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Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk -*- Copyright 2005 by Ellen Hayes.
Any resemblance between the writings in this work, and any actual persons or places, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except when used for satirical purposes.
This work contains adult situations, adult language, adult concepts, and possibly sex. If you are legally not allowed to read materials containing such things, then you will be breaking the law by reading this. I am not responsible. Continuing to read this document, or storing it or reproducing it in any format means that you explicitly affirm that you are legally allowed to possess and read such materials in your city, county/parish, state, and country.
All rights reserved. See the bottom for distribution rights.
Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk
"Sorry it took so long," Mom told Brian as she reached out to hug him. He let her, because it made her feel better when she did. "We had... Your father came up with something, so the other kids at school would have some mutual support between classes and so on, and they were all there earlier so he could explain things to them."
Brian just sighed stoically, hoping that patience and calm now would be rewarded later on. "S'okay," he said.
Dad came in, saying, "Just wanted to take a look at 'im." Brian glanced over too, and didn't see any changes. "Why's he look so cold?"
"Doc Treble said his fever was at one-oh-three and she wanted it down from there," Brian explained. "And she's planning to order him out tomorrow sometime; I dunno when, so you'll have to talk to her about that. She said call her about ten." Both of them nodded. "He, uh... he didn't seem to care that much," Brian added quietly.
Rachel hung up the phone, rather than leave another voicemail, and deliberately stopped chewing on her lip. I wish I knew whether she was at least listening to them, she thought. She'd put a note on her closet door yesterday, asking Valerie to sign it or something if she'd been there, and nothing had happened. Should I go over to her house?
"Oh man," Mike sighed into the spraying water. "I need this... And about a week off." At least he could get the shower.
"Fuck, I need to get some more of this," Kim sighed as she sipped at the scotch, trying to make it last. No way I can sleep with all the shit that's been going on... Not without some help.
Jody woke up in a terror, because her parents had actually taken her to that madwoman and just LEFT her there...
She sat in bed for a long time, crying into a muffling pillow.
The 'clack' was what woke Bill up, and if he'd been dreaming it was all lost instantly, because he recognized the sound. The Springfield went into his hand almost like it had moved itself, and he delicately glided over the floor to the partially-shut bedroom door.
And waited. He ignored the sweat that started dripping off him; the aftermarket grips on the Springfield would take care of it. Instead, he concentrated on breathing silently, keeping his mouth open and adjusting his lips and tongue and jaw to remove the air noises.
He waited.
A single noise, which Bill identified as either glass or ceramic, probably breaking from the specific sharpness of the noise, and downstairs, sent him scuttling to the home computer in his room. He pulled the key out from its hiding place and inserted it into what looked like a standard keyboard lock, and twisted it.
Dark red letters splattered across the screen; no open-door or open-window indications, motion sensors downstairs activated, motion sensors outside the house NOT activated-
Brian's status changed to a green star; he'd turned his own key, in his room.
[ARM UP] Bill typed one-handed. [C7?]
[R4 ARMING] came the response, within ten seconds.
Brian hadn't been sleeping well, but he'd been enjoying that a lot more than he was this. He slowly slid his head out, enough to see his parents' room door, and saw Dad's hand motioning him to come.
Brian opened the door of his room wide, suddenly, and stopped it just as suddenly. It didn't squeak when you did it right, and he'd done it right tonight.
He waited a bit, then carefully started moving his head so he could see the upper hallway, looking for any sign of movement or an unfamiliar shape in the darkness.
Nothing.
He signaled to Dad that he was moving, and stayed on the edge of the hallway until he made it down the hall to their bedroom door.
<Ambush-maybe,> his dad signed, in the limited signals of infantry hand and arm gestures they all knew.
Brian pointed down, and his dad nodded.
<Me,> Brian pointed to himself with his free hand, <down. You backup.>
<No.>
<Yes,> Brian argued, and pointed at his knee, then his dad's knee. Come on you stupid fuck, you told me yourself you were getting too old for th-
<Yes.> Dad agreed, though he didn't look happy about it.
Brian nodded, <Yes,> back at Dad, then stood up partially and began moving quietly towards the stairs down.
A click behind him made him turn around, even as he recognized the sound of a fingernail, tapping on something wooden. When he looked back, Dad stopped tapping the stock and made a long vertical hoop in the air with his finger.
Wha- Escape hatches to basement and come up from underneath, he figured out. He shook his head and tapped the shotgun barrel on his watch, then turned forward and started moving again.
Bill waited for subjective hours near the head of the stairs, wondering what was downstairs and second-guessing his decision to allow Brian to take point, but mostly listening intently for the slightest hint of anything at all.
The sudden laughter almost made his legs collapse.
"Dad! It's Cheddar, the cat! The dumbass knocked over a lamp somehow... there's nothing else down here."
Bill cleared his throat, as quietly as he could, then called back, "You sure?"
"Yah. I checked; perimeter's closed, no damage except the lamp and something else... some tapes. I think he was climbing the drapes and fell off. Drapes are mussed, but the windows are clean. We lost... a light bulb, it looks like."
"That stupid cat," Bill sighed, as he wiped his face carefully with one hand.
Brian came back up the stairs, still chuckling at odd intervals, and waved an all-clear before going into his room. Bill went back into his, re-stowing his guns and dumping the printout into the shredder. Wish I could stick the stupid cat in here, he thought to himself, not seriously.
"Dad?" He turned around to see his son looking at him from the doorway. "It's cool, okay?" he said, and came forward.
"I don't want..." Bill found himself saying as his eyes teared up.
"Dad, it's okay," his son repeated softly, grabbing his shoulder and squeezing.
"It's okay, Eugene, you're safe..." Sarah murmured into his ear, trying to calm him down. He was still shuddering, almost five minutes after he'd woken both of them up with the terrors.
"No posters today, it looks like," Jill mentioned to Kim as they made their way towards the cosmetology lab.
"Yeah, that's strange," Kim lied. She was willing to bet that they didn't show up because Mike was so tired Tuesday.
"Looks like we have a Shannon, though."
"What?" Kim asked as she looked up and around. There she was, standing there and talking to a couple of her herd... but she looked somehow off somehow, or wrong... Sick, I think, Kim guessed. Definitely not her usual self.
"Be seeing you!" Jill said cheerfully as they passed her, and gave some kind of casual salute.
Kim didn't dare look to see what Shannon's reaction was, but she could ask Jill when they sat down, "What the hell is that about?"
"How's he doing?" Bill asked as he came in.
"About the same," Sarah sighed as she stroked Eugene's hair. His eyes opened, but he didn't move or say anything, as he looked over at the door at Bill for a few moments. Then he closed his eyes again. "I did get him to eat some more Jello about two, though."
"You didn't pour it in his ear, did you?" Bill teased.
