Chapter 26: Unwanted Intervention
The next day, Cate and I again picked up Chalise and Kitty for school. This was particularly necessary since Chalise and her mother jointly shared her car for her mother’s job as well. The girls were in a particularly good mood, considering what had occurred over the weekend and they were still anxious to talk about it.
“So, Cate, get anything good last night?” Kitty teased.
Cate blushed. “Sorry, but nothing happened between us. I was, uh, a bit indisposed, if you get my drift. Besides, I want our first time to be a little more special than my being just the next in line.”
“So, how far down the line did he get last night?” Chalise asked, again in a playful mood.
“Oh, so far he’s gone through Shani, Allison and Brooke. I think it will take the rest of the week to make it through everyone,” Cate responded. “Alex may be amazing, but he’s still only got a human dick.” They all giggled at that one. I would have responded, but I liked how well everyone was getting along.
“Well, you’ll have to arrange your own time in there, because we’re supposed to work out our weekend trip,” Kitty reminded her. “Has anyone worked out who’s going and who is staying?”
“Actually,” I told them, “I’d kind of like to keep it simple, just so we don’t show up like an invading army or something. I figure we’ll need one of you. We’ll need to explain why an under aged kid wants to store his sperm, so I figure it would be good to have a girlfriend along to say that I’m planning on entering the army when I turn 18, and that we want to save my sperm just in case I don’t come back. We can tell them we can’t get married because of her dad, which will cover the lack of parental approval and a marriage license, but that we still want to prepare for any eventuality.”
“Nice,” Cate observed. “You’re actually doing some advance planning on your own. That’s nice to see.”
“It’s pretty romantic, though. That makes a great story. I can just picture myself as the fair, distressed maiden,” Kitty started in on her Scarlett O'Hara imitation. Once she recovered from her brief giggling fit, she continued.
“Yeah, I also like the explanation,” Kitty told us, “although I gather that means you think having two girlfriends in attendance would be difficult to explain?” When I didn’t respond but simply looked at her in the rear view mirror, she got the point.
“That’s just as well, it would be difficult for me to get away this weekend. My dad just learned about you yesterday, so I’m not sure he’d like the idea of my going on an extended trip where I had to stay overnight with you. I’ll let Chalise go. Since she is living with her mom at your sister’s apartment, she’ll have an easier time arranging it. Plus, explaining a black girlfriend will add enough realism to make the whole tale believable. But just remember, I get the next trip, OK?”
I laughed and told her that it was a deal and that I’d make up for it when we got back.
“So who else is going?” Chalise asked.
Kitty sighed. “Well obviously Cate, because she’s always the one to explain things. Gail will be there already, so she can serve as security for him, just to make sure he doesn’t get beaten up again. Plus, it will be good to have a Seer around to commiserate with any new girls they find. I figure that is about all they can safely take. Do you plan to take Natalie or Rebecca along, just in case you meet any new watchers?”
I was impressed that Kitty had managed to pick up on so much of my thinking and about how we operated. Even though she hadn’t been ‘in the loop’ for long, she’d clearly been observing how we operated for a while.
“No, I figure we’ll treat the watchers as we always do,” I replied. “Cate can explain the basic theories to them and we’ll get them in touch with everyone at home, and with Patricia and the other watchers in New Orleans. We’ve already got almost a full car full. Anymore and we’d have trouble moving around without a van.”
“Actually, the way we’ve ‘always’ treated the watchers was to simply ignore them,” Cate cut in to explain. “This will be quite a change for us. So far we haven’t even recorded how many we’ve encountered, so we still don’t know what kind of ratios we’re dealing with.”
“That makes sense. So how long are we talking?” Chalise asked.
“No, Alex is worried about meeting too many women, since St. Louis is larger than New Orleans was. So he only wants to stay for part of a single day. We figured we’d drive up Friday after school, stay with Gail, visit the clinic and a central location in the city, and then head back. We wanted an extra seat or two in the car just in case we end up with an extra passenger or so. Plus you should ask your mother to write you a note saying she approves of what you are doing, and that you aren’t doing this behind her back,” Cate told her.
“Maybe not behind Mom’s back, but definitely behind Dad’s,” Chalise commented.
“We just want to avoid any potential roadblocks we can,” Cate said.
