Authors: Mae McCall
Scowling suspiciously, Cleo plopped the food on a plate and
handed it to Mae, who simply turned and walked to her table. Still not trusting
her, Cleo tried to focus on serving potatoes to the masses, but she still
wasn’t surprised a few minutes later when choking sounds drifted across the
room from Mae’s general location. People started to notice, and a couple of
instructors started to work their way across the room. Cleo had just started to
believe that Mae might actually be choking, when two green eyes locked on hers
and very slightly, Mae smirked. Cleo jumped off of her milk crate and ran.
“Everybody out of the way!” she yelled, waving her arms in
the air. “Lady choking! Lady choking! I’ll help you, lady!” As she reached
Mae’s table, she swept Mae’s tray from the table, splattering food all over the
floor (and Mae’s open-mouthed friends), and climbed across the table. Before
Mae could react, Cleo had jumped down beside her and yelled “Heimlich!” a split
second before shoving Mae’s chair violently toward the table edge. Mae grunted
as her abdomen met wood, and swiveled her head to scream at Cleo. She hadn’t
even managed to refill her lungs with air before Cleo pulled back on the chair
and yelled, “Again!” This time, the whole table shifted when Mae made contact,
and she looked a little green. (As Santo had discovered, Cleo was a very strong
little girl.)
The history teacher reached them first, tense with concern.
She gently pulled Mae’s chair away from the table while thanking Cleo, who was
slowly edging away from the fury that was about to be unleashed. She bent down
to pick up the tray just as Mae launched herself. Unfortunately, Mae didn’t
have well-honed reflexes like Cleo, and she went down hard when the tray
clocked her in the face.
“Whoops!” said Cleo, to nobody in particular. “I told
ya—potatoes are slippery!” As she turned, she walked face-first into the bosom
of her supervisor, who had storm clouds brewing in her eyes. “Let’s just call
this strike two,” said Cleo. She patted the woman on the arm and added, “We’ve
both had an exciting day, so I’m just gonna take off early. I think you’ll
agree that it’s best,” and she exited through the rear, whistling softly.
Of course, Mae had to retaliate. When Cleo returned to her
room later that evening, her roommates were unusually silent (and all staring
at different points in midair). The cause of their discomfort was explained
when Cleo saw her bed. Someone had managed to procure a quantity of the
material typically used by schools to pour on top of vomit—a substance very
similar to cat litter. It was all over her bed, inside her pillowcase, between
her sheets and mattress pad. It was in her spare shoes, and in every dresser
drawer. And it was wet.
The girls had been trained to be loyal to Mae, mainly
because they were terrified of her. But they nearly wet themselves when they
saw the look on Cleo’s face. She didn’t even have to say a word. Within
minutes, two girls had offered to bunk together so that Cleo could take one of
their beds, and two other girls had meekly deposited their spare pairs of shoes
at Cleo’s feet and backed away quickly. When her silence persisted, the rest of
the roommates frantically piled their pillows on the donated bed, and from some
secret place, a silk robe appeared. Cleo slept like a queen that night.
***
The next morning when she awoke, her roommates were trying
to scrape the dried mess from her sheets. They were already dressed. As she
rose from the donated bed, they looked at her warily. Cleo offered a half smile
and then padded down the hall to pee and brush her teeth, the silk belt of the
borrowed robe dragging behind her. The bathroom was deserted, which was unusual
for this time of day, so she took her time, brushing slowly and thinking about
Mae. Luckily, the screaming startled her out of her reverie before she
completely wore away the enamel.
Her feet joined the pounding of others as the floor
residents rushed to the source. It was Cleo’s room. Heart pounding, she
imagined what horrors could await within. Perhaps someone was dead. Judging
from the frequency and pitch of the screams, there most certainly had to be blood.
Probably a lot of blood. As distractions go, she decided this was the perfect
one for breaking out of a funk.
There was no blood. No death, injury, or dismemberment. (Well,
possibly a little bit of dismemberment.) Cleo squirmed through the mass of spectators
and crawled through two sets of legs to get into her room, where she found her
roommates pretty much where she had left them, except now they were screaming
and pointing at the interior of Cleo’s second dresser drawer.