"I SAID I got him to EAT it," she smiled. "How'd you sleep?"
"Enough," he said, which made her frown. Well, it hadn't been 'good'... "How about you?"
"So-so," she admitted. "I think he's starting to dream about it."
"Maybe there's something we can get Dana to do, to keep those off," Bill suggested.
"Yeah," Sarah sighed, "but I don't like using more drugs on him than absolutely..." Of course, if he couldn't sleep because he was waking up screaming all the time, he'd be far worse off. She'd apparently realized that, because she stopped arguing against it.
"Also, two things," Bill said. "One, did I mention that his therapist came to see him last night?"
Sarah shook her head. "You didn't, but Eugene said something about that. He couldn't talk to her, but she just sat with him for almost an hour. Brian stayed outside, so I don't think he heard anything if they said anything, but Eugene seemed... Well, not 'pleased' exactly, but he didn't mind her being here." She shrugged. "He thought it was weird, though. So do I. What was the other thing?"
"Elaine, Mike's mom, offered to come over and do any chores you needed done, including cooking. I told her not last night, but that you'd call if you wanted some help for tonight."
"Oh, Bill... I hate taking advantage of her like this-"
"She LIKES being taken advantage of like this, Sarah," he reminded her. "You know that."
"I still hate doing it."
He waved her objection away, and finished, "Well, I told her you'd call later today - Mike's house - if you wanted the help." Sarah visibly wavered between wanting to take care of her own problems, and accepting some help. "Oh go on, do it," Bill suggested, smirking.
She retorted mildly, "Shut up, Bill."
"Hey, it's the spazz!" someone jeered, and Bob felt himself flinch before he could stop it. Stupid! he snarled as they all laughed.
"Hey Spazz, you gonna dance for us?" one of them said, and he turned around to fend them off, show that he wasn't afraid of them...
There were five of them, all of them bigger than he was. And all grinning a familiar kind of grin.
"Hey Cody!" someone yelled from behind him, and one of the guys lost his grin as he stared at the voice. "Don't you have some classes to flunk? Or are you still raping little boys?"
"I'll flunk your little faggot ass," the guy snarled as all five of them started to move towards him. Bob instinctively moved sideways, but they ignored him and went after the voice. He was shocked to see Dan, one of George's geek friends, grinning like a maniac at all of them, just before he took off running in the opposite direction.
"How 'bout we leave now," Mike, the Chinese guy, said next to him, startling him badly. He didn't appear to notice the noise Bob was afraid he'd made; he just pointed in the other direction, watching the five assholes take off after his friend-
"What about Dan?" Bob asked, shocked that they weren't staying together like they always did.
"He's heading towards the admin area; they can't catch him before then, and they won't dare touch him there," Mike explained, sounding tired.
Debbie hadn't seen or heard anything about new posters this morning, and that bothered her. I thought he was going to do some more... The pressure needs to stay on if this is gonna work. Maybe I need to talk to-
"Hey, Debbie!" She looked, and it was Krystal-Klear Broadcasting calling her. Debbie waved, and the girl came closer. "I heard yesterday that Coach Grigsby, the football coach? He was so mad about those posters yesterday that he said he was thinking about quitting football and canceling the rest of the season!"
"What?!" Debbie gasped. She'd have to verify this, and QUICKLY, but if it was TRUE...
Mike looked at George, and Dan, and decided the rest had done everyone some good. "Happy happy Humpday," George said as he raised his hand in greeting. Dan was still panting, but he raised a thumb and grinned for a moment before slumping back onto the pack on top of his desk. "How's he doin'?"
"No change, that I heard; but I haven't heard anything since last night, when you did," Mike answered. "They may pull him out of the hospital today, though."
"Hey, you okay?" Dan asked.
Mike shrugged. "Got SOME sleep last night..." He still didn't feel particularly good, though.
"Hey hey hey," George enthused as he remembered something. "What do you call a bus load of cheerleaders going over a cliff?"
Mike said, "I dun-"
"A good start!" Dan crowed, and the three of them laughed until Mrs. Vangormer complained at them.
Pam found Valerie Faciszewski and Sally Shu, like it said on her paper. "Hey, everything going okay?" she asked. They both nodded. "Well, come on, I guess... How's your French going?" she asked Valerie.
"Okay, I guess," she admitted, sounding very quiet and unsure of herself.
"Yeah," Debbie said, "I heard it from Krystal, that Coach Grigsby was talking yesterday about canceling football like, ENTIRELY."
"No way!"
"So you didn't hear anything about that?"
Paul Grant looked around and realized just how many people were in the corridors, and just how few of them looked friendly. Damn, man, he thought, I thought it was all BS last night, over at Tuck's house, but... The blank, unidentifiable faces around him were vaguely frightening.
"Hey," a girl called as she waved, looking straight at him, and he remembered her from last night. Gina Sh- something, he pulled up as well. He was glad to see her, which surprised him. She looked relieved to see him, too, as they started to walk down the halls towards their next classes.
"Hey, uh. You, uh, you look kind of upset," Paul dared to mention.
"I just keep hearing about all this awful stuff," Gina admitted, looking around and hunching down inside her jacket. "I mean, I thought high school was going to be, y'know, different, somehow..."
"Yeah... me too. Seems more like..." He wasn't sure what to say; there were plenty of words, but 'prison' and 'Hell' weren't going to be reassuring, yet something needed to be said. Worse than pain, left out in the rain, to rust, dust to dust-
"But it's like really hard," she sighed, which made him glance at her in surprise. "And then, all this with that, uh, that guy..."
"Tucker?" Paul mentioned, a bit confused that she didn't seem to know him.
"Yeah, him," she nodded. "And he-"
"Yo!" called out a voice, and Paul looked up to see one of his friends gesturing at him. "New girlfriend?" Seth leered.
"Just a friend, man," he said as he waved back and kept moving. Gina smiled at him, a dazzling flash, and he wondered why she'd done it at the same time he was smiling back in pleasant reflex.
"So, I mean, they'd have to be pissed off, right?" Debbie mentioned. "I heard that his dad's- I think it was him anyway - he's been out of work for a year or something, so they might not even have health insurance - you know how it is, right?" Yvette's mom had been laid off during the summer, and it was apparent that the whole family had slipped economically. "So I mean, if that's true, they'd have to sue just to pay the hospital bills, and the only ones with deep pockets is the school district, right? And then you KNOW what'll happen after that..." She trailed off.
"What?" Yvette asked, as her real target, Janette Coates, tried to walk with them and listen in without looking like she was listening. Janette apparently had one of the bigger mouths in the freshman class.
"First thing, the school cracks down on EVERYbody; guards, or cops, at all the doors, searches and metal detectors. They might even put in cameras, maybe even in the bathrooms."
"Oh no WAY!" Yvette snapped.