“There’s one other thing we wanted to discuss,” Kitty told us. “Chalise and I have decided that, since we’re now the ‘official’ co-girlfriends, that you have to take us both to the Prom,” she told me, having elected herself their official spokesperson.
“Isn’t it already too late?” I asked. “I thought the tickets went on sale a while back?”
“No, it’s coming up, but we managed to get an exemption, and even talked the teacher in charge into some extra tickets. It was a bit difficult, because officially we can’t both be your girlfriends, and likewise we can’t get in unless we’re dating a senior, but we managed to work it all out. So you’re taking us buster, like it or not!” Luckily she was smiling as she said that last part.
“Actually I think it’s considered an ‘Upper Classman’s Ball’ instead of a ‘Senior’s Prom’ this year,” I told them, “so technically Chalise could be my official date, while Kitty can simply go stag and meet us there.”
“No dice bud, we both want to be your official dates. We also both want you to abuse us and do naughty things to us afterwards,” Chalise told me with a leer.
“Well, I’ll certainly try to do my best, but you realize poor little me will be much too tired and weak to keep up with a couple of wild things like the two of you,” I said, trying to pull off a Hattie McDaniel accent in the role of Mammy. I’m not sure they got it, though. Sometimes my tastes run a bit esoteric.
By that time we’d arrived at school. Cate asked to be dropped off to the side. When I asked why she simply told me she’d tell me all about it soon, so I simply assumed it was some ‘woman’s issue’ thing like maybe Mom was having her put on the pill or something, so I didn’t press.
After that I parked in the students’ parking lot and we got our stuff together and headed into school. As we were crossing the parking lot, we ran into a waiting Tony. He quickly approached us and I had a bad feeling about this, noting how he timed it to make sure we couldn’t return to our car for anything to defend ourselves with, and we were too far away from the school for any administrative intervention. The only school officials nearby were either bus drivers or Mrs. Pearlson who was directing student traffic. She would have to call someone else to intervene as she couldn’t abandon her post. Tony didn’t look pleased.
As we neared each other he suddenly shifted into a semi-classic martial arts move, beginning to advance on me. I waved the girls back and started to move forward on my own, hoping to shield the girls when they both congregated in front of me, effectively ignoring me.
“Hey, what’s up?” I tried to argue with them, trying to move them aside.
“Forget it buster,” Kitty told me, Chalise adding “Your girls would kill us if you got injured on our watch. They may have to listen to you, but they tell both of us what we’re supposed to do.” I had my doubts about that, considering how my girls were always setting up rules around the house, but this was not the time to be discussing this.
“What’s the matter you little faggot,” Tony hissed at me with a sneer on his face, “hiding your pussy whipped ass behind your girlfriends?” I could tell he was trying to goad me, but I also had a problem with letting them defend me from danger. I again tried to move past them and they firmly pressed back, instead moving closer to Tony himself. At least Cate was far enough away she couldn’t interfere with me and get hurt in the process, but I knew I’d have my hands full trying to defend myself and keep both Kitty and Chalise out of harm’s way.
Tony had apparently had enough and decided to show off his fancy footwork to try to intimidate us. He did a couple of quick kicks into the air before jumping towards Chalice, throwing his foot at her face.
However, they seemed to have guessed it was a likely bluff, because they both rushed him while he was still getting started. He quickly flinched, trying to deflect his perfectly timed kick now ruined by the suddenly changing distance to his target. He ended up landing on his ass when he overcompensated. The girls stood over him watching him like an errant little kid causing his older siblings trouble again, further exacerbating the situation. I noticed, once again, that students began to quickly flock to the source of trouble, just as they had been surrounding me so often of late.
With a quick well practiced move, Tony swept Chalise's feet from under her while likewise knocking Kitty on her own ass with an arm sweep before he did one of those back bending, standy-up jump moves to face me with another sneer. I saw that neither girl was injured, just taken out of the action temporarily. I was preparing myself as he again began to move towards me, putting off thoughts of helping the girls until the immediate situation with Tony was past, when I suddenly found my way blocked by another couple of bodies blocking my path. Looking up I saw Mia Amendez, Amanda Hodges and another girl I didn't even know, all ready to stand off against a relatively well trained assailant in order to defend me.