The girls, trying to be nice (and also because they were
seriously leery of Cleo), had unanimously decided to clean up the mess that Mae
(or her cronies) had left. Once the mattress was relatively clean, they had
split the remaining duties: half would clean the pillowcases, shoes, and floor;
the other half would clean out the dresser and try to salvage Cleo’s clothes.
This was a great plan until somebody found the severed head rolled up in a
sweater.
And with one swift stroke, Cleo’s world was turned upside
down. One of the Hall Matrons arrived, stopped the screaming, dispersed the
girls, and grabbed Waldorf by the hair and Cleo by the ear. In less than two
minutes, they were both in Ms. Adams’ office. Cleo tried to explain, but Ms.
Adams cut her off. “What the hell is this thing?” she asked.
“It’s Waldorf. He’s a shrunken head,” said Cleo, clearly
doubting Ms. Adams’ intelligence. It should have been obvious.
“Why is it here? Why was it rolled up in a sweater?” asked
the older woman.
“Because he belongs to me, and I wanted to bring him,” said
Cleo.
“Well, I’m confiscating it,” said Ms. Adams. She gestured to
a shadowy corner of her office. “Blue, throw this thing away. Put it in a
HazMat bag or something,” she said, wrinkling her nose with distaste.
Cleo flew out of her chair, “NO!” She sounded just crazy
enough that even Blue leaned back slightly. “That is one of my father’s
specimens. It is very valuable. If you throw it away, I’ll make sure he sues
you over and over again until you die,” said Cleo through clenched teeth. Blue
and Ms. Adams each raised an eyebrow and looked at each other. Cleo continued
to rant, eventually working in some highly colorful language, and pacing the
room while punctuating her statements by hitting various pieces of furniture
with her fist.
At the end of it, Ms. Adams decided not to dispose of Waldorf.
Instead, he would be put in the confiscated items storage cabinet, and returned
to Cleo upon leaving the school. It was partly mercy, based on the wet litter
incident (for which Mae could not be punished, since there was no real evidence
that she was involved), and partly because Ms. Adams was desperately afraid of
being sued by parents (understandable, given her slightly unethical practices
as headmistress).
Ms. Adams didn’t want to be in the news because some kid
went crazy on the other girls while they slept, either. On the other hand, she
loved Helen St. James’ money, so she was reluctant to lose Cleo as a student.
Therefore, Cleo, because she was possibly a genuine loony, would be moved to a room
of her own on an upper floor for the rest of the academic year (at least).
It at least provided a quiet place for reflection, and less
competition for space in the bathroom. Cleo had a lot of time to think about
Mae, whose sins had now doubled in severity. Not only was there a story about
the litter for Mae and the other students to whisper and/or laugh about, but
the incident had directly led to Waldorf’s incarceration (an innocent
bystander!). Now, without roommates, and without Waldorf to talk to, Cleo was
truly alone. She also had quite a reputation at this point. Students either
laughed at her and gossiped just close enough for her to hear, or they avoided
her entirely. One girl even deviated so far off the walkway to avoid brushing
past Cleo that she stumbled in the grass and face-planted into a rosebush.
Cleo’s past was a mystery. Since she had no friends yet, she
hadn’t confided in anyone about her life before Harper Valley. All anyone knew
about her was that she was quiet, had an odd personality and a few dubious
habits, and that she stared at people a lot. Because of the incidents with Mae,
they had learned three more things: 1. Cleo was smart; 2. She had an
impressively foul vocabulary for a nine year old; and 3. She had a scary
temper.
Everyone expected her to get Mae back for the litter thing.
So, the fact that Cleo just resumed her normal routine was simultaneously
suspicious and disappointing (even to Mae, who was eager to make Cleo suffer
again). Class, food, homework, the typical lurking in the shadows—it was just
normal Cleo activity. The entire school was turning blue from all of the
breath-holding taking place around Cleo.
