OMG, A CUL8R Time Travel Mystery (23 page)

“After our
next class.”

“
Well, this is it.  Our last day of school.  Hopefully, all this will be worth it.”

“
I know.  I’m really worried about her,” Zoey admitted.  “I still don’t have a clue why she would
kill
herself . . . or why anyone
else
would.”

“Tonight’s the night. 
I guess I’ll see you after the game.”

“
“I’ll call you . . . I mean if something happens.”

“Cell phone?”

“Oh my God . . . really?  I forgot again.  I’m having withdrawal.”  Zoey slapped herself in the forehead.  She shook her head and walked toward her last class.

Austin headed down the hall toward the locker rooms.
  Ahead of him Coach Decker waited.  “Hey Coach Decker.  Ready to go?”

“Sure am.  Y
our sister’s really pretty.  Where does she get her clothes?”

“Believe it or not,
Salvation Army.”

Coach Decker looked seriously at Aus
tin and then smiled.  “You guys . . . always kidding.”

“Not always
.”  Austin followed the coach into the locker room.

The final class period bell sounded and students rushed to their lockers, buses and the parking lot.
Everyone was anxious to get home so they could get ready for the big game.  No one had much hope of winning, but at least there would be a dance afterward. Wendy walked up and tapped Zoey on the shoulder.  “Ready to go?”

“Oh hey . . . sure.
”  She walked with Wendy several blocks from the school to her house.  When this was all a crazy story told to her by a nerd and a newbie, Zoey hadn’t really cared what happened as long as she got back home soon.  But now that she knew . . . and liked Wendy, who was a real flesh-and-blood person, it had become serious.  She couldn’t imagine that in less than twelve hours, Wendy would be dead.  Wendy who was so full of life.  What could possibly happen to make her do what she did?  Or did she?  Zoey glanced over at Wendy who was laughing and talking about something funny that had happened in class that day.  It was then that Zoey resolved that, no matter what, she couldn’t let that happen.  She would do whatever it took to save Wendy’s life.

Once they arrived at Wendy’s house, she became even more confused.  Wendy’s mother met them at the door.  It had been announced at school that Wendy was going to be the Homecoming Queen, and Wendy couldn’t wait to tell her mom.  Her mother wrapped her in a big hug and greeted Zoey with genuine warmth.  Even Wendy’s little brother had torn himself away from his cartoons to congratulate her.

Wendy’s room was typical teenager décor with dozens of photos of The Beatles, The Monkees and a half dozen other groups that Zoey didn’t recognize taped to the walls and around her mirror.  Conspicuously missing were boyfriend, even ex-boyfriend photos.  Zoey thought of her own mirror with its collection of photos of her friends, boys . . . lots of boys . . . and memorable events.  Wendy had none of those.  It was odd, and Zoey made a note of it to discuss with Scott later.

“You don’t have a flatiron, do you?” Zoey asked, hopefully.

“What’s a flatiron?”

“It’s sort of like a curling iron, but has two flat surfaces that you run over your hair, and it straightens it.”

“No, but I can iron your hair if you want me to.”

“Iron?”

“Yeah, we’ll get my mom’s ironing board.”

“Seriously?”  Zoey was a little horrified at the prospect, but she hated how curly her ha
ir was without her Moroccan Argan oil and her flatiron, so she was willing to try anything.

Sure enough, Wendy plugged in her mother’s iron and set up the ironing board.  When it got
warm, she got a paper bag which she cut open so it lay flat.  “Just lean down and I’ll stretch your hair out and iron it.  Then when we get through with yours, you can do mine.”

Zoey did as she was told and tried not to think about how much damage was being done
as Wendy combed her hair flat, placed the bag over it, then ironed it.  The smell was awful, and she could practically hear her ends splitting, but when Wendy had finished, Zoey had to admit that her hair was smooth and straight, just like she wanted.

“Okay, your turn.”  Zoey returned the favor by ironing Wendy’s hair.  It took a little practice, and Zoey burned her fingers twice, but the end result was pretty good.  The two girls stood in front of the mirror and admired their images.

“I love it when my hair is straight,” Zoey said.  “You’ll love flatirons . . . uh,
someday
maybe if
someone
invents them.”

They looked through the dresses in
Wendy’s closet and picked out what they were going to wear that night.  Zoey would dress before the game.  She hadn’t been able to actually make the cheer squad because they hadn’t needed a back-up for tonight.  Wendy would wear her cheerleader outfit to the game and change after the game in the locker room.  They experimented with makeup until they felt they had achieved perfection.

Wendy’s
dad drove them to the stadium, and Wendy was upbeat and excited about the evening ahead.  It just didn’t add up, and Zoey was growing more desperate by the moment.

SCOTT DROPPED BY
the Avalon on his way to the game.  Kelly skated up to him, still shaky, but much less dangerous than yesterday.  She brought him a Coke and sat down to take a quick break with him.

“Thanks.  How are your blisters?”
he asked.

“Painful.  I can’t wait to get back in my flip
-flops.  These skates weigh a ton.”  They were silent for a moment.  “I’m really nervous about tonight.”

“
Yeah, me too.  We’re not any closer to finding out the truth.”

“I know.  But now it’s so real.”

“According to the newspaper story it happened sometime after the football game.  No one saw her at the dance or anywhere else until they found her body Saturday morning.”

“I don’t think the article ever said what she was wearing
, did it?”

Scott shook his head.

“It would have helped us pin down the time better.”

Scott pulled a piece of notebook paper out of his pocket and spread it out on the table. “Austin drew us a map of
the football field and locker room area.”