Mia and Amanda were two of the girls that had recently joined our table, but I had no idea why the other girl would take an interest in defending me. Heck, I couldn't figure out why any of them would risk themselves by interfering in my business.
"Come on guys, this is MY fight here,” I argued sharply. "I don't want you getting injured trying to protect me.”
“We all stand together,” Mia insisted. “We’re not going to let you be injured again. I’m not sure why, but Chalise and Kitty both insist you aren’t supposed to get into a fight, so we support them in this. Even if you won’t tell us your personal secrets, we’ve all figured out you are certainly no typical student.” I wondered just when this little arrangement had been struck between them, but I didn’t have much time to consider it.
“Thanks,” Kitty stated as she and Chalise both clamored to their feet, coming around a confused Tony to surround my two sides as well.
“This won’t do you any good you motherfucking ass wipe,” he spit at me. “I’m going to kill you the first chance I get you alone,” he warned me.
“Get the fuck out of here you loser,” Amanda stated, making a quick rush at him. When he started to go into some crazy crane position she just grabbed his lead foot and gave it a strong heft and he went flying through the air to land with a heavy “Oomph” on his back on the rough cobblestones of the asphalt parking lot. Several people cheered and he glanced around at the hostile crowd suddenly surrounding him.
“I’ll get you, just you watch out,” he warned again as he scrambled awkwardly to his feet and disappeared back into the crowd to the catcalls from the crowd. I didn’t think his public humiliation would help me any.
“Look guys,” I argued as I bent down to check on Kitty and Chalise, seeing if they had sustained any injuries, “I appreciate the support, but I can fight my own...”
“Nothing doing, Alex,” Kitty informed me, emphasizing each word. “We’ve been warned to watch out for you. You’re much too important to be left to your own heroisms. You mean too much to too many people to let you hurt yourself.”
“Besides, you’ll do better without those awful black eyes blocking your vision of us cuties,” argued Mia, batting her heavily mascaraed eyelashes at me.
We quickly gathered ourselves together, and I made sure to brush all the dirt off my two lovely defenders’ asses before we made our way into school, along with the slowly dispersing crowd of onlookers. It turns out the other defender I didn’t know, one Nancy Thorn, was a friend of Mia’s. One of her few remaining non-goth friends, that is. She said they’d been old friends but had fallen off lately. She thanked me for helping bring Mia back to reality, as she’d begun to fear the results of Mia’s new Emo inclinations. When I asked why she’d chosen to defend me when I was perfectly able to get punched all on my own, she just laughed.
“You’ve become such a source of entertainment around the school; I just couldn’t let you mess that up by being a tough guy.” I just shook my head at that kind of logic and let it pass undefended. I at least had the presence of mind to thank her for her assistance.
“Well, does anyone have any idea what set him off, at least?” I asked everyone. It seemed apparent that he’d been brooding about this, probably getting more and more steamed during the course of the weekend, but so far I didn’t have a clue what his issue was. And I was so busy trying to dissuade the girls from defending me that I hadn’t had the opportunity to confront him about it.
The first period class had just sat down when the intercom buzzed, asking for my presence in the Principal’s Office. Everyone immediately informed me how much trouble I was in, and I was briefly paranoid about the school’s ‘no fighting’ rules when I stopped to remember I’d never actually gotten near Tony. I was in the clear. In fact, no one had done anything aside from my girlfriends getting dumped on their asses. I figured I was in the clear.
The teacher asked if I needed an escort to the office, but I deferred. She’d apparently heard the talk about my confrontation from the buzz in the halls and in her room, before she’d finally tried to quiet the classroom. I told her I was glad for the consideration, but I could manage a simple walk down the hall on my own. Again everyone offered their own two cents worth as I exited the classroom, and she again had to expend all her energies into quieting down the rowdy classroom.
When I entered the Principal’s outer office I was directed into his office without preamble by Mrs. White. There I found him sitting with Natalie, Anh and my mother, all looking quite distressed. ‘I told you all not to panic,’ I mentally dressed Anh down. She lowered her eyes even more than she normally did, but she remained firm in her seat. Natalie seemed to pick up on my mood, but she looked at me somewhat defiantly.
“We’re here because your sister called us about the trouble you got in,” Natalie announced.
“I still don’t know why you’re here,” my principal told her. “Neither of you two have any business here.”
