooded Ellie's mind, she turned the page. It was much thicker than paper. Ellie knew that modern paper books were only expected to last about seventy-five years before decaying, but these pages didn't feel like paper and didn't crumble as she turned them. Were they vellum, or sheepskin, or papyrus? As much as Ellie loved to read, her knowledge about the assembling of books was sadly lacking. Nevertheless, she knew the text was quite old just from the entries on the title page.

  The first entry was so faded and written in such curlicue handwriting that Ellie couldn't make out more than a few words. Disappointed, she continued to thumb through several more pages determined to find something she could read. Although she couldn't decipher much of the first few pages, she did notice some similarities from pag
e to page. Each page started with a line of writing across the top, followed by a list, and ended with a section of prose in varying length.

  Oh! It dawned on Ellie suddenly; it must be a collection of recipes. How interesting! She wondered if she could whip up a test batch of a few of the simpler ones in her kitchen but realized she had to find some legible writing first. She skimmed through the pages and stumbled across handwriting that was more recognizable. Elated, Ellie looked more closely at the title of the recipe.

  To Rid One's Self of Biting Bugs and Irksome Pests

  So, it wasn't a recipe book after all. This sounded more like a folk remedy for pest control. She continued reading, curious to know what their ancestors did before DEET and Raid.

  Maybe she'd found an old-fashioned remedy for the gnats that loved to pester her on her porch. They definitely qualified as irksome pests. They circled everyone, even the animals. Julien and Ellie joked that everyone in Stusa looked like the character Pigpen from Charlie Brown.

  Oddly, there was no list of ingredients as Ellie had anticipated, just some instructions and a rhyme.

  To Be Read Aloud at Dawn

  Biting bugs of bloodlust born

  Fighting, failing those forsworn.

  Protection provided by power plucked

  Striving, starving, blood un-sucked

  Ellie mumbled the words aloud as she read. She couldn't help herself. It was so sound worthy. She had to hear it. So, it is an anthology of folklore, thought Ellie, fondly remembering her cousin and the escapades of their youth. Although the FoxFire contributors had nothing on these guys when it came to rhyme and alliteration.

  Ellie was about to turn the page when she heard a loud crash and the residual rumbling of falling debris. Was it Julien and the girls? When had they arrived? She hadn't heard them enter the studio. She tossed the book aside and ran toward the sound.