Debbie snapped back instantly, "That's where he got beat up, that's where Freddie Baggett got beat up a month ago..." Freddie had gotten beaten up in a bathroom, but it was possible - though details were really hard to get - that he'd been either attempting to, or actually had, urinated on someone else's leg. She couldn't trust ANYone's side of THAT story. "And, remember that girl, uh... Oh hell, this is my class. Talk to you later, huh?" she waved as she turned into the classroom.
"I mean, this is so unreal," Julia mentioned to Tika as they settled into their seats.
" I wish I knew who was doing those posters," Tika said back. "Those were CREEPY! I'm glad they stopped."
Julia had a decent idea of who, or at least which group, was doing them, and she suspected that they weren't finished. "Yeah, they are creepy," she agreed wholeheartedly, just before the bell rang.
Brian was staring at his notes in math class, trying to think of something that could deal with his brother, in his current and all-too- common limp state, if they had to bail for the countryside. Not like it's real likely, but there's lots of stuff... He had more stuffed into his head about nuclear weapon effects and chemical spills and primitive economics and fieldcraft and other things than he really thought he'd ever need. Hopefully.
And if he couldn't come up with something, they'd have to either dump him at a hospital or police station and HOPE they'd take care of him and he'd get free later, or try to drag him along, or shoot him. Mom'd nix the last one, he nodded to himself.
"Brian Tucker!" snapped him out of his thoughts. "Perhaps you'd like to try this one?" sneered Mrs. Bailey.
He flushed a bit, because Mrs. Bailey was a primo bitch when it came to doing anything non-math in class, and he looked up at the board as he claimed, "Sure."
The math problem was simplistic, almost trivial, like most of them were; they didn't have anything 'better' in the way of math classes here, and he'd picked up enough from Dad and Tuck's talks that he was way ahead of most of the class.
As he finished, earning a dissatisfied mumble from Mrs. Bailey before she shifted into something else, he glanced outside and saw a bike rack.
Bikes... Didn't the VC use bikes for major supply?
"Would you like to do another one?" Mrs. Bailey snapped, catching him again, and some of the other kids snickered in amusement.
Twice in one fucking day! "Sure," he sighed, like he didn't care, and turned back to the whiteboard. Bicycles.
"Yeah," Janette explained carefully, "they're gonna like sue the school, for what happened. 'Cause they can't pay his medical bills."
"What about the other kids?" Angel asked. "I heard that he's not the only one that got beaten up, just the worst."
"Maybe they could do one of those like class-action things?" Vickie threw in. "Like where everybody gets in on it?"
"Man, they could shut the whole school down," Janette realized, and laughed. "That'd be so COOL!"
Angel laughed too, but Vickie was shaking her head. "No, they'd make us make it up, like during the summer or something."
"Aw-"
"And they'd make us go to other schools, too," she added. "So we'd all be split up and stuff."
"Oh no." Janette LIKED this school, and the people she'd met.
"Oh no what?" Janette turned around, and it was Lucas Honeycutt, the guy that had been wanting to go out with her since school started. She'd been sort of stringing him along until her dad said she could date, but she HAD managed to go to Homecoming and dance with him.
"Hi Lucas," she smiled. "Did you hear? About them suing the school?"
"What?" Before she could answer, he asked, "Is this anything to do with that girl getting beat up?"
"I thought it was a guy," Angel butted in, looking at Janette like it was her fault.
"No, some girl a couple of days ago, I heard, she got beat up pretty bad. Oh, were you talking about that helicopter thing?"
Vickie gasped, "Somebody ELSE?"
Debbie explained, "No, I mean, they got busted for drinking and stuff at a party over the weekend, when they could have been at Homecoming-"
"They were suspended or something," Molly argued.
"Oh yeah right," Debbie said scornfully. "They got suspended but they're in all their usual classes. Sure." The fact that it was apparently true was at this moment irrelevant. "Then they get busted AGAIN, for whatever they did last week, but I mean it was like JAIL again... Are these the people we want as cheerleaders?"
Molly North, not fond of her name since the Reagan years, had apparently FAINTED when she found out that she wasn't on the varsity cheerleader squad this year, her last.
"I mean," Debbie continued, "if they're supposed to be 'school spirit representatives', what does that say about McAllen? So like, when I heard that they were thinking about tossing ALL of them, I was like, 'Thank God!', you know?" Molly nodded, almost unconsciously, and Debbie nodded back to help it stick in her head. "Yeah, so..."
"You ready?" Bill asked Eugene.
<OK,> he signed, and started to get up.
"Easy," Bill cautioned, and moved to support his son's weight.
"I can-"
"I got it," Bill told the nurse, like he'd told her before they started moving. He knew his son better than anyone else in the hospital, and they worked well together, even for things like this. They slid him off the bed and into the wheelchair, and Eugene hooked up his mask to the tank slung on the wheelchair and cracked the valve. Another thumb up told Bill that it was flowing well and he was 'pressurized'. Eugene slumped back in the wheelchair and closed his eyes, the only sign of consciousness his feet fiddling with the footrests.
"Well, we think he's ready to go," chirped the nurse. His son's hand tightened on the armrest, where Bill could see it, and Bill gave him a gentle yet admonishing fist-thump-on-the-head to remind him not to attack medical personnel. He'd been somewhat more difficult to deal with than usual, and Bill wasn't sure what he'd be like when he got home, away from the hate-able medical staff here. Far too much of the time, he'd been almost back in his coma.
Bill leaned down and quietly suggested into Eugene's ear, "Right out the window," and was relieved to see a thumb pop up, even as the nurse blathered against what she thought they'd been talking about. Yep, outta here, as soon as I can get him downstairs.
Jody couldn't tell if she was starting to go paranoid, because of the stress, or if people really were staring at her and giggling behind their hands. Either way, it's going to drive me nuts, she realized.
"Hey, aren't you going to eat?" Shannon mentioned.
Jody looked down at her food, and suddenly felt a wave of nausea. Instead of answering, she just shook her head; then she stood up before Shannon could say anything, picking her lunch up and taking it to the trash so she could dump it.
"What?" Michael complained, and Paul sighed.
Instead of trying to calm the teen down, he got to the point. "I can switch you out of your present gym class, into a morning aerobics, and you can take the other English lit that Miz Durham teaches in the afternoon. You'd get Aerobics daily, instead of every other day, and a study hall every other day in the afternoon." The sort of juggling required to switch a student from one class to another was exactly the reason the students weren't allowed to switch classes around except in extreme cases. Michael's, he felt, was actually that extreme.
"Uh, what? Sorry," Michael apologized. "Not tracking too well today. Uh, you... is this an offer or an order?"
"Well, it's an offer," Paul said, feeling mildly and pleasantly surprised at the more reasonable attitude which Michael was displaying. "I think it's the best I can do at this point. Or the simplest, that changes the least."