“We’re interested in the welfare of our friend, and we’re not going to let you railroad either him or us,” Natalie told him defiantly.
The Principal, Andrew Phillips, just turned and looked at me. “Well?” he asked.
“There wasn’t any trouble,” I argued. “Nothing happened; no one hurt anyone, nothing got damaged, it was a complete nonevent.”
“There, you see? Nothing to be concerned about,” answered the slimy Principal. He was a nice enough guy, clearly more concerned with appearances than in making any real efforts, but I still felt he was slimy because he was obviously more concerned with sweeping everything under the carpet than in dealing with it himself.
“Just because he wasn’t injured this time, doesn’t mean that nothing happened,” my mother harshly responded. “We want to know how my son can be openly attacked on school property and you do nothing about it.” Mr. Phillips just returned to me.
“Did anyone attack you... what is it, Alexander or something?” I wasn’t quite sure which question he wanted me to answer but I did my best.
“No, sir, no one bothered me. Nothing was said and no one was injured.” I was determined this wasn’t going to be blown up into something it wasn’t.
“Very well then, you can go now,” he curtly dismissed me and I slipped out amidst a chorus of arguments from inside, and sharp looks by the women in the office. I figured this was just adding fuel to the fire. If Tony had just slugged me it would all be over and he would have felt victorious. Now the whole school would be challenging him over why he let a couple of little girls beat him down, and he’d feel honor bound to beat the living crap out of me. I’d have to figure a way out of all of this.
‘End it NOW!’ I mentally challenged Anh. ‘Brooke, Shani, Allison, if you have anything to say on my fight this morning, I want you to stop now. I’m trying to bury this nonsense, so I don’t need anyone digging up trouble,’ I warned them all.
‘What’s this about a fight?’ Brooke anxiously asked me.
‘It’s nothing, Brooke. We’ll talk about it later. I just don’t want anyone causing a ruckus for me here at school,’ I told her.
‘I’ll try to calm your mother down, but she’s pretty upset. I can calm her down, but I’m not sure I can do it with Mr. Phillips here,’ Anh informed me.
‘Just try to calm things down. Damn, why didn’t you ask before storming in here?’ I asked her.
‘Sorry, I’ve got to go,’ she told me and I didn’t object, because I wanted her focused on getting everyone out of his office.
With that I returned to my classroom. All the kids looked at me curiously, hoping for a clue about what happened, but I didn’t give anyone a clue, simply sitting down and listening to the lecture.
The issue came up again during third period when I was again called to the Principal’s Office. I cringed when I heard it, wondering what the girls were up to that they’d have to call be back to Mr. Phillips’ Office. When I got there I was again issued directly in, only briefly noticing how nervous all the office workers were. Entering his office I found an attractive mature woman sitting in front of his desk looking very professional and confident, but comfortable in relaxed business attire.
“Alexander Jennings, this is Detective Michelle McCallister, she’s with the local Eldorado Police force,” he introduced us both. So that’s what’s up, I thought to myself, somehow the girls got the police involved. And after I’d told them to back off. Man, I was going to have a serious talking to everyone when I got home. They all talked about listening to my lead, but once the shit hits the fan everyone goes their own way.
Trying to shake my anger at the girls, I glanced at the policewoman before me. The lack of a uniform threw me. How this non-event rates a senior investigator I had no idea. How it rated any police involvement I had no idea either.
As I said, she was an attractive older woman. I’d guess she was around her late thirties, although she still looked very good. She had jet black hair with dark eyes and wore a dark suit, making her look pretty severe. But her eyes belied her dour demeanor. They held a humor and intellect that intrigued me, but I could tell she could turn that off and be as serious as she needed to be. But I didn’t plan on getting her angry at me if I could avoid it.
“Nice to meet you, Ma’am, but I don’t know how I can be of any assistance to you,” I told her while offering her my hand. Before she could say anything my idiot principal started up.
“Alex, can you tell the detective what happened to you this morning.”
“Sure. Nothing happened. I was coming into school when there was a minor little thing, I couldn’t even see who was involved so I don’t know anything about it,” I said, putting the lessons I’d learned about lying yesterday to good use.
“There, you see,” Principal Phillips gloated, clearly pleased to be done with the trouble, “There’s nothing for anyone to be concerned with.” However the detective wasn’t to be deterred quite so easily, as she stared at the Principle. I could see her eyes switch over from that humorous look into one much darker.