12
To the careful observer, there were two differences about
Cleo. First, she was even quieter, even more contemplative than usual. She
often had an expression of such concentration that she could easily have been
solving all of the riddles of the universe in her mind. The second difference
was her hands. Anyone who paid attention to Cleo when she wasn’t writing,
eating, or brushing her teeth would have noticed her fingers constantly in
motion. Sometimes, she wiggled them. Or touched each one with the tip of her
thumb. Even stranger, anytime that she sat at a desk or table, she would close
her eyes, put her hands flat on the surface, and then lift her fingers in rapid
sequences, as though she were playing a sonata on an invisible piano. Frankly,
it creeped everyone out, even her teachers.
The only person who wasn’t unnerved by Cleo was Jackson, who
observed her more closely than ever, his expression unreadable. He didn’t
speak, he just watched, as though he were trying to hear the wheels turning in
her brain. Sometimes, he would grin suddenly, as though he had just heard her
make a funny joke. She no longer noticed him, which allowed him to get even
closer to her without risking an altercation. This was an unforgivable lapse on
Cleo’s part.
On the day of the spring dance, Cleo arrived early (as
instructed) to get her costume. She had sent a letter to Ms. Adams that
morning, passionately making a case for there NOT being a cat at the dance, but
since the money had already been spent on the costume, Ms. Adams was insisting
that somebody be inside it. Mae was already there, barking orders at younger
girls to get the decorations in place.
Having exhausted her ideas for ways to get rid of Mae
permanently (knowing that none of Mae’s sins was enough to get her expelled so
close to graduation), Cleo had decided that some more personal snooping was in
order. She was going to get dirt on Mae somehow.
So, when she spotted Mae playing Queen of the Realm among
her scurrying toadies, Cleo took a deep breath and waited for Mae to face away
from her. Luckily, at that moment, a ripping sound from the “stage” end of the
gymnasium caused everyone, including Mae, to turn with their backs to Cleo. As
Mae was shrieking at the seventh graders who held ragged halves of what had
been a large banner, Cleo made her move. Walking at a normal pace, she walked
toward Mae, barely brushing against her and mumbling “Excuse me” as she walked
past. Ignoring the shrieks that were now aimed at her, Cleo continued to the
chairs against the wall, one of which held a box marked “Cat Costume,” while
stealthily pocketing Mae’s room key.
She was out the door with the box before a large hand
clamped down on her shoulder. “We need to have a talk,” said Jackson. Keeping
his grip firm, he quick-marched Cleo to a secluded bench behind the gym.
He pushed her down on to the seat and tossed the box a few
feet away. With the tip of a finger, he pushed the brim of his hat back a few
inches and stood, hands on hips, trying to figure out what to do. They stared
each other down.
“Why did you do that?” he finally asked.
Cleo just looked at him. “Do what?” she responded after a
few seconds.
This seemed to frustrate Jackson. He looked over his
shoulder nervously to see if anyone was paying attention. “Look,” he said, “I
saw you take something out of Mae’s pocket. Hand it over.”
“Search me,” challenged Cleo, crossing her arms over her
chest.
For a second, Jackson was at a loss for words. His role at
the school was more…peripheral. He ran errands for Ms. Adams, and collected
students from their parents’ homes, and served as sort of an unofficial auditor
observing campus activities and reporting back to administration. But he had
never put his hands on a student (who was under the legal age for such things,
of course). In this moment, he almost let her get away with it.
“I’ll give you thirty seconds to tell me what you took and
why,” he said as he pulled a black cell phone from his pocket. His thumb moved
quickly across the screen and he held it to his ear, smirking at Cleo’s
imperiously raised eyebrow. “I need to see Blue behind the gym,” was all he
said before disconnecting the call.
Now, Cleo started to panic. “I can’t believe you just did
that,” she gasped. “You asshole!”
Jackson laughed out loud. “I can’t get enough of that,” he
said, grinning wickedly. Then he squatted at eye level with a serious
expression. “Blue is coming. There is nothing we can do about it now. Tell me
what you took and why, and I might beg for mercy on your behalf.”
