Jenny Pox (The Paranormals, Book 1) (10 page)

“Oh, gosh!” Ashleigh said. She covered her mouth with her hands. “Did I hurt you, Jenny Mittens?  Are you bleeding?  Are you crying?”

“
Nice save, Jenny Mittens,” growled a girl on Jenny’s side.

Coach Humbee sat on the indoor bleachers.  He looked up from the sports section of the South Carolina newspaper
The State
.  He glanced briefly at Jenny Mittens, then at Ashleigh Goodling, then went back to reading.

A sophomore girl entered the gym and showed the coach a slip of paper.  Humbee nodded and pointed to Ashleigh.

The girl ran over, smiling at Ashleigh with all her teeth, and held out the note to her.  Ashleigh did not move to accept it.

“
Yes?” Ashleigh said, raising one eyebrow.

“
Uh, hi, Ashleigh Goodling!  Uh, Principal Harris wants to see you.”

Ashleigh rolled her eyes.  She knew what this was about.  She took the note and glanced at it.  The sophomore girl bobbed on the balls of her feet, awaiting instructions from Ashleigh.

“Oh, great,” Ashleigh sighed.  She waved to Coach Humbee, who waved and nodded back.  Ashleigh headed for the gym door, the anxious sophomore in tow. 

“
So what’s it like being the president?” the sophomore gushed.  She was clearly awed at actually having a chance to talk to Ashleigh.

“
Fantastic.” Ashleigh crumpled the note and threw it in the wastebasket as they left the gym.

The receptionist, Ms. Dottie Langford, who displayed plush and porcelain kittens on her desk, smiled when Ashleigh arrived.  Ashleigh complimented her shirt, with its embroidered image of a basket of kittens.  Mrs. Langford buzzed the principal, proudly announced Ashleigh’s arrival, and sent Ashleigh into the principal’s office.

Principal Harris was a reedy man, with much bald on his head and a salty, peppery mustache.  His glasses magnified his eyes so much that he looked like a cartoon character when he was wearing them.  The effect was especially noticeable when he was trying to be serious.  When Ashleigh entered, he removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“
Close the door and have a seat, Ashleigh,” he said.

Ashleigh lowered herself into one of the chairs across from him. 

“Goodness, you look exhausted, Principal Harris,” Ashleigh said. “Are you ill?”

“
No more than usual.” He replaced his glasses, and his eyes doubled in diameter. “Ashleigh, we have a problem.”

“
You have a problem, sir?”

“
We do.  You and I.  And I’m sure you know why.”

“
I don’t know what it could be, Principal Harris.”

“
This abstinence program?”

Ashleigh cocked her head and looked puzzled. “I don’t understand, sir.  Christians Act! got written permission from you to promote abstinence at school.  I thought everyone agreed it was a good idea.” Since there was a large membership overlap between Cool Crusaders at church and Christians Act! at school, Ashleigh had naturally used the flagpole prayer group to carry the campaign into school.

“We did give you permission to put up some posters encouraging abstinence.  We are not opposed to that.”

“
Then what could the problem possibly be?” Ashleigh asked.

Principal Harris stared at her in disbelief for a minute.  Then he said, “Let’s have a look.  These are examples I personally removed this morning.”  He placed a stack of four full-color, glossy posters on his desk. Neesha had done the photography, since she had the equipment and the talent.

The top one depicted two students, a boy and a girl, in bathing suits by the pond behind Ashleigh’s house.  The boy had his arms around the girl’s waist.  Both of them were soaking wet.  The caption read: ABSTINENCE IS POWER.

“
What is this about?” he asked.

“
Clearly, it’s about how couples must work together and agree on abstinence, even though they’re tempted,” Ashleigh said. “I mean, obviously.”

“
And what about this?”  Principal Harris slid the top one aside, revealing a portrait of Neesha’s boyfriend Dedrick, shirtless to show off his muscles, his underwear slung very low, his pants even lower, his belt unbuckled.  He made a ‘peace’ sign, his head slung back.  Again, the caption: ABSTINENCE IS POWER.

“
Or this?”  The next picture depicted senior Ronella Jones, topless, her back to the camera.  She wore tight, low-slung jeans, and had Egyptian hieroglyphs tattooed on her lower back.  The picture had the slogan ABSTINENCE IS POWER.

The final picture showed Alison Newton, a senior cheerleader, with her jeans unzipped.  She covered her panties with both hands, as if saying “No.” ABSTINENCE IS POWER.

“Ashleigh,” the principal said, “What on you Earth made you think these would be acceptable?”

“
Principal Harris, I think I understand kids today better than you,” Ashleigh said. “They know sex is tempting.  If we don’t admit that, then they won’t believe the rest of our message.  You know?”

Ashleigh considered reaching out to touch the principal’s hand, infect him with some of that special Ashleigh-energy, but she never used it on him.  Principal Harris was too much fun to torture.

“And how would I explain to parents why my hallway looks like an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog?” Principal Harris asked. “Why we have pictures like this of their children?”

“
Just send them to me, and I’ll explain,” Ashleigh said.

“
I want them all taken down. Today.”

“
Principal Harris?” Ashleigh drew herself up to her full height in the chair.  She gave him a sweet smile. “Do you want people thinking you’re opposed to teen abstinence?”

“
I am not opposed to—”

“
Do you want people in town asking why you’re so anti-abstinence?  Do you want people at church wondering why you encourage premarital sex among your students?”

“
I certainly do not—”

“
Do you want this all over the media?  I can go back on the True Word Radio Hour any time I want.”

“
Ashleigh, don’t be ridiculous—”

“
What about parents calling you at home all night?  Death threats on your front door?  I can make it all happen again, Principal Harris.  You saw how wild they got over kids and witchcraft.  Now imagine it’s kids and sex.”