“Are you so blind that you just accept the word of a bullied victim, clearly too intimidated to speak up for himself? Have you even spoken to any of the other students? From what I’ve heard, this is becoming an endemic problem. Alex here is reported to have been the subject of repeated threats. I hear your school is divided between Alex and his few defenders, against the rest of the school, lead by the popular students all trying to intimidate him. Did you know one of your student’s older brothers, one of your valued football stars by the way, just recently attacked him in his home and sent him to the hospital?”
Principal Phillips looked astonished. “I had no idea of any of this, why hasn’t any of this been brought to my attention?” he asked.
“Maybe because you choose to ignore what’s happening in your own building,” the detective stressed. “You don’t even know his name, and from what I hear you’ve been in meetings about him all morning. Do you know how much attention cases of bullying in high schools have been generating lately; do you really want to be the focus of a police investigation in the matter?”
“No, no, of course not,” he hurried to respond. “We’ll investigate this and deal with it immediately,” he argued. “Now, Alex, can you tell us more of what happened?” he asked me, despite all my previous protestations.
“I’ve got nothing to tell,” I bluffed. “There wasn’t anyone involved.”
“There’s no point in brow beating the victim,” Detective McCallister warned him. “From my notes I see that his sister and two girls who he drives to school with were with him. We’ll just talk to them.” She turned to me, obviously ignoring Mr. Phillips promises to deal with this all himself. “You’re excused, Mr. Jennings,” she said while casually regarding me, as if trying to read what was in my head by my reactions, “We’ll likely be calling you back soon enough, though.”
“Look, you’ve got this all...”
“That’s enough, Mr. Jennings!” Mr. Phillips bellowed, so I quickly hurried out, more upset at the fiasco this was turning into with every new twist. ‘OK, who the HELL called the police?’ I asked all of my girls as I was walking through the office, prepared to ask for the hall slip that had already been prepared for me, and that the Secretary was holding ready in her hand. It seemed everyone in the outer office was listening to the discussions in Mr. Phillips’ office.
‘It wasn’t any of us,’ protested Allison, Shani and Anh, making me immediately take the next logical jump.
‘Gail Knowles !’ I mentally shouted as I walked along the hallway.
‘Hey, watch it, I’m at work and you yelling at me made me jump right out of my shoes,’ she protested.
‘What the hell are you doing calling a local police detective on me?’ I asked, letting her know just what I thought of the idea.
‘Look, Alex, this is the best way of curbing all the negative occurrences at your school. Just keep your head down and it’ll be over before you know it. Now go find whoever it was that started this, and warn him he’s about to find himself in a shit storm and try to make amends. After all, none of this is your fault, as you’ve undoubtedly been fighting this all along,’ she informed me.
‘Fuck you, too,’ I mentally thanked her for all her assistance this morning. I was steamed! They only thought they were helping me, but instead they were blocking any attempts I had at diffusing a potential problem, and were complicating things at every step. I managed to reach my class just as the bell rang and quickly grabbed my books and ran back into the hall. I wandered around frantically until I finally found Tony talking to another Japanese student that I’d also met before. As upset as I was at Gail, her advice was pretty spot on. I needed to try to get Tony to understand that this wasn’t my responsibility.
“Tony, hold on a second, there’s been a tremendous misunderstanding,” I called out to him as I approached. “Apparently someone called the police and somehow they’ve decided they needed to be involved. I tried to head them off but...”
“Why you little shit!” he hissed at me.
“Hey, calm down, Tony,” the other guy advised him. “Alex didn’t do anything, you went after him and he’s trying to protect you. You seem to be attacking the wrong person.”
“He’s hiding behind the Police like he’s hiding behind his girlfriend and his mother’s skirt. He’s clearly afraid to take me on himself. He...”
“Tony, you’re a fucking jackass!” his friend insisted. “Alex isn’t scared of you. He’s done this before. Every time someone threatens Alex, he reaches out and tries to help those that threaten him. You and your two bit jiu-jitsu just ain’t that scary, Tony. He just had a run in with a 280 pound linebacker from the University of Chicago and you think he’s scared of you?”
“He ain’t no fuckin’...”
