CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT ~ OPERATION: COOKIE CUTTER ~ by B.A. Linhares

Pop yells from the other side of my bedroom door, “COOKIE, YOU’RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR SCHOOL!”

“I’m up already!”

I’m awake. I’m not actually up. I fell asleep in my cloths. I hazily recall climbing in my bed after everyone left about 2am this morning, I think. I roll out of bed, stagger to my full length mirror, and stop. This must be what a hangover fells like. I recall sipping champagne at a wedding last year and getting the giggles. In sixth grade, Char filled a Coke bottle with her mom’s red wine and brought it to my slumber party. We acted fake drunk. In reality, by the time eight girls had a little taste it was gone.

 “Ewe.”

I flick off a dried glob of cream cheese stuck to my shirt. I turn my head and squint over at my alarm clock. 8:45? Oh crap! I’m never going to make it before the final bell. I take a record two minute shower, dash across the hall to my room and dress in a nice shirt and fresh jeans. I apply minimal makeup and cram my damp hair in a do-rag knot. Pop taps on my door and I yell over my shoulder, “Pop, I’m up already—”

“I know, love,” he says cracking the door open an inch. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m leaving.”

“Huh?” I scurry over and pull the door wide open. I notice Pop is dressed in a nice pair of dress slacks, a white shirt, and navy tie. “Where’re you off to looking so fine?”

My silly Pop turns around in a circle, posing like a model with his hand on his hips. “I’m a businessman now and I have a million errands to run.” He holds up his hand and starts counting on big stubby fingers. “I need to order food for the West wedding.” Pop opens and closes my door, checking to make sure it doesn’t stick and then looks at me with a grimace. “I have to pick up our Disney tickets at the travel agency––”

“Yeah! We leave this for Florida Friday.” I say, without much enthusiasm. Only because I am not fully myself right now, with so little sleep and all that is going on. Pop blows me a kiss and I remember Parent’s night is tonight. “Wait, what about...”

“I left you a note on the phone table.”

I nod as I bend over to put on my shoes. I rise up too quickly and feel dizzy. I clutch the edge of my bed frame to steady my legs. “Uh!”

Pop pauses at the door “You okay?”

I hoist my backpack on my shoulder and waggle my hand. “I’ll live. Go on. See you later,” I say, and search around to see if I forgot anything.

“Don’t forget the note I left you,” he calls over his shoulder.

I hear Pop’s shoes clomping down the stairs and the front door open and close. “Duh, your purse!” I grab my purse and sprint down the stairs, grab the note and I’m out the door.

Before backing out of the driveway, I scan Pop’s note, which lays out his day and says Ivan will be in touch about the suspects note.

“Allrightythen.”

I poke the note in my purse and check my watch. I have exactly four minuets to drive approximately 1.6 miles to school. That may not seem far to your average Joe but in Georgetown it can take that long to go one block. Plus, my assigned space is about a mile from the front entrance. Okay maybe I exaggerate a tad. I might as well go straight to the office for a late pass because there’s no way I’m gonna make it before the last bell.

I need a Pepsi. Why didn’t I grab one at the house? Because you’re late. The Mazda parks on the street across from the entrance. A few yards down from my space is a police cruiser. The outline of people sitting in both vehicles is visible.

Creepy.

In the senior lot, I squeeze my Mustang in my space behind Zak Shaw’s beat up VW, parked cockeyed.

“Geez,” I hiss, pushing the gearshift into park. “How hard is it to park between two parallel lines?” I collect my stuff and open my door. I have to step over a humongous slimy mud puddle to exit my car. I shut the door, scanning the area. My freaking rear bumper is pressed against the chain length fence surrounding Georgetown High. What was Zak thinking? Oh wait, it’s Zak.

I sprint the entire length of the parking lot and the last bell rings in the distance. A shot of panic makes my hands tingle. I can’t recall locking my car door. I curse under my breath as I pause on the sidewalk in front of the school and stare out across the wet asphalt, hazy with morning humidity. Sweat is pouring down the sides of my face. I fish a tissue from my purse blot my face. Why bother to shower. I’m pretty sure I locked my door. I do things without thinking. Hello, you have two FBI guys watching your car.