The gym’s back door swung open and the supremely tall woman
came out, squinting against the bright sunlight. Spotting Jackson, she headed
their direction.
“I just needed to get into Mae’s room,” blurted out Cleo. “I
hate her, and I need to find a way to make her leave, and I thought there might
be something—.” She trailed off as soon as Blue came within earshot.
“Something wrong?” asked Blue in her high voice.
Jackson looked at Cleo before answering. “Miss St. James has
something belonging to another student,” he said. Stone-faced, Blue turned to
Cleo and said, “And what would that be?”
Cleo was trying to decide if she could successfully make a
break for it. Probably not, she thought, given that the canny Jackson and his
Amazon friend were in the way. Suddenly Jackson looked at her intently and held
out his hand. “Tell me again where you found it?” he said.
She stared at his hand, and then at his face, and then at
Blue. There were no words in her brain at all. She looked at Jackson again, and
he winked and wiggled his fingers. Cleo reached into the pocket of her shorts
and pulled out a heart shaped chunk of platinum with yellow diamonds set into
it, connected to a beautifully wrought chunky chain with a single key dangling
from the ring on the end. “I found it in the bathroom,” she said, never
breaking eye contact with Jackson. “It looked valuable, and I wanted to make
sure the right person got it back.”
He took the keychain from her and handed it to Blue, who
looked slightly confused. “You called me out here to carry a keychain?” she
asked before sighing and looking at Cleo. “Thanks for turning it in,” she said.
“I’ll see that Ms. Adams finds the rightful owner.” And then she went back
inside, leaving Jackson and his hostage under the shady branches of a pink
crape myrtle.
As soon as Blue was back inside, Jackson straightened his
silk necktie, adjusted his hat, and put on his sunglasses before turning back
to Cleo. “I have three things to say to you, Miss St. James. First, that was a
nice lift you pulled off in there. If I hadn’t been looking right at you, I
never would have known. Second, you had better not do it again while you’re at
this school, because I will not lie for you again. Third, you owe me.” He
checked his watch and turned to stroll back toward the building.
Cleo scowled at his back until he had disappeared inside.
Then, she stood and kicked the cardboard costume box repeatedly, experimenting
with different tones and inflections on the phrase, “Damn it!” Unfortunately,
Blue had come back outside to tell her it was time to put on the cat costume.
One slip of bad language could be forgiven, but twenty-five variations (some
with foreign accents) on the theme required a trip to Ms. Adams’ office.
Jackson was there, slouched in a leather-bottomed chair and
still managing to look like a Vogue model. He groaned when he saw Blue usher
Cleo into the room. The next twelve minutes involved lectures from Ms. Adams
ranging in topic from profanity to the Seven Deadly Sins to what not to do at a
bus stop in Portland (her insulated coffee cup actually held Long Island Iced
Tea). Finally, the woman sighed, smoothed her skirt and pulled a gold compact
out of her desk drawer. “Go get your costume,” she said as she touched up her
red lipstick. “You’re dismissed.”
Cleo was forgotten by the time she had taken three steps
toward the door. “Jackson, will you be stopping by after the dance to…help me
with that paperwork we discussed?” said Ms. Adams. Cleo looked back at her just
in time to see the woman lick her lips just slightly. Jackson grinned. “It
would be my pleasure,” he said.
***
The cardboard box had definitely seen better days. It fell
apart when Cleo lifted the top flaps, and a purple furry head rolled out. A
clear plastic bag held the matching fur body suit, gloves, and tail. She picked
up the head and looked at it. It was pretty much a knockoff of the Cheshire cat
from Disney’s animated
Alice in Wonderland
. The smile wasn’t quite
right, but the colors were all there. There was black mesh behind the painted
eyes so that the wearer could still see well enough not to walk into walls.
“Damn it,” muttered Cleo as she dragged the pieces into the bathroom to change.