“Look, we can sit here and trade insults, or you can think about what you’re going to say, OK?” I told him. “Personally I don’t give a shit what you think about me, your opinion just doesn’t register. What has you so pissed off anyway?” I asked, getting a little pissed off myself.
“You should know you little...”
“Tony Sasaki,” called the voice of a teacher from behind us, “You’re wanted in the Principal’s office, immediately!”
Glancing around, I noticed we’d again attracted a fair number of onlookers, some disappointed nothing physical had happened, many more just curious about what was up. Tony grunted, threw me a dirty look and headed off.
“Hey, thanks for looking out for me....”
“Oh, sorry, the name is Frank Hou. If you remember, we met the other day at...”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I remember you, but I met so many people that day I was getting kind of forgetful about all the various names. I’ll remember it this time. Anyway, that’s for standing up for me. I’m not getting a lot of that nowadays.”
“That’s not what I hear,” he grinned at me. “Sounds like several people are willing to risk some damage to protect you.”
“Yeah, I tried to dissuade them, but they seemed insistent,” I told him, grimacing at the memory of everyone putting themselves in danger in order to protect me. I really didn’t like anyone doing that for me.
“Look, there are more of us that like you than have been saying so lately, we...” The bell for the next period rang then, so we reluctantly said goodbye while we ran for our respective rooms. I was late getting to my room but, aside from a stern look, the teacher didn’t say anything. I wondered what was happening with Tony and the others at the moment. When lunchtime finally rolled around, I hurried over to see just what was going on. I looked at our new table and saw several people there, including a few new ones, but didn’t see Cate, either girlfriend or anyone else that was with me during the encounter with Tony.
“Hey, guys, any word on what’s happening over at the Principal’s Office?” I asked when I reached the table.
“No, we were kind of wondering what was going on ourselves,” Maria said.
“Seems someone called the cops this morning,” I told them, giving them a brief recap. “No idea why they’d want to be involved in a minor school matter, but they seem to mean business.”
“Does it have to do with Tony wanting to pop you, or is there something else going on?” a new kid, a young guy I didn’t know, asked.
“And you are?” I asked as I sat down.
“Oh, sorry,” Maria Flores said. “Alex, meet my brother, also named Alex. I guess since you’re already recognized by everyone in the school, we’ll just have to call him ‘the other Alex’,” she said, smiling.
I looked at him for a moment. I haven’t had much luck with guys lately, so I was just a little leery. He was a good looking kid. Not real big, and clearly younger than me, but that’s not saying much since I’m ready to graduate. He looked quite a bit like his sister, with nice hair and he dressed really well. He had a real sense of style to him, which is something you don’t find often in kids in a school environment.
“Don’t worry about getting attacked,” Maria teased, somehow knowing just what I was thinking. She leaned forward and whispered to me. “He’s gay, just think of him as one of the girls that you can talk sports and show tunes with.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that, instantly recognizing the friendly sibling teasing. I turned and shook his hand enthusiastically. “Welcome to the table, Alex,” I told him, only to be roundly booed for my efforts.
When I looked around in confusion, Amanda asked, “Alex, when have you ever shaken any of our hands? Either just talk to him, or give him a hug, but don’t treat him any differently than the rest of us.” So I shrugged and made a big show of hugging him. His response was to laugh with me over the situation. I immediately felt comfortable with him.
The next surprise was when Kitty came to the table, late, and with Darrell in tow, escorted over from the jock table. He smiled a bit sheepishly and slid in besides Ai, sitting about as far from Kitty as he could. She didn’t say or do much, besides that it was a significant deicing of tensions between them. He said hello and seemed interested in each person as I introduced him around. There were more than a few surprised expressions, but nothing was explicitly said.
The other Alex had to be brought up on recent events. I credited Maria a lot because she hadn’t been gossiping about me, even to her brother. That made me feel better about both of them. He was fascinated that I seemed to attract so many women, but that so many guys seemed to have it in for me.
“Welcome to my world,” I told him. “That’s why I was so hesitant when I first sat down. I was a little afraid you might take a swing at me.”
Everyone started talking about recent events, bringing him up to date. He was informed, in various whispers, about the notable events of this past weekend. Well, at least the only ones these people were aware of, which was that I had lost my virginity to Kitty and Chalise. He grinned at me, but seemed just as confused as the rest of them to discover that the school’s local sexual freak show was really a confirmed virgin until recently.
