Chapter 1
1
I couldn’t believe I’d left my phone in my classroom. What a dork. I’d been wanting to film this general assembly for weeks, and there I was, without my phone. I would have run, but I was wearing one of my cute pair of heels, and running wasn’t an option, not on these linoleum floors.
Phone in hand, I was almost back to the assembly when I heard laughing. That was odd; everybody was supposed to be at the assembly, and this sounded like students.
“Kick her again.”
That I heard clear as day. Then I heard a girl laughing. I kicked off my heels and started running, slipping, then running again, down the hall until I turned the corner. In an instant, I saw what was going on. Two girls had hold of another. One was dragging the girl down the hallway by her hair. The other girl was kicking at her. I saw a third girl who I recognized out of the corner of my eye. Cindy. She laughed as she filmed the attack.
“Stop this right now!” I roared.
The two girls assaulting the one girl froze. The girl holding the victim by her hair released her. The injured girl’s head landed on the floor with a sickening thud. I ran to her as the two girls, one of whom I recognized, ran off.
When I got to the girl, she was moaning and trying to get up.
“Stay still, honey. Help is on the way. I looked around frantically. Cindy was standing a few feet away with her phone pointed towards us.
“Cindy, stop filming and call 911.”
She giggled and continued to film.
“What’s going on?”
I looked up and thanked God when I saw Sue Rankin rushing down the hall. She taught eleventh grade AP English and was one of my best friends. “Sue, call an ambulance. This girl has been hurt.” I didn’t bother to look to see if Sue was doing as I asked. I knew she would. Soon she was beside me.
“What happened?”
I pushed back the girl’s hair and recognized her from my math class. Alice Daly. She was trying to get up again.
“Kim Laughton happened,” I said bitterly. Everyone knew she was a bully. “She was dragging Alice down the hall by her hair. When I yelled, Kim dropped her. Alice hit her head hard, on the floor. I don’t want to move her. The EMTs need to look her over.”
Alice tried to move again. “I’m fine,” she whispered. She looked different without her glasses. I looked around and spotted them at the end of the hall.
Sue gently encouraged Alice to stay lying down. That’s when I heard more giggling. I looked up and saw Cindy was still filming.
I saw red.
I jumped up. “Give me that phone.”
She stood there and laughed some more, holding it higher to film my face.
“Stop filming and give it to me now .” I held out my hand.
“No way. This is my phone and I’m not giving it to anyone. Just wait ’til I put this up on the internet. I’ll get so many likes.”
I was past red, I was sick to my stomach, I lunged for the phone. “Give this to me, now.”
She twisted away. “You don’t have the right to take it from me. I’ll tell my parents. You’ll lose your job.”
I yanked the phone out of her hand.
“Give that back to me,” she shrieked. “That’s my property.”
I turned away and crouched down next to Alice. I stopped the video feed and sent the video to my cell phone, then I put it into my skirt pocket.
Cindy yanked at my arm, tearing my blouse. I shrugged her off me.
“Give me my phone!” she shrieked again. Alice whimpered and scuttled away from the sound of Cindy yelling. She was obviously terrified. I needed to get Cindy away from her.
I turned to Sue. “You got this?”
“Yeah,” she muttered. “Take care of that mess.” She pointed to Cindy.
I got up off the floor and turned my attention to Cindy. I advanced on her, and she backed up until her back hit the lockers.
“You wait until the principal hears about this. You, Kim, and the other girl will be expelled for the rest of the school year. You probably will be charged with assault.”
Cindy paled. “I didn’t do anything. Kim and Julie were the ones that hurt Alice, I just filmed. My parents won’t let anything happen to me. You’ll be fired for touching me.”
“It’s on camera. I didn’t touch you.”
“You can’t prove anything. My dad won’t let you do anything to me.”
“I have the evidence, Cindy. I sent it to my phone.”
“You can’t do that!” She stamped her foot like she was in kindergarten.
“We’re waiting for the authorities to arrive, we’ll see what happens.”
I could hear the sirens. I’d need to guide them to where we were. I didn’t need to guard Cindy. I knew where to find her, plus I had the proof of what she did on her and my cell phones.
“You better stay here. It will be worse for you if the police have to hunt you down. I’m going to go get them so they can help Alice.”
“They won’t do anything to me,” she taunted. “You’re the one who’s in trouble.”