Michael was nodding agreement, but stopped as he asked, "Aerobics? As in, full of girls, right?"
"There are-"
"No, I mean, there's a lot of resentment towards Tuck in the female community at this point," he said, surprising Paul. "I don't want to go in someplace all of a sudden where it turns out worse than where I left."
"Your friend Kathy is in this class," Paul smiled.
"Ka- Kathy?" he confirmed, stretching his arm above his head, and Paul nodded, still smiling. "Oh." His face moved, and he asked, "This isn't full contact aerobics, is it?"
"Full contact?" Paul asked.
Michael shook his head. "Something his mom came up with. Never mind. It's just like on TV, right, doing calisthenics in rows, right?"
"I... think so," Paul said warily, wondering what was going through Michael's mind.
"Tuck and I used to say 'aerobics' when we meant chasing each other with sticks or paintball," he explained.
"Ah."
"And the LAST thing I want is Kathy chasing me every day, first period," Michael smiled back. "She's faster than me and she hits hard. I think I'd lose. A lot." He grinned again. "But I think she'd protect me, at least a little, from non-class-related violence."
"Probably," Paul agreed, still somewhat bemused. "So, hmm, do you want to perform the switch?"
Mike nodded.
"Comfy?" Bill asked. His son raised one finger in an indirect reply that everything was probably as good as it was going to get. "Good," he agreed, and carefully backed himself out of the Volvo's rear hatch, fumbling with his good leg for the ground so he wouldn't miss it.
When he'd gotten back to his feet successfully, he shut the hatch relatively gently, then waved the nurse off. "He's good, strapped in, got his oxygen on, and all that. He'll be fine."
"If you're sure," she whimpered, still looking distressed. She hadn't liked the idea of Eugene lying down in the back of the wagon at ALL; but it was too late for her to do anything, because he'd already been released.
"We've done it before," he said curtly. He was starting to get tired of the medics himself, especially the dipsy ones like this one. Give me a tech, with a sense of humor, any day.
"He is? Great!" Sarah enthused. "I'm with a client right now, so I'll talk to you later, okay? Give him a kiss for me, and you both be careful?"
"We will. Bill clear," he replied, and she pressed the end button. <My son just got out of the hospital,> she signed to her client, before slipping the phone back into her jacket pocket.
<Oh, what happened?>
<An injury he got at school,> she half-explained. Even though she wasn't as paranoid as Bill was about 'information security', she wanted to keep the news of what had happened within the family as much as possible. <Anyway, I think you will like this house,> she changed the topic.
"I gotta try and look something up," Brian said, "and this is the only time today I can do it."
"What do you need to look up?" Mrs. Lawler asked.
"Something for a paper..." That wasn't going to be enough, he could tell by her expression. "I'm doing a paper on bicycles for English," he lied, "and I want to look up something I remember, about the Vietnamese using them for logistics back in the 50s into the 70s."
"Alright," she agreed, with her eyebrows up, and he took the opportunity to leave the lunchroom before she could take it back.
Maybe I should've said 'history'... English is kinda a weird thing to be writing about bicycles... No, they don't keep up with all the papers in English classes; history only makes you write papers for those big things, about once a quarter. He nodded to himself; it had been the right lie.
"Hey Debbie." Debbie turned around, and it was Julia, Tuck's friend from drama. "Do you know anything about the posters that showed up recently?"
"What? No," she lied smoothly. "Did you hear something about them?"
Julia gave her an 'I don't believe you' look, and said, "I just- No, I just wondered if you'd heard anything about who might be doing them."
"Not a thing, really," Debbie said. "Hey though, if I do I'll let you know, okay?"
"Okay," Julia agreed, still sounding skeptical. She moved towards Debbie and motioned her closer. "I, uh," she said quietly as she looked around for a moment, "I think it might be some of Tuck's crew, y'know?"
Debbie shrugged. "If it is, they aren't saying anything to me about it. And," she added as if she'd just thought about it, "I'm a little afraid to ask one of 'em. What if they are, I mean, would they do something to me for asking, or suspecting?"
"Aren't you being a little paranoid?" Julia questioned.
Fantastic. "I don't think so," Debbie said carefully. "I mean, I heard his parents were seriously thinking about suing the people who did it, and the school too, 'cause they let it happen. And it'd be just like Tuck to get them to spy on people to get evidence for the lawsuit, you know?" That's what she'd be trying to do, if she were suing, anyway. And Julia knew that Mike and them went in for the 'secret agent' stuff, too.
"He wants to switch me to- No, that's not right," Mike corrected himself. "He OFFERED me the chance to switch PE."
"What?" "No way!" Trying to change your classes after school had started was slightly harder than switching schools, unless you were flunking out of one of the advanced classes.
"Swear ta Buddha, and I didn't even ask," he swore with a hand upraised.
"You're supposed to rub your BELLY, dork," George put in.
Oh, right. Mike obediently rubbed his belly as a physical affirmation while continuing, "If you guys have any changes you want to make, you might be able to now, if you put it like you're afraid to be in them or go to them."
Dan shrugged; George looked like he was considering it. Mike stopped rubbing his belly and rubbed his forehead instead; he wasn't thinking well at all today. "George? You thinkin' about it?"
"Dunno. Thinkin' about thinkin' about it," he grinned back.
Kim finally got a chance to talk to Mike at lunch, and she bustled over as soon as she could, barely acknowledging Debbie's wave. "Mike?"
"Yeah?" he replied as he turned towards her.
He looked bad, his face limp and exhausted. "Are you okay?" she asked before she could stop herself.
He shrugged, before clearing his throat. "I need more sleep, maybe a weekend. What's up?" His face flickered a bit, then he said, "Tonight, right?"
"What?" Oh, yeah, we were gonna go out tonight. "Um, yeah, but that's not what I was thinking of. Um..." She dug into her purse for the envelope Ricky had given her the night before. "Um, this is for- These are for Tuck," she said as she handed him the get-well card she'd picked up the night before, after she'd finished sitting. "One's from me and the other's from the kid he sits, but I don't know what's in that one."
"Ah. Okay, I'll give 'em to him when I see him," he nodded.
"So like are we gonna play today?" George huffed.
"George!" she complained, glancing at Kelly, who looked undecided about the concept.
"I've got a one-track mind, what can I say?" he grinned- no, leered at her.
"Don't even think about it ever again in your life," Kim snapped as she shuddered slightly.
"Got it?" Bill asked, and Eugene considered the question for a distressingly long time before he nodded. Bill put himself under Eugene's arm and lifted slightly, to help him walk from the car into the house. "Almost there," he coaxed as they were going up the steps to the kitchen door, and was rewarded with a single finger. "Gosh," Bill said ingenuously, "you're in a bad mood today for some reason."