“Don’t worry, Alex, I’m sure Alex will keep his last virginity for you. And probably from you as well,” Maria laughed. Alex didn’t seem to be bothered by the ribbing. I had no idea just how interested in me he might be, but I doubted he’d ever try to make any kind of move on me. Normally it would never even occur to me, but with the way I seemed to affect women, and the degree I seemed to affect most of them, I had to question what effect I may have on a gay guy. I’d have to ask Cate what she thought about the subject. But I didn’t think he’d try anything, at least not until he’d tested the waters a bit beforehand. After all, he didn’t seem like the type who liked to get hurt by most of the anti-gay types around the school.
But eventually the subject returned to the newest scandal to befall me.
“So Kitty, what did they ask you?” someone asked her.
“They asked me all about it, but I tried to play it down, since I knew that was how Alex would play it. However the facts were pretty basic. I never told them who it was that tried to attack Alex, but they seemed to already know who it was.”
“Well, if no one got hurt, then why are the police involved?” Alex asked.
“I don’t think they’re worried about the fight so much,” I tried to explain, “from what I heard they seem to think there’s a conspiracy to pick on me.”
“Ha, they’re not far off,” commented Ai.
“What do you mean? It’s just somebody a little hot under the collar today. He’ll have forgotten it by tomorrow morning, I’m sure,” I responded, perhaps a bit too quickly.
“No, there’s practically a class warfare thing going on. So far it’s mostly guys against girls, but it goes farther than that. You seem to either have fans or enemies; everyone has an opinion, but most people are still waiting to see which way the tide turns before joining one of the factions.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me? Is it really that bad? By the way, Ai, do you have any idea what Tony’s problem was today? I wanted to ask him what I’d done to him, but he’s so rabid he won’t stop cursing long enough to respond.”
“Ha, Tony’s pissed because I’m sitting with you,” she responded. “He’s just jealous; he doesn’t think you deserve so many pretty hangers on. We went out briefly, but his attitude always kept getting to me. That was one reason why I like you so much, you don’t seem to play all the typical mind games all the other guys around here do.” There were a variety of choruses to that. I was surprised by all this new information, but thinking about it, it didn’t really surprise me too much. While I was considering this, I stole some fries from a girl next to me.
“I was in Amanda’s class when she was called out. She seemed pretty interested in setting the record straight,” another girl told us. I groaned and buried my head in my hands.
“Can’t anyone just let things lie,” I asked no one in particular.
“So far the football team is split over you. Half hated you while the other half were influenced by Darrell’s defense of you,” stated another girl I didn’t really know. “But then they announced that thing you influenced. That won over most of the non-football players, surprisingly.” She looked athletic, a nice tall, thin physique so I just assumed she was a fellow athlete, probably a friend of Amanda. It turns out her name was Pepper. Now why does a bleach blond have the name of Pepper, I asked myself? Although to be honest, I don’t think her blond was actually due to bleach. It looked like she spent a lot of time outdoors instead.
We were still discussing the various day’s events when the other girls involved this morning entered the lunchroom and headed over to the lunch line. As I was standing up to go talk to them, Chalise walked up and told me there was no time to talk, the Principal wanted to speak to me next. So I ran off while the girls were trying to grab a last minute lunch.
On reaching the Principal’s office, I ran into Detective McCallister outside. She greeted me and told me she was waiting for me so we could talk independently before going in to see the Principal.
“So, can you finally tell me what happened?” she asked, a bit more politely.
“Well, I’m not about to tell you it didn’t happen this time,” I smiled. “I’d really rather not be arrested for false testimony. However, I’m not going to say anything about somebody until I’ve had a chance to talk to him and find out what was going on. So far I haven’t been able to find out what it was all about.”
“That’s OK. We already know that it was Tony Sasaki. I’m not sure I believe the spiel he gave us, however. Somehow it sounded a little practiced. You know anything about that?” When I shook my head she said she didn’t think I would.
“You’re really an odd little duck,” she informed me. “You were clearly not intimidated, but you won’t name a name everyone’s already told us; you always seem to speak well of those who antagonize you, and you seem to have no lack of female fans, despite the fact you were a complete loner until a couple of weeks ago. Am I right in assuming you have two girlfriends?” When I hesitantly acknowledged it, she just shook her head. “An odd duck,” was all she said. “Anyway, you’ve got to give your Principal a statement.” So we both entered the office together and went directly into the Principal’s office.