When she got to the gym, muffled jazz music indicated that
the dance had already started. Cleo stood in front of the double doors
wondering if anybody would even notice her absence. She had just managed to
creep as far as the garden when someone grabbed the back of her costume and
started pulling. She tried to struggle, but her abductor was too strong, so she
went completely relaxed with her arms across her chest and watched her feet
leave parallel trenches in the otherwise immaculate grass. As soon as her butt
hit concrete, the person let go so abruptly that Cleo’s head (well, the costume
head) dropped back and bounced against the sidewalk hard enough to rattle her
teeth. She scowled up through the mesh eyes at Blue, who just pointed at the
gymnasium doors.
Hint taken. Cleo got up and attempted to brush dirt off of
her purple tail with her padded cat-paw gloves. It wasn’t very effective. She
took a deep breath and pushed open the doors.
LesbiFest was clearly in progress. The lights were dim, jazz
music poured out of large speakers around the perimeter, and there were three
distinct groups of people: 1. The wallflowers, mostly younger girls, who sat on
the front bleachers staring blankly at some distant horizon; 2. The lesbians,
who were either dancing while trying to look like they were
not
dancing
together, or were strolling up to small groups of girls to laugh at some
nonexistent joke and then ask if anybody wanted punch; and 3. Mae’s troupe, who
were existing in the center of the bleachers listening to Mae’s every word and
gossiping about everybody. When Cleo walked in, everyone turned to look, but
only Mae’s group laughed. Cleo’s blood boiled in her veins.
The costume was a little too big, and Cleo had to
occasionally reposition the giant head on her shoulders. It was also hot, and
her hair was plastered to her forehead before she made a full circuit around
the room. Suddenly, she had an idea.
She stood in the darkest corner, bobbing her head to the
music, until the teachers stopped looking her way. Then, she ducked out the
door that led to the locker room and teacher offices, crossing her fingers
inside the giant paws that what she was after was still there. Five minutes later,
Cleo grinned and tweaked the chin of the legless CPR dummy that now wore
spandex and purple fur. She put the giant cat head on the dummy and walked back
to the gym with it in front of her body. Easing the door open, she checked to
make sure that nobody was looking before she darted into the gym. Then, she
slid the dummy onto the edge of the nearest bleacher bench. The sleeves hung
down, so she tucked them under the edges of the dummy. The empty legs of the
body suit dangled as well, but it was dark enough that Cleo figured nobody
would notice that they were two-dimensional. With her body double in place,
Cleo ducked under the bleachers and, crouched low, picked her way through the
struts until she was directly underneath Mae and her friends.
Surveillance was boring work, Cleo decided later as she
eavesdropped on the absolutely asinine dialogue of her nemesis and ate the
remainder of a pack of Skittles that she had found in her dark netherworld
under the bleachers. The candy was rock hard, and she very nearly broke a
tooth, but it helped her pass the time while she tried to figure out how to
dethrone Mae. She had decided to give it five more minutes (or until she
finished off the candy, whichever came first), so that there was time to
re-costume herself before somebody discovered the ruse. But then, Mae started
talking about her birthday plans, and they seemed to involve Jackson.
“I’m going to get what I want even if I have to tie him up,”
said Mae. She paused and added, “Which might be kind of nice, actually….” Her
friends laughed and she said, “Seriously, I always get what I want. I’ll pay
for it, or I’ll blackmail for it, or I’ll get violent if I have to, but I am
having Jackson.” Her tone got bitter as she added, “Provided he’ll quit staring
at that little bitch Cleo long enough to screw me.”
Her friends giggled at that, and Mae basked in the glow of
their adoration until one (the stupidest one) piped up, “But what about Ms.
Adams? Everybody knows that Jackson is off limits.” Silence followed.
“I heard that she maimed the last girl who made a pass at Jackson,” volunteered another girl. “She clawed out an eye with her fingernails or
something.”
“Well, I heard that Ms. Adams hired an assassin to go
undercover on campus and kill anybody who looked twice at Jackson,” said
another of Mae’s friends.
They all fell into speculation on who that person may be.
Meanwhile, Cleo was plotting beneath them.