He blocked the feeble hand Tucker tried to slap him with, and smiled. It's gonna get better, he found himself thinking.
"I mean," Debbie said to Diane Mathis, "I can't believe that they're just letting this happen. When are they going to do something? After the next one, or the one after that? Or do we just wander around wondering when something's going to happen to us?" Diane had been well stomped by a couple of junior high cheerleaders back at her old school, Debbie had heard, and nearly had to repeat seventh grade because of it.
"I think they ought to kick the cheerleaders completely OUT," Diane hissed. Good, Debbie thought, but was careful not to smile.
"Two hundred kilos?" Brian said out loud in shock. "Da-" he cut himself off as he remembered he was in the library.
If we can get the packs set up to hang on them, and get bikes set up... two hundred kilos is four hundred and forty pounds. Tuck weighs, what, one-twenty on his best days? Hell, that'd carry ANYONE. PLUS gear. He started marking photos in the book to copy, and made a note of the Dewey Decimal number so he could find other sources.
"Hey, man, you okay?" George asked Mike as they were getting up to go to classes again. "You look like drek." He'd been reading Shadowrun novels again, apparently.
"I feel like drek," Mike admitted, before rubbing his face with both hands. It made him feel more awake, vaguely.
"If Tuck's going home today, maybe you can get some more sleep tonight."
"Yeah, depending on the amount of extra-curriculars I have today."
"Maybe we ought to put it off for another night," George said quietly.
"What? Who are you and what have you done with George?" Mike joked. "No, I'll be okay. Just gotta take it easy, get some sleep in between there. 'M gonna..." He lost what he was going to say.
"I hate to bring this up, O Font of Chinese Genetic Superiority, but do you think you might be ill? You've been clearing your throat a lot."
"Oh, fuck," Mike moaned.
"Like you've got snot dripping down the back of your throat," George continued, which Mike did NOT need to hear.
"I heard," Callie reported as the other girls listened carefully, "that they've had like armed robberies in the bathrooms, like four or five this year already."
"Holy crap!" Anne-Marie gasped.
"You mean," Valerie said, "like, someone-"
"Like someone getting beaten up in the bathroom and their stuff stolen... like someone planned it to rob 'em or something." Callie wondered for an instant why she hadn't heard about them before this, then realized, "Yeah,it's been happening at the end of school, though, so they don't find 'em until school's out. That's why we haven't heard about it or seen the ambulances. Last week, that girl that got attacked in the locker room, I heard she had a laptop, and-" Anne-Marie and Valerie were looking at each other. "What?"
"Uh nothing," Anne-Marie said quickly. "Anyway, what about the girl?"
"Oh, uh..." Callie thought it was a lot more than 'nothing', but-
"Please, come on," Valerie prompted.
"Okay, uh... oh, like, I think they're getting more violent about the robberies, and they're doing 'em earlier; that's why we all heard the helicopter that time, is they did it early and maybe harder than the other ones."
"Makes you wonder who's gonna be next," Anne-Marie sighed as she looked at her purse. "I wonder if not carrying anything valuable would-"
"No way. I mean, if I was gonna rob someone, and planned it like they did, then I'd be even more pissed if they didn't have anything, y'know?" Callie shivered at the thought of someone trying to rob her for her valuables, and then finding out she didn't HAVE any on her. "Oh man..."
"Oh, we gotta get to class," Anne-Marie suddenly exclaimed. "See ya later!" she waved as she pulled the other girl out of the bathroom.
"Hey faggot!" alerted James, but too late, and the shove slammed him into the lockers. Far worse, it knocked his glasses loose, and before he could dive after them, he heard a far too familiar crunching noise, and a lot of laughter.
"What the HELL-" snarled the enormously tall girl that he'd been walking with, and the laughter almost stopped as everyone left. "Are you okay?" Cory asked him.
"M-m-my g-glasses," he stuttered, and felt tears well up; it wasn't bad enough that he'd been hit, AND lost his glasses, AGAIN; some GIRL was asking if he was alright, and he couldn't do a damned-
"Oh shit," she said from somewhere in the hall, but he'd already known.
As Debbie sat down in her desk, just as the bell rang, Monica Riggins said excitedly, "Did you hear they caught the people who were doing the posters?"
"What? Oh my god!" Debbie almost shouted. "What happened?"
"Yeah, I heard it was a couple of the cheerleaders," Monica whispered, beaming, "and-"
Debbie could safely shush her as the teacher glared at them both. "Tell me after class, okay?" she told Monica, taking care to look excited about the 'news'.
As the teacher gave them a final glare before he started lecturing, Debbie looked down and moved her pen like she was taking notes; she was, just not on paper and not anything to do with the class.
James was twisting his fingers, trading the physical agony of his joints complaining in the hope that he could prevent the emotional agony of breaking out sobbing right here in front of the teacher and three dozen students... some of them girls...
"I couldn't tell if it was deliberate or not," Cory said angrily "but they're completely smashed."
"James, can you see without them?" Mrs. Macdonald asked. He shook his head, not sure if he could speak, and totally sure that if he tried something embarassing would happen. "Um, miss, could-"
"Cory," Cory told Mrs. Macdonald.
"Cory, could you take him to the principal's office? I think he could use a guide, without his glasses..." she said absently as she fumbled in her bag for something. "Let me write you both notes..." Suddenly, she put her head up and said, "Ralph? Do you find something funny about him having his glasses broken? Would you like to explain it to Mrs. Prilchard?"
Oh God, let me die, James pleaded silently.
Oh, God, Cory fumed silently. I can't believe someone did that! And RIGHT in front of me! She didn't want to look at James; it was obvious he was horribly upset, but like any guy he didn't want to look like a wimp in public so he was holding it in. Which made her feel worse, because if she hadn't stopped to talk- For not even thirty seconds! Shit!
It looked like that Tucker guy, and his father, were right; nothing had happened to him when she'd been paying attention to him, it had only been when they had separated.
This place isn't safe, she shuddered as she looked around. The hallways were empty now, but...
"Mike Johansson, the principal wants to see you," Mrs. Forbes said before he could even sit down.
"What?" he complained, then waved a hand at her. "Never mind, I'll go ask him myself," he sighed. Man, I feel like shit again. Need some more sleep, is what I need. If I can just get some sleep, I can throw off this cold or whatever it is.
The hallways cleared out in front of him, as even the late kids got into class. Wonder what the hell it is... he thought as he made his way down the stairs and around the loop. That thing this morning, he finally connected. Wants me to sign something or other. That's gotta be it, he decided.
When he made it to the office, he had almost convinced himself that that was what it was. He went up to the secretary, who handed him a note.
"Eugene Tucker's mother wants to know if you can pick Brian up after school. Now, normally we don't act as an answering service, but Mister Dobson..." That's what it says, he decided as he read over the note. Huh.