“So, what’s you statement now?” He asked me.
“Same as it was. I was there, and no, I didn’t see anything. I guess I was just too confused to notice anything.” He glared at me, he seemed pretty good at that.
“That’s all you have to say? No mention of your girlfriend being attacked? No complaint of being bullied by a relatively large group of students? No details of any kind?” I just shrugged my shoulders.
“You know I can suspend you until you give us a statement?” Again I just shrugged.
“You’ve got to do what you’ve have to, I’m not going to change my statement,” I told him.
“Which, so far, isn’t much of a statement. I’ve got no record of you being a difficult student, yet you seem to have found a whole lot of enemies in a very short time. Does this have anything to do with dealing drugs?” He asked. I was aghast he’d ask me that, and immediately protested my innocence. “It isn’t much of a defense, and so far that’s about the only reason I can think of that you’d be in this mess; that you skipped out of a drug deal or something similar.”
The good detective jumped to my defense, taking him to task for always blaming the victim when a student brought him a problem. She didn’t think much of his leadership style and strongly implied the police would be watching the school for any indication of his covering up troubles within the school. She then went on to tell him she’d also be talking to a few members of the school board about his continued tenure, and that the next event she might be accompanied with a news crew. She was going whole hog on his ass! I tried not to smirk while she was telling him off. He just kept saying “Yes Ma’am, yes Ma’am” over and over again. Finally he let me go without a suspension, but warned me to let him know of any further difficulties. Michelle McCallister walked me out.
“So, who called you about this?” I asked her, wondering what the story was.
“Your Godmother, Ms. Sanders, called to ask me to check up on the troubles her favorite godson was having,” she responded with a smile. “If you speak to her, tell her she owes me a favor as I really couldn’t open an investigation into what happens within the school, especially since no crime occurred, but I’ll just warn you to watch your step. You seem to have a lot of enemies who’d like nothing more than to hurt you.” I thanked her for her concern, and promised I’d watch my step and hoped to see her again some time. “You’d better not,” she warned me, smiling while she did so.
I was already late for my next class so I hurried to finish it up. With as little time as I had lately, I’d hate to fall behind in anything. I got plenty of looks and comments for the rest of the day but didn’t respond too much, especially not anything regarding Tony. At the end of the day various people swarmed around me as I walked from the building. They were either congratulating me, asking me what made me a favored citizen, or telling me they’d actually liked me all along. I still got a few pointed stares, but nobody dared say anything to me so soon after the trouble in school. The girls were all excited when I finally reached the car.
“Wow, that was some day,” exclaimed Kitty. “Who called the cops? Some kid?”
“No, it was one of ours.”
“Who, you mean one of us with you, or... oh, you mean one of your girls? Chalise asked.
“Yeah, it was Gail. She called the someone from the local police as a ‘personal favor’. Now it seems I’ve got someone ‘watching over me’, which is almost worse than having Tony after me,” I complained.
“You know,” I continued, changing the subject, “you guys really hampered me back there. If I’d been able to engage him, I could have calmed him down or talked some sense into him.”
“Or gotten the shit kicked out of yourself,” Kitty responded, a bit sharply.
“You’ve got to take risks to get results,” I reminded them. “It could be more dangerous not taking risks. After all, now Tony has a score to settle, and the embarrassment of public humiliation to make up for. Personally I’d rather have an impact on whether I get hurt or not.”
“Sorry, pal, but we don’t dare cross those lady pals of yours. If you get hurt they’ll kill us,” Kitty responded. “Have you ever looked at Shani or Anh when they get that ‘wild look’ in their eyes?”
“Ha, they’re all a bunch of daisies. They love you two, they’d never hurt you,” I assured them.
“You may think so, but I don’t think I want to risk it. We kind of like you as well,” Kitty told me, cuddling up to give me a quick kiss. Glancing over, I could see that Cate didn’t seem to be convinced either.
“Hey, how about a stop for some ice cream?” I asked once we both came up for air. Of course, now that I was free, Chalise insisted that she get some of the same, so it took a little while before we climbed into the car and headed off.