As soon as I started down the hall, I could hear her running. As I turned the corner I heard the student body returning to their classes. I hustled to rescue my shoes and make it to the EMTs.
By the time I got there, the principal and vice principal were already talking to the police. I rushed up.
“The injured girl is Alice Daly. She’s been beaten and dropped on the floor by two girls. I’m worried about a head injury. I can show you the way.”
I saw the principal give me a dark look. That was not something that she liked to drag the police into. She liked to handle bullying within the school. I’d never once heard her refer to a case of bullying as assault.
“Yes, please show us the way,” the officer said.
I led him, his partner, and two EMTs back to the entrance. We rushed past a throng of high school students as we went down one long hall and took a left down another. A large group of kids circled around Sue and Alice.
“There,” I said to the officer. “They’re behind all the kids.”
“Got it,” he said.
He stopped at the edge of the circle.
“This is the police. You need to let us through,” he said in a loud and authoritative voice. The group immediately opened up. I saw Sue and Alice right where I’d left them. The two EMTs with their kits and plastic stretcher pushed through first. They knelt down on either side of Alice. Once again, she struggled to sit up. I don’t know what one EMT said, but she settled back down.
Soon they had her on the sturdy plastic stretcher with her head strapped down, as well as the rest of her, so she wouldn’t fall. I figured the head strap was to keep her steady in case there was any kind of head injury.
A whole lot of chatter rose from the group of students.
Soon, Principal Sykes was telling all the students to return to their classes. After the hall cleared, the officer turned to Sue and me. “I’d like to get your statements.”
“Why don’t we go to my office?” Principal Sykes asked. She was all smiles for the police, but then she looked over at me, and the smile was gone. Yep, I was not her favorite person. I’d been teaching at the high school for six years. She and I had always gotten along, but this was a big boo-boo. I was in deep shit.
We all trooped along behind her, Sue and I taking up the rear.
As soon as we were all in Principal Syke’s office, which was rather large, we sat down around the table that she used for different meetings.
“First, I would like to assure you all that Alice Daly’s father has been informed that his daughter is on the way to the hospital. Until we have all the information we need, we have not told him anything as to what occurred.”
She looked at Sue and me and we both nodded.
The officer who had taken charge took out a notebook and smiled.
“We’re here to get some facts. Who here saw what happened?”
I raised my hand. Force of schoolteacher training.
“And your name?” he asked.
“Marlowe Jones. I teach eleventh grade math.”
He nodded. “Anyone else?”
“I’m the AP English teacher,” Sue said.
“Did you see anything?”
“I just saw Alice on the floor and Cindy filming everything on her phone.”
“Cindy?” the officer questioned. He looked around the room. I stayed silent, waiting for Principal Sykes to answer. Everyone knew Cindy, and I knew that Principal Sykes had had multiple run-ins with the girl and her parents.
Let her explain who the little wench is .
“Principal?” he prompted.
“Cindy is one of our seniors. She used to be class president until she had to step down.”
“She stepped down?” the officer frowned. “Was she in trouble?”
Sykes sucked in her lips, making her look like a goldfish. “She was caught with some drugs in her locker, but she was able to explain things to our satisfaction. However, she felt compelled to step down from her presidency.”
“What kind of drugs, and how much?” the second officer asked.
“It wasn’t enough to sell,” Sykes said.
“How much, and what?” he repeated his question.
“She had a baggie full of prescription drugs. Her parents could identify the oxycodone, and the Valium, but did not know where she might have gotten the Ritalin. But by the next day, they remembered they had an old bottle of Ritalin. That cleared everything up.”
“How much?” the second officer asked again.
“I would have to ask the vice principal. He was the one who handled this.”
“We’ll take his statement after we’ve talked about this. So, Ms. Jones, what exactly did you see, and when did you see it?”
I looked down at my smart watch. “At two o’clock I left the assembly because I realized I had left my phone in my classroom. I wanted to take a video of Sharon’s speech which was going to be at two-thirty. I was almost back at the assembly in seven to ten minutes, when I heard some noise around the corner. I was going to go look and see what was going on, because everybody was supposed to be at the assembly. That’s when I heard a girl’s voice say very loudly, ‘kick her again.’ Then I heard laughter. I kicked off my heels and started running down the hall.”