Principal Harris glared at her now, his jaw flexing as if chewing an extremely gristly piece of meat.

“Okay, I get it,” he said. “You want me to oppose you.  You want another media storm, with innocent little you as the victim again.”

“
Not at all, Principal Harris.  That’s silly.”

“
Why do you do these things, Ashleigh?”

“
Because I care so much about the community, Principal Harris.”

“
I’m not sure I believe you,” he said.

“
Then think of it this way.”  Ashleigh stood and stretched her hands high over her head, as if cramped from two minutes of sitting down.  She tried to be a little seductive about it, letting her gym shirt crawl up her stomach, and Principal Harris averted his eyes and scowled at the floor.  “I’m graduating this year.  You decide if you want peace and quiet, or if you want to go to war with me.  Personally, I like war.”

He looked up at her again, undisguised hatred on his face.

The bell rang.  Ashleigh gathered the confiscated posters and rolled them together.

“
I have another class,” she said. “I’d better get out of these sweaty gym shorts, don’t you think, Principal Harris?”

“
Go.”  He spoke through clenched teeth.

She opened the door and stepped into the reception area, leaving it open behind her.  Then she turned back and sang out, “Good-bye, Principal Harris!  I’ll return these posters to the hall!  Thank you!”

The principal didn’t respond.  Ashleigh winked at Mrs. Langford.

“
Oh, would you like a lollipop, dear?” Mrs. Langford said.

“
Oh, gosh, thank you, ma’am.  Lime, please.”

Mrs. Langford passed her one from a kitten-shaped glass bowl.

“Have a nice day, dear!” Mrs. Langford said.  As Ashleigh stepped into the main hall, she heard the receptionist mutter to herself, “Such a sweet young Christian lady.”

In the hallway, Ashleigh saw two boys from Christians Act! and gave them the posters.  She told them to hang them prominently in the main hall, right away.  

The rest of the abstinence posters stayed where they were, displayed up and down the main hall.

***

In the locker room, Jenny splashed handfuls of cold water onto her face where Ashleigh had slammed the ball into it.  She rinsed the blood from her nose, but it was still swollen and tender.

When the bell rang, Jenny moved slowly, letting the rest of the class leave ahead of her.  As she left the locker room, she looked over at Coach Humbee on the bleachers.  As far as she could tell, he remained absorbed in his newspaper.

Jenny bent down, plucked the crumpled note from the trash can, then hurried out the gym door.  She concealed the note in her fist as she jogged along the gravel path to the main school building.

She was alone on the path when Ashleigh Goodling returned from the principal’s office.  Ashleigh had a bright, triumphant gleam in her eye and walked with a little extra bounce, obviously fresh from some victory or other.

Jenny kept her eyes on the ground and tried to avoid her, but Ashleigh, dozens of feet from any witnesses, couldn’t resist.  She pulled the green lollipop from her mouth and sang a verse from an old song, one Cassie had invented when she was nine years old.  There was a hand-clap game that went with it, which had been quite a hit in Jenny’s fourth-grade class.

Jen-ny Mit-tens,

Drownin’ kittens,

She’s so stupid,

So says Cupid…

A deep, primitive anger rose in Jenny, and she fought to squelch it.  She didn’t dare do or say anything, especially not with the filched note burning in her fingers like contraband.  She kept her eyes down as Ashleigh passed by.  Behind her, Ashleigh cackled as she opened the door to the gym.

Inside the main building, Jenny ducked into a bathroom stall and locked the door. The girls in the next stall were sharing a cigarette, and she held in her urge to cough.  She spread the note out between her fingers.

It was 5” x 8” paper, torn from a pad.  The Porcupines logo and the school’s address and phone number were printed in brown and yellow on the top.  Mrs. Langford had written in all caps: ASHLEIGH GOODLING TO PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE ASAP.

Jenny folded the note and zipped it into an interior pocket of her bookbag.  It was just what she needed, the magic ticket that gave any student the power to pluck another out of class, since Mrs. Langford foisted the notes onto any kid who happened by in the main hall whenever she needed one delivered.  Jenny began to sweat nervously as she made her plan.

She splashed more cold water on her swollen nose and went to fourth period.

She sweated and worried through the rest of her classes.  She knew her intentions, had known them from the moment she’d picked the note from the trash.  Now the audacity of it frightened her.  She could get in a lot of trouble.  She also knew that if she didn’t do it today, if she slept on it, she would definitely change her mind.

When the bell rang to end sixth period, and the kids headed for the front doors and parking lot, Jenny walked to the school office.  Mrs. Langford looked at Jenny like she was a slimy slug discovered on the shower wall.  When it came to popularity, the teachers and staff had a funny way of taking on the kids’ opinions.  Especially Ashleigh’s opinions.

“Yes?” Mrs. Langford asked.

“
Uh, hi, ma’am,” Jenny said. “Uh, can I get, I need to, how do I get some transcripts?  My transcripts?  For college?”

Mrs. Langford sighed and rolled her eyes.  She swiveled to the big gray filing cabinet behind her and opened a drawer.  Jenny’s gaze darted to the desk, and she spotted the 5” x 8” notepad with the Porcupines logo. 

“We send them to the schools directly,” Mrs. Langford said as she rummaged through file folders. “If we give them to you, they’re no good.”

Jenny reached for the pad, and the cuff of her glove caught on the ear of a porcelain kitten.  The kitten spilled over and clanked into the kitten-shaped glass candy dish.

Mrs. Langford looked back over her shoulder and hissed.  Jenny pulled her hand back.

“
I don’t remember offering you candy!” she barked.

“
Sorry, Mrs. Langford.”

“
That’s impolite.  Candy’s for my glycemics.”

“
I didn’t know that.  I’m sorry.”