"Uh, yeah, I can pick him up," he said when he remembered the secretary, who was watching him as she waited for his answer. "No problem."
"So tell me what happened," Debbie remembered to ask Monica when the bell rang and everyone started packing their notebooks up.
"Well what I heard, was..."
"Mom it wasn't my fault!" James burst out as soon as he saw her walk into the office.
"I know, Jimmy," she said, and he winced at the childhood nickname she used to embarrass him when he was already upset. "What happened?"
"I heard that the cheerleaders got busted for putting the posters up," Debbie told Pam as they went into the classroom.
"No!"
"I HEARD it," Debbie emphasized. Meaning, she didn't believe it.
"So do you know who was doing it?"
"If I did I'd kick their asses," Debbie lied with a snarl. "That one on Monday, with that woman... aaaaghhh!"
"No kidding," Pam agreed, looking disgusted.
"This is unbelievable!" Mrs. Cooper complained bitterly, and Paul Dobson winced. "What are you going to DO about it?"
"Mrs. Cooper," he said as calmly as he could, "we're trying. James said- and I believe him," he added, just to make that plain, "that he didn't see who did it. I've tried before, and it's impossible to find any witnesses for something-"
"Why is it impossible?!"
"Because no one will talk. There's a cul-" he accidentally let slip out. "A culture of silence about things like this," he belatedly completed, wishing momentarily that he hadn't said anything at all. "A-and we're trying, right now, to find a way to, to, destroy that culture. And get the students to talk, about things they've seen that they KNOW are wrong."
"Well what are we going to do until you manage to change an entire culture?" she asked scornfully, apparently fully aware of how hard the task would be.
"James?" Paul asked instead. "You know Eugene Tucker, right?"
"Tucker?" the boy repeated. "Yeah," he admitted as he turned pink. I wonder why he's blushing...
"I would suggest you talk to his parents, Miz Cooper," Paul said as he turned back to her. She was watching her son, apparently perplexed for a moment, but he saw her smile in apparent recognition of... something. "They are at least as fed up with things as you are. Their son, Eugene, was-"
"Eugene?" James interrupted.
"Excuse me," Paul said gravely. "He does prefer 'Tucker'. He..." They really don't want to talk about it, he remembered. "Well, I can't say, but I suggest you talk to them. They may be able to help."
Mrs. Cooper's face pinched, obviously unhappy, but she nodded once and said, "Thank you, Mister Dobson. We may be in touch." He stiffened his face to the point that he didn't grimace in response, he hoped, and nodded back.
"You got him a card?" Jill asked sideways as she stared into her locker and tried to remember which books she'd need for the night and the next morning.
Kim shrugged. "I mean, it's not like we've been able to see her, uh, I mean HIM, since he went into the hospital. So, you know, I thought I'd do something to show that we still, we were still thinking of him, all that."
"Yeah, that's a good idea," Jill mused. "Hey, how come you didn't have all of us sign it?"
Kim sighed. "Because I'd already put it in the envelope and sealed it, like I was gonna mail it, before I thought 'Hey I'll give it to Mike tomorrow' and then I realized that I COULD have gotten everybody to sign it-"
"But you'd already sealed the card," Jill nodded. "Hey, are you gonna do something tonight with Mike?"
Kim bit her lip. "I dunno... I thought I was, but he didn't look good at lunch, you know? I mean, if I didn't know better, I'd say he was sick or something."
"Maybe it's just stress," Jill suggested before she slammed her locker shut. I gotta get him a card...
Mike looked around, to make sure nobody was watching him, then looked again at the locker number to make sure it was the right one, before bending in slightly and coughing hard towards the lock.
"Got it?" George asked. Mike nodded as he stood back up. "Come on, one more," George enticed.
"Did five," Mike rasped.
Brian just made it out of the building before Mike honked at him. He waved, and trotted over to Mike's car.
"Hey."
"Hey, I had this idea-"
"Hold on." Mike thought for a moment. "I thought you were in soccer after school?"
"Not while Tuck's screwed up; Mom 'n Dad want me around the house, and watching you to make sure you don't steal anything."
Instead of protesting or insulting him back, Mike just nodded.
"Hey," Brian asked, "you okay?"
"I mean," Debbie explained quietly, "there was this girl last year, and she got raped- like, real bad..." She found herself shuddering, and tried to calm her body before she continued, "and they like wouldn't do ANYTHING to the guy who did it. And when he got in a fight, saying something bad about her- I mean, like raping her isn't bad enough, he's got to insult her in public too, right?" Jan nodded in fascination, totally enthralled. "So they get sent to the principal's office - a real jerk, but they fired him over the summer; it's not the one we have now - and you know what? They give the people who DEFENDED her detention! I mean, what the hell?" she asked rhetorically.
"No WAY!" Deidra complained.
"And you know," Debbie said hastily (to keep the spell going) as she nodded (to assure Deidra that it was indeed true), "what's the worst thing about it? I think everybody thought this guy got away with it, like it meant that if you were on a team, like one of the big three, that you could do that and unless they caught you actually doing it, that you'd get away with it." The two sophomores stared at her in sickened awe. "That's why I won't stay here after school more than a minute, unless I have friends or a teacher RIGHT with me," she said. The two girls looked at each other. "What?" Debbie gently asked.
"There was this kid," Deidra said hesitantly, "in my math class? He is like the biggest dork... But today he came in, and someone had broken his glasses out in the hall."
"Oh my God, that's horrible," Debbie exclaimed. "Who was it?"
"That Star Trek dork, b-"
"Oh, man, HIM?" complained Jan. "He is like the BIGGEST goober-"
"Yeah, but, like, smashing his glasses?" Deidra interrupted. "I mean, I wear glasses sometimes..."
"Nobody'd do that to YOU," Jan sighed angrily, as if Deidra was being unreasonably paranoid.
"Yeah but that's what I'm talking about," Debbie interjected, getting the two girls' attention again. "They did it to him today, right? If they don't punish whoever did it, then it'll like look okay to do that to someone else. And, like, maybe there's some jerk you don't want to go out with?" Jan, despite a fairly large makeup purchase a few weeks before, didn't seem very interested in dating ANYONE after she'd broken up with Rigoberto 'Riggie' Espinoza over the summer; she'd said she wasn't going to Homecoming this year either, and Debbie hadn't seen her at the dance. Debbie didn't know anything about Deidra's dating habits - yet - but it was a good guess that she'd had to tell SOMEONE no in the last year. "Maybe they'll just decide to get you in the halls, to 'make you pay for being uppity'. Or maybe some girl'll do it because you went out with a guy she wanted. See, once people realize that they can get away with things like this, and so far nobody's been able to do anything to stop them," she subtly emphasized, "then it's like open season on everybody else."