I hope.

My nerves are totally raw and I feel exhausted as I push through the two big glass doors and head straight to the office, which is just to left. The heavy glass doors behind me shut with a loud bang—I jump.

I lean into the wall, take a few deep breaths and look around. Luckily the halls are empty. Apparently, everyone in the entire school made it to class on time except moi? Figures. The cool air-conditioned air helps. I’ll be okay. I put my hand on the office door and hear something. I freeze and glance around again. At the end of the hallway to my right, custodian is pushing a jumbo trash can on wheels through a side door.

I open the door, enter the carpeted waiting area, and cross to the counter. Brooding Goth Queen is at the counter. I pray she is in a good mood. She has a reputation for forcing people to serve detention. I hope I don’t have to come up with a long drawn out story in order to get a hall pass. I just want this day to be over so I can go home and go to bed! I smile and wave.

Jezi Indy ignores me and disappears around the corner. She comes back with piece of paper and flips on a big silver microphone. I drum the countertop with my fingers. She doesn’t acknowledge my presence so I plop down in a nearby chair. I focus on her moving dark burgundy lips while she reads the morning announcements off a piece of paper. Her tone is laconic. I take out my cell and power it off. Don’t need to get busted if it goes off. Jezi’s bored-monotone suddenly turns perky. I look over and tune into what she’s saying.

Smiling practically ear-to-ear, Jezi exclaims enthusiastically, “Fellow students, I am thrilled to inform all the losers that Georgetown High’s very own, James Beal—prize winning senior staff photographer of the Patriot’s Parrot, our beloved school newspaper––is the current WINNER of the NPPA, National Press Photographers Association’s FULL SCHOLARSHIP!” Jezi claps her hands enthusiastically then leans close to the mike and yells, “WHOP-WHOP! Way-to-go-Mr.-Beal!”

I feel my eyebrows shoot up and my mouth falls open. Oh my gosh! It sounds like Jezi has a thang for Beal…ewe! I can’t picture those two in a clutch.

Jezi continues, “Oh, and so you guys know throughout the year, James will be taking impromptu pictures of our senior. So, warning, you may end up on the Parrot’s front page and or in this year’s annual.”

Her normally pasty cheeks have a pink tinge. She slips back into her lifeless voice and finishes up with an apathetic, “Go Patriots!” It’s so weird hearing Jezi go on like this. She is so not the perky type.

I get up and cross to the counter. I smile and raise my hand. Jezi takes her sweet time storing the sound system. “I see you’re in the news…again.”

I spin around and she holds up today’s newspaper,” Jezi says, finally acknowledges my presence.

“You made the front page…”

I take the paper and read the headline about the President’s press conference. Below it is a color photo of Josh and me in my Mustang…in the middle of the intersection where I freaked out. Of course...everyone saw the President’s on the TV last night, it broke into every station. I’d be stupid to think the media wouldn’t hop on this with all fours. God, here I go again! At least this time I think we have Josh and Ivan on our side.

“So. What cha need Blakely?”

“Um, a hall pass please.”

Jezi places a mimeographed paper on top of the newspaper. “That was in your packet. Nobody ever reads this junk. The daily class schedule and bell schedules changed since last year. The school day ends at three forty-five. First period home room begins at nine o’clock each day…”

While Jezi lectures me, my eyes go to the large wall clock over her head. It says 9:12. I check my watch. 8:58 pm. “My new watch isn’t working,” I mumble and show her.

Jezi shrugs. “Could be a dead battery.”

Sean bought me a cheap watch. I re-set it hoping it’ll work.

“Late students arriving ten minuets after nine are required to—”

“Got it,” I say, snatching up the paper and cram it in my backpack and turn to go.

Jezi waves the pink hall pass in front of my face.

“Oh yeah.”

“I need to know who your first period teacher is.”

“Um…Mr. Vick, room 205.”

Jezi smiles wickedly. “Ah...the Vickova...he’s a hottie.”

“Reason?”

Once the National Media reported that the President was attending the funeral, the hype was ramped up and didn’t die down until bigger news replaced it or the public grew bored with the lack of new details.