I paused. I had been looking at the officer, but I could feel Principal Sykes’ eyes on me. I glanced her way. She was staring at me. Her face was blank, but her eyes were angry.
“What did you see?” the first officer asked.
His gun belt was at my eye level. I stared at his gun for a moment, then looked upward at his badge, then at the radio on his shoulder, and then at his solemn face. He wasn’t angry. He looked concerned. That was how my school’s principal should have looked.
“I saw Kim Laughton literally dragging Alice Daly by her hair along the corridor, while another girl in jeans and an oversized red cardigan was kicking her in her side and back, along her kidneys and ribs.”
“When I yelled out, Kim let go of Alice’s hair and Alice’s head hit the floor. Hard. All the time Cindy kept filming with her camera, and laughing.”
“What’s Cindy’s last name?”
“Cindy Thompson. Her father is a state senator,” I said. He didn’t seem to care, but I knew Principal Sykes cared.
“Okay,” he nodded. “Then what happened?”
“Sue,” I pointed at Sue. “She arrived, and I told her to call 911 and help Alice. Cindy came closer and was still filming and laughing. Then she said how many likes she was going to get when she put this on the internet. That’s when I demanded she give me her cell phone.”
The officer nodded. “Did she give it to you?”
“Not voluntarily. I took it from her. You’ll see it all on the video she took.”
I reached into my skirt pocket and handed him her phone.
He handed it to the other officer.
“You can’t take that. That belongs to Cindy,” Principal Sykes spoke up. “Ms. Jones, you know you can’t just take a phone from a student. Especially if you used force. That’s what you mean when you said she didn’t give the phone to you voluntarily, correct?”
I nodded.
“But Principal Sykes, Cindy intended to put everything up on the internet,” Sue protested.
“It is against school policy for any teacher to lay hands on a student. You are all aware of this, it is stated in the contract that you signed.”
“I did not lay hands on her. I took her cell phone away from her,” I clarified.
“Forcibly?” Principal Sykes asked.
I nodded.
“Then that’s a violation.”
“But—” Sue started in my defense.
I interrupted her. “It’s okay,” I said softly.
“Ms. Jones, we will discuss this after you have finished giving your report to the police.”
“Ms. Jones,” the officer said. His voice just a touch louder than Principal Sykes. “Would you be able to identify the other student if you saw her again?”
I nodded. “But you’ll see her on the video.”
“We have what we need for now. We’re going to need your contact information in case we have more questions.”
Sue and I provided them.
He looked over at Principal Sykes. “Principal Sykes, I’m surprised that a woman who likes to enforce her school policy so strictly, would not be enforcing the drug laws of this county just as diligently.”
Sue looked over at me with big eyes. I tried not to laugh.
The officer continued. “I’d like to talk to you and your vice principal about the drugs you found, and any other illegal substances that you have found that you have failed to report to the proper authorities. We will have to go over every one of your reports to determine if they needed to be brought to our attention.”
“Of course. I’ll get him to come to my office.”
I took a quick peek over at my principal and could practically see the steam rising from the top of her head. I turned to look at Sue.
“Mrs. Rankin, thank you for your quick thinking today,” Principal Sykes said. “It’s appreciated. Ms. Marlowe, I will need to speak to you after school today. Please return to your classes and don’t discuss what happened.”
We both nodded, as she picked up the telephone on her desk. We hustled out of her office.
As soon as we were past her secretary and out in the hall, Sue started talking.
“This is bullshit. The old battle axe is going to start gunning for you, and I’m not going to let her.”
“Sue, keep your head down. You know how she is. Hopefully, this will blow over. Once the cops see that video, she won’t have a leg to stand on.”
“Like Senator Thompson will ever let that video be seen. This could turn ugly, Marlowe.”
“Let’s just take this one day at a time. You and I both know you can’t afford to lose this job, not with Steve out of work. Don’t do anything to jeopardize it. I can hold my own. If I can’t, I’ll move on to another school. And if push comes to shove, I’ll move on to another district.”
The alarm rang, indicating the end of class. Kids started pouring out of their classrooms.
Sue got close to me and whispered in my ear. “I will not let you hang out to dry.”
I laughed. “I’m going to be fine. I promise. Just promise me that you’ll keep your head down, all right?”
I waited until she nodded. Then I felt a tiny little bit of relief.