The two girls looked suitably worried, even as Jan started to argue, her voice raising shrilly with her emotional involvement. Good enough, Debbie decided, and started disengaging from the conversation.
"I mean, the LEAST we could do is apologize," Jody said, nervous because everyone was staring at her, and she knew this wasn't going to be a popular thing to say. "Tell him that we're sorry-"
"I'm not sorry!" "Apologize to that FREAK? After what he DID?"
"Dad?" Brian called as he unlocked the door and came in. "Dad?" His brother was sitting on the couch, wearing scrubs and an oxygen mask. "Hey, look what the cat dragged in. You seen Dad?" Tuck pointed at his crotch and clamped his knees together. Bathroom. "Okay, I gotta talk to him about something. Uh, you ok?" he asked, suddenly feeling a bit guilty. Tuck nodded, then wiggled his hand sideways and pointed at the green tank on the couch beside him. Okay except for the fact that I'm fucked up sick, Brian mentally translated. "Alright, that's cool."
"Tuck! You're home!" Mike said, genuinely glad to see him out of the hospital.
Tuck showed a finger in response, which showed he was doing alright.
As much as he ever is at this stage out of the hospital, anyway, Mike edited. "Did you take your meds yet?" A hand-nod. "Done your coughing lately?" Another hand-nod, as Mike moved closer, but Tuck's breathing sounded like he hadn't. "You wouldn't LIE to me about something like that, would you?" Fist balled up and twisted rapidly side to side. "Uh huh." Mike was sure he was lying now. "Well, then you won't mind taking your mask off and letting me listen, would you?"
The glare told him he'd been right on the mark.
Bill gaped at the absolutely stunning realization that either his younger son was also a genius, or he himself was a complete idiot.
He was inclined to think himself an idiot.
"It'd work, if we could get the bikes," Brian concluded. "And if we could get those kiddie-style seats, the long ones- uh, banana seats I think they're called, it'd be easy to double up on 'em. Wouldn't even need a framework or anything to carry someone that way."
Bill continued looking at the diagrams Brian had presented, photocopies of a professional drawing of a bicycle, with colored ink showing the modifications Brian wanted. They weren't trivial... especially not when they involved possibly welding on the frame. But they were possi-
"Dad?"
"Uh?" he reflexively asked as he looked up.
"I asked if it was a good idea?" his son repeated uncertainly.
Bill nodded as he agreed, "Good idea. Damned good idea, in fact. I am stupid, for not thinking of it earlier." As in, decades earlier. It was so DAMNED obvi-
"Yeah, if we get those wide tires they put on mountain bikes nowadays, we can even take 'em on pretty bad paths," Brian enthused. "I mean, depends on the weight, but it's always better with wider tires, right?"
"Right," he nodded, still bemused.
"You know," Miranda told the girls, "we could use some NICE posters to put up. Something showing that we ARE a team here at McAllen, and, you know, positive in attitude. Not like the ones that showed up earlier in the week."
"Like what?" Shannon finally asked. "What should we do, I mean?"
Miranda shrugged before pulling out a blank notebook. "Can we brainstorm on this? Come up with something that will make all the students want to pull together?"
Even before Kim stopped her car, Ricky was waving at her with both hands and trotting towards her.
"Did you give her the card?" was the first thing Ricky asked her as he opened the door and got in.
She sighed, "YES, Ricky, I made sure it would get to her."
"Have you seen her?"
"No, I haven't. Her parents say she needs to rest, so no visitors allowed, remember?"
"That's... I mean, if I was sick," he said as she pulled out, "I'd want to see MY friends."
"Well, she's still in the hospital," Kim shrugged.
"When's she- Do you know when she's getting out?" he asked.
Kim shook her head. "No. It might be soon, though. She'll be okay, Ricky," she said, trying to be reassuring.
"Man, I just don't know about that place," Kelly complained as she looked at Dad. "I mean, it's been fun and everything, but now... it's like, every time I go in I wonder, is something going to happen to me? Or one of my friends?"
"This is insane," Audrey complained, looking at Kelly's dad like it was his fault.
It is! Kelly thought angrily. I didn't ask to move down here! Well, she had, actually; but she'd taken it back the moment he'd started talking about it like it might really happen.
"I totally agree," her father said, in that stern way he got when he was going to do something about something. "This is ridiculous; you shouldn't be afraid every day." He thought for a bit, then stood up. "Where can we find out who's on the school board?"
"Yeah, you know what I heard?" Ginger asked. "Debbie Carstairs, she-"
"Isn't she the chick that used to date that li'l geek that got beaten up last week?"
"Used to, but that is like WAY over," Ginger said confidently. "Anyway, what I heard was, that they're thinking that since the cheerleaders are such a bad influence, that they're just going to cut ALL of them, PERMANENTLY."
"No WAY!" Reina exclaimed, half shocked and half gleeful. "Would they really do that?"
"I heard from someone else, Myra Neufeld? That they, I mean Tucker's family, they were thinking about suing the school board. If they do that, then maybe they could save some money by not having cheerleaders."
"That's hardly any money-"
"Yeah, but if they can get rid of the cheerleaders, then it looks in court like they're, the school I mean, is doing something, instead of just sitting on the problem. So they might be history, like to try and get out of the legal problem."
"Oh MAN! That would be WILD! Wait, what about the athletics teams? Weren't some of them arrested for beating him up too?"
"Oh God." Ginger hadn't even thought of that, but it made almost too much sense. "And if they cut both the athletics AND the cheerleaders," she considered out loud, "then it'd look even better if it went to court..."
"Lisa? Debbie. Gimme a call when you're off work, I've got a late appointment I need your help with. Okay? So call me back when you're free tonight. Bye."
Sheila again? Bill wondered, as he stared at the body of the phone. "Yes?"
"I'm calling about Eugene..."
"Aw hell, man, I almost forgot," Mike said as he dug in his pack. "Kim gave me a card... to give... And she said, uh, Ricky gave her one yesterday." He looked up and nodded as Tuck signed the kid's name, looking incredulous. "Yeah, she said he gave it to her, to give to you, yesterday night." When he had found both of them, he handed them to Tuck. "She gave 'em to me at lunch today."
<Did you look?>
"Fuck no I didn't look at them!" Mike complained. "Kim's is sealed, and I didn't even look at Ricky's." He yawned, and it turned into a cough. "Aw, fuck," he groaned. "I need some rest. Isn't that a good idea, Tuck? You're tired. Nod your head."
Tuck wearily nodded his head.
"It's not like he had a fucking sign ar-"
"JODY!"
"-ound his neck saying that he'd been a victim of some weird crime, Mom!" Jody shouted even louder. "How were we supposed to know?!"
"You don't just HIT people, Jody!"
"Mom he was in our LOCKER ROOM! WEaring one of our UNIFORMS!" she protested, for the millionth time it felt like. "It... we... we didn't KNOW," she gasped as her strength gave out.