“Huh?” I mumble trying to wrap my mind around the repercussions of having Mom’s case all over the news again.

“Why are you tardy?”

Because I was talking to the FBI until the wee hours of the morning...what do you think?

“I slept in.” I hold out my hand curling my fingers.

Jezi rips off my pass giving me a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, you look gutted.”

Do I look that bad? My hand goes up to my hair then my face.

Jezi’s shrugs a shoulder, and then rubs her nose spike with a knuckle. She stares at me and the corner of her lips curl up, showing the slightest hint of a smile.

“What?”

Her eyes dart left to right then she leans forward and whispers, “If I was you, I’d f-ing kill the paparazzi for taking picture of me in my bathing suit!”

Anxious to go, I just roll my eyes and take a step backwards. I reach for the door knob and the door swings open. A nice looking black boy holds the door open for me. I mouth the word “thanks” behind me, Jezi shouts, “Blakely! If anyone here at school gives you any grief, old man Bishop can sick Coach Daniels on them!”

 

I decide to stop for a quick fresh-up in the girl’s room. At this point I don’t care how late I am for my classes. I check my reflection in the mirror—scary. I enter the classroom and everybody stares and whispers. I pass Mr. Vick my pink pass and he hands me a work packet with the heading Converting Conversational Dialogue into Russian. He explains, “Work on that now, you may use your tools. There is a verbal test next week after Labor Day.”

“Okay.”

I drop my eyes and find my seat. Approximately 25 heads swivel around in unison. I sweep my eyes over the blur of faces. Someone yells, “Yo, Blakely, can I get your autograph?”

My face is burning up. I look up at Mr. Vick and bite back the urge to respond.

“Okay class,” Mr. Vick says in his strong Russian accent. “Let’s cut Ms. Blakely some slack, shall we?”

I avoid eye contact and settle in, taking out a pencil and my textbook. Whenever Mr. Vick isn’t looking, notes are passed around like answers to a final exam. I would bet my last dollar they are about moi.

Whatever.

I sit at my desk, chewing on the eraser, and try to work on the packet, but I can’t get Jezi’s words out of my head.

“Blakely! If anyone gives you any grief––sick Coach Daniels on them!”

I stare at nothing and muse about what brought Coach Daniels––and half of the football team––to my rescue. About a week after the funeral, I came back to school. In the halls between classes, kids called out questions or just stared at me. That was bad enough, but when I walked into the Food Court a bunch of stoners surrounded me. They chanted, “Your mommy was a Commie!” The next day somebody drew swastikas all over my book locker door with permanent black marker. That’s when Coach Daniels, the Varsity Football coach, decided to take the matter in his hands. He had his football players tail me like a herd of bodyguards. But they turned out to be worse than the hecklers, hanging outside the house round the clock and eating up all of our food. I felt obligated to offer them snacks. I had no idea how much they ate. Anyway, after a week of rowdy boys and a huge grocery bill, Pop finally ran them off. After that, I was ready to drop out and home school. But there was the matter of swim team…

I’m not sure how old Mr. Vick is—probably around forty. He’s laid back for a teacher. The girls think he’s sexy. He looks like Sean Connery with his thick snowy white hair that he wears lose, sparkly blue eyes, and a dark tan. One of his many Heli-skiing trips in the Russian Caucasus Mountains DVDs is playing on the TV. It comes to an end. Mr. Vick clicks the remote turning it off, and tells us, “Ukrainian is spoken by approximately 36,894,000 people in the world…”

Presently I’m not one of them. I chose Russian as my required language because of the obvious––I wanted to talk to my mom in her native language––and because it’s taught as an interactive computer course. Meaning, ninety percent of my class work is conducted on the Internet at e.languageschool.com. I can work at my own speed as long as I get the assignments in before Mr. Vick’s lenient deadlines. Works for me.

The bell rings and I quickly gather my stuff. I make it through my next two classes without being ragged too badly about the latest media spread.  Now it is Lunch Time. YEAH PEPSI AT LAST! I make my way to the Food Court, hoping I avoid Palmer but see Josh on the way out. Josh is in First Lunch with the smart kids. If only I’d kept up my GPA.