Kelly studied the drawing that clearly showed t
he field, locker room exit doors, girls’ locker room, the bleachers and even the chain link fence that surrounded the stadium and the gates where everyone would enter and exit.

“So
Austin is going to come out here, and Zoey here.” Scott pointed to two points on the map.  “Zoey and I are going to wait right outside the door to the girls’ locker room.  There’s no way she or anyone else . . . can get by us there.  You can meet us there after you get off.  Okay?”

Kelly nodded.  Her stomach was twisted into knots.  Tonight was so important.  If they failed to clear
Wendy’s reputation or find out why she had died, then all this would be for nothing.  She just couldn’t bear to think about that.  Failure simply wasn’t an option.

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

By 6:30
p.m. the football stadium seats were nearly full to capacity for this year’s homecoming game against the Naples Golden Eagles.  Zoey, wearing Wendy’s red mini dress, looked beautiful.  Scott sat next to her, feeling a little underdressed in his khakis and t-shirt while the guys around them were wearing suits.  The crowd rose as the band struck up the South Beach fight song that sounded a lot like the music played for nearly a hundred years at the University of Notre Dame. Wendy and the rest of the cheer squad lined one side of the lane in front of the break-through banner.  The band’s majorettes had the other side covered.  As Wendy was the head cheerleader, her position was to hold the ten-foot-tall pole with the drum major holding the other, and she was braced for what surely would be several tons of jazzed-up teenage testosterone crashing through.

Suddenly
, the team ran onto the field and burst through the paper banner painted with
BEAT THE EAGLES
in South Beach’s royal blue-and-white school colors.  Wendy survived the jolt and bounced across the field with the other cheerleaders, doing cartwheels and a back handspring series that made the crowd cheer even louder.  All eyes were on her and she knew it. She really put it all out there on the field.

Zoey screamed and clapped
for Austin as he jogged toward the home team’s bench.  He looked incredibly hot in the tight white pants and shoulders made even broader by the heavy pads under the dark blue jersey.  She was usually on the field in her own blue and white cheer squad outfit, but this gave her a new perspective, plus she could spend the whole game staring at him instead of catching only a quick glance at him between cheers.

Scott leaned
toward her and whispered into her ear.  “I forgot to tell Austin something.”

“What?”

Scott motioned for her to come closer by crooking his index finger.  She bent closer and he said, “I hope he doesn’t have a good game.”

Zoey
jerked back, outraged. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“Because if the local papers interview him and they use his name and take any pictures
, Austin will be part of the school history.  Then when we go back to school there will be a record of him playing football in 1966.”

“Oh that
is
a problem, isn’t it?”

“Yeah . . .
big problem.” Scott rubbed his forehead, trying to think of a solution.  Finally, he stood and told Zoey, “I’ll be back.”  With that he worked his way out of the bleachers and down to the sideline where he started to yell at Austin and wave him over.  Austin was concentrating on the on-field action, but one of his teammates finally noticed and gave him a nudge.  He looked back and saw Scott.  Reluctantly, he tore himself away from the group and jogged to where Scott was standing.  After a brief conversation Austin returned to the bench and Scott to his seat next to Zoey.

“What did he say?”

“If you know him at all, you know it isn’t in his nature to do anything at less than 100% full throttle.  But he promised to avoid interviews and to leave his helmet on around photographers.  It’ll be interesting to see how he makes this happen.”

As with most h
igh school football games, this one moved along pretty quickly.  Austin tried to minimize his skills and experience.  He had to lead a team who was unfamiliar with his style and low on talent.  They suffered through several fumbles and too many dropped passes to count, but luckily the other team wasn’t having a good night either.  The first half was tied at seven-seven when the teams headed for their locker rooms.  The cheerleaders, too, left the field, and Zoey popped up and hurried down to their locker room.  Wendy had promised to let her in during the half, and since that worked into the plan perfectly, Zoey complied.

The second half started with South Beach kicking off and giving up a runback for a touchdown.  South Beach held the ball for one play before fumbling and
Zoey, who had returned to her seat when Wendy returned to the field, could see the frustration on Austin’s face as he threw his helmet down on the sideline.

“This isn’t good.
” Scott shook his head in frustration.  “He’s forgotten where he’s at and why.”

Zoey
smiled, secretly wanting Austin to save the game and to worry about the press later.  She was a cheerleader at heart and couldn’t go against her team, even if it was generations before her time.  By the end of the third quarter, Austin’s two touchdowns passes had inspired the team to rediscover their defensive strategy and hold the Eagles.

Going into the fourth quarter seven points ahead, Austin finished it off with another perfectly thrown pass for another
touchdown.  He trotted to the sideline and laughed in jubilation as the team surrounded him, pounding him on the head and shoulders.  He was being Austin.  A potential all-state quarterback in two different centuries.  The game ended with a fourteen-point victory and Austin, Zoey and Scott all made eye contact and nodded as they took their assigned positions as diagramed on the napkin the night before. 

Scott and Zoey hurried out of the stands and
stood just outside the girls’ locker room, waiting for Wendy while everyone filed out of the double-wide stadium gate that exited into the parking lot. Austin was tied up in a team meeting under the stands, but they knew he would join them as soon as he could.

Kelly came limping up and had to wait until most of the people had gone out of the gate before she could slip inside.  “So how did it go?”

“We won!” Zoey exclaimed with delight.  Once a cheerleader, always a cheerleader.

“Oh, no,” Kelly grimaced.  “We were supposed to lose.”

“I know,” Scott agreed.  “I tried to tell him, but Austin owned the second half.  He could do no wrong.”