"I just can't believe," her mother continued yelling, and Jody just sat there, too tired and too sick to argue any more. Nobody listens to me... How was I supposed to know? Why doesn't anyone tell me THAT, huh? Tell me how we were supposed to know! Everyone just wants to blame us...
Because we're the ones that put him in ICU. "Oh God," Jody groaned in pain as her stomach twisted. "Momma, pleasssse..."
"Mister Tucker? This is Paul Dobson, the princi-"
"Yes?"
"I, ah, was calling to ask how he's doing," Paul said.
"He's out of the hospital and recuperating," Bill answered, which made Paul feel a little better. Actually, a lot better. "It'll be a while before he comes back to school, though; he's not healed yet. Have you been backing up your computers?" he asked.
"Have I- Oh, yes, definitely," Paul said hurriedly. "One, hmm, an incremental one overnight, and we'll do the full backup over the weekend."
"Good. That'll make Tuck feel better," Bill said, which made Paul feel vaguely guilty for a moment. Is it really THAT important to Eugene? I thought that of all the students, he'd be one of the happiest if the faculty computers had problems.
"Yeah, look," Mike said, then had to hold a hand over the phone so he could cough. Damnit! "Uhhhhh..."
"You're saying you want to call things off?" George suggested.
"No. I'm saying... I'm saying that we need to DO it. Except, I can't. You guys need to."
"Aw, man! We don't have enough-"
"Call Jill," Mike interrupted. "You know how to run the op; it's just like the last couple of times. Get her to help out."
"What about Brian? He's reliable."
"I'll check, but you could use another lookout. With me AND Tuck out..."
"Aw, shit, man," George commented.
After a few seconds of silence, Mike said, "Look, man, I know; but she's helped us before, and I think she'll do okay."
"Yeah..."
"Hey, Dan? This is Debbie. I was wondering if you had some free time; I wanted to discuss some more graphics stuff with you? Are you free tonight sometime?"
"Uh, Debbie? Uh- Oh, uh, yeah, uh, sometime tonight..." I thought he'd be more on the ball than this, she sighed mentally. "Yeah, that'd be okay... uh..."
"How about seven?" she suggested, trying not to sound impatient.
"See, Sarah, he was thinking..."
Bill continued to talk as Sarah looked at the diagrams that they had come up with. "I don't know, though. Remember that ten-speed I had in college, and what happened-"
"They ARE making the frames a lot stronger now," Bill argued. "And, if we do it right, we'll still have the packs and so on mounted on the bikes; this would just improve our capacity to move things."
"Like Tuck," Brian piped up, which focused her attention on her younger son. "I mean, can you imagine him trying to walk a mile like he is right now?"
She'd peeked into his room when she'd come home - glad that she'd demanded that Bill kill Eugene's door lock - and while he always looked immensely better out of a hospital than in one. he still looked and sounded very sick. Mike, too, apparently. "That reminds me... I need to call Elaine Johansson. Did anyone tell her that Mike was over here?" The males looked abashed. "You all KNOW better than that," she sighed as she walked towards the kitchen phone.
"But what do you think of the idea?" Brian asked.
"Let me make the call and think about it," Sarah, said, putting him off momentarily; the idea did make some sense, but she was thinking of something else. "Have you guys eaten anything?"
"Uh," Bill mumbled, admitting he'd forgotten entirely about eating.
Elaine looked at her son, who was staring at the table. "Michael," she prodded.
"Yeah," he grated. "I think I'm sick." She was a little surprised; she usually had to argue him into admitting something like that.
"I can take him in tomorrow," Bill offered. "We have to take Eugene in anyway, and I'd rather neither of them were driving, not in their condition."
Elaine nodded agreement. "Well, Mike, do you want to stay here tonight, or come home?" She would rather her son came home, of course, but he would be well taken care of here too; the Tuckers had plenty of experience with sick children, and - like Bill had just offered - they were entirely generous about combining care on the occasions when they were both sick at the same time.
"Stay here," he said, like she'd guessed he would.
"Why don't we feed them first," Sarah suggested, "and then we can clean up everything, disinfect, and then we can have ours?"
"I'm tutoring Sabrina eight to nine tonight, remember," Bill mentioned.
"Sabrina?"
"Friend of theirs, wants to get better in math," Bill explained.
"And in exchange," Sarah grinned, "she folds the laundry. Anyway, I think we can get done before she comes over?" she said, looking at Elaine for confirmation.
"That would be fine," Elaine smiled. She was happy to help.
"Hey Mom? What were you doing with those posters?" Brian asked quietly.
"What posters?"
He sighed at her. "You know what posters; the ones you were working on with that geek Dan on Sun-"
"Don't call him a geek," Sarah reflexively admonished.
"Mom, if you ask him, he'll TELL you he's a geek."
"Br-"
"Okay okay. But what were those posters?" he pressed. "'Cause I heard something about them today at school, some dude was saying his mom almost had a heart attack when she heard about 'em. An' don't lie to me, okay?"
Sarah sighed. "Black propaganda."
"For what?"
She was a little surprised she didn't have to explain the term to him. Then again, he WAS her child... "To get the kids, and their parents, upset about what happened, without actually mentioning Eugene."
"Were you trying to get rid of the cheerleaders?" Brian pressed.
"What?"
"I heard that som- What I heard, from this guy, was that his brother, who's at McAllen, he was saying that there's a rumor going around that we're going to sue the school, and that they're going to shut the cheerleaders completely down. Or we, the family of the kid who got beat up, is going to demand that they be disbanded. I just wanted to know, I mean..."
She prompted, "Yes?"
"'M tryin' to think how to say it," he complained. "What I mean is, I know some kids that have older sibs that go to McAllen. I can spread things around, y'know, at my school too. But, I need to know what to say," he stated.
"Well, yes..."
"And there've been some other ones, other posters, since the one you worked on here," he mentioned.
"Like what?"
"I dunno. Don't remember," he elaborated, "and the guy didn't say. But there's been more than one. Did you work on it at work or something?"
"No..." She frowned as she realized, "I didn't have anything to do with any of them except the first one. Dan must've been coming up with them on his own."
"Didn't Debbie come up with the idea?" he asked.
"Yeah, she did," Sarah admitted.
"Maybe she's doing 'em."
If she is.... what is she planning? You HAD to have a goal before you started a propaganda campaign... she'd wanted the other students to realize that violence could as easily be directed against them as well.
What was DEBBIE's goal?
"Mom?"
"I don't know, Brian," Sarah admitted slowly. "But I think I'm going to find out."
"You gonna kick her ass?"
"Brian," she warned.
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." Mark Twain
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- @>--,--'----- Ellen Hayes o===[-------- __ vicki .sig +
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