Chapter Three #2
“It’s all right, now. Calm down,” Mr. Hergeshimer said sternly. “All of you had better get to class. Immediately!” he roared to the throngs of kids standing around with their mouths open. Everyone scattered as Mr. Hergeshimer stood up and took charge.
“You boys,” he pointed at Lucas and Jason, “are to come with me to the principal’s office. Mr. Millis! Miss Aoki! You are to take Miss Hamilton to the nurse’s office and then go directly to your next classes. Understood?”
Matt immediately stepped forward and put Helen’s arm over his shoulder, helping her to stand.
Claire took Helen’s hand and held it reassuringly.
Helen glanced up and saw Lucas looking back over his shoulder at her as he went quietly with Mr. Hergeshimer.
Another wave of loathing broke over her, and fresh tears lined up in her eyes.
Matt guided her while she cried, awkwardly patting her hair and getting her to walk toward the nurse at the same time.
Claire walked on Helen’s other side, shaken and silent.
“What did he do to you, Lennie?” Matt asked hotly.
“I’ve never seen him b-b-before in my l-l-life!” Helen hiccuped and cried even harder.
“Great idea, Matt! Ask her questions! Can you shut the hell up now?” Claire snapped, trying to get hold of herself.
They walked the rest of the way without talking.
When they got to the nurse’s office, they told Mrs. Crane what had happened and made sure to add that Helen had come to school with heatstroke that morning.
Mrs. Crane had Helen lie down with a cool towel over her eyes and went back into her office to call Jerry.
“Your father’s on his way, dear. No, no, keep your eyes covered. Darkness will help,” Mrs. Crane said as she passed by Helen’s cot. Helen heard her rush out to the hall to speak to someone briefly, then come back in and sit behind her desk.
Helen lay under the towel, grateful that she was being left alone and in relative privacy.
She couldn’t think two coherent thoughts in a row, let alone explain herself to anyone.
What scared her the most was that for some reason she knew that what she had tried to do was right, or at least that it was expected of her.
Deep inside, she knew she would have killed that boy if she could, and she didn’t even feel guilty about it. Until she saw her father.
He was a mess. Mrs. Crane told him everything that had happened, explaining that Helen was suffering from a serious case of heatstroke and that it may have caused her strange outburst. He listened patiently and then asked Mrs. Crane for a moment alone with his daughter, which she gave them.
Jerry didn’t say anything at first; he just sort of hovered over Helen’s cot while she sat up and fidgeted with her necklace. Finally, he sat down next to her.
“You wouldn’t lie to me right now, would you?” he asked softly. She shook her head. “Are you sick?”
“I don’t know, Dad. I don’t feel right—but I don’t know what’s wrong,” she told him earnestly.
“We’ve got to take you to the doctor, you know.”
“I figured,” she said, nodding. They smiled at each other, and then suddenly they both turned their heads at the sound of hurried footsteps coming toward the nurse’s office.
Jerry stood up and faced the door, putting himself in front of Helen.
A tall, impossibly fit man in his early forties burst into the room.
Helen jumped off the cot and stood on the other side of it, glancing around instinctively for another exit.
There wasn’t one. Helen had the feeling that she was going to die.
In the corner of the tiny office, one of the sobbing sisters appeared. She was hunkered down on her knees, her face covered by her filthy hair, moaning names and saying “blood for blood” as she hit her forehead repeatedly against the wall.
Helen put her hands over her ears. She pulled her eyes away from the horror in the corner and mustered enough courage to look back at the large man.
A spark of recognition passed between them.
She had never seen him before, but somehow she knew that she should be very afraid of him.
At first his angular face was set with determination, but it quickly morphed into shock and then confusion.
His eyes zeroed in on Jerry, and a nearly comical look of disbelief derailed what might have been a terrible fight.
“Are you . . . are you the father of the young lady that attacked my son?” he asked in a halting voice.
Jerry nodded curtly. “My daughter, Helen,” he said, gesturing back to her. “I’m Jerry Hamilton.”
“Castor Delos,” the big man replied. “My wife, Noel, won’t be able to make it. And Helen’s mother?”
Jerry shook his head. “It’s just Lennie and me,” he said with finality.
Castor’s eyes darted to Helen and back to Jerry and he pursed his lips as if he had set something right in his head. “Pardon me. I didn’t mean to bring up personal matters. Is there any way you and I might have a word alone?”
“NO!” Helen shouted. She lunged across the cot, grabbing her father’s arm and yanking him away from Castor.
“What is wrong with you?” Jerry shouted. He tried, and failed, to shake Helen off.
“Please don’t go anywhere with him!” she begged, tears welling up in her eyes.
Jerry made a frustrated sound, put his arms around Helen, and held her reassuringly. “She hasn’t been well,” he explained to Castor, who looked on with sympathy.
“I have a daughter,” Castor replied gently as if that explained everything.
Mrs. Crane and the principal, Dr. Hoover, rushed into the room as if they had been trying to catch up to Castor.
“Mr. Delos,” the principal began in an irritated voice, but Castor talked over him.
“I hope your daughter feels better soon, Jerry. I’ve had heatstroke myself, and I was told I did all kinds of strange things. It can make you hallucinate, you know,” he said to no one in particular.
Helen saw him glance quickly at her and then into the corner where the sobbing sister was still rocking back and forth. Did he see her, too, she wondered, and if he did, how the heck could two people share a hallucination?
“Well . . . okay. There’s no animosity then?” Dr. Hoover said uncertainly, looking from Castor to Jerry.
“Not on my part, nor on my son’s, I’m sure.
I’m more concerned about you, young lady,” Castor said, turning politely to Helen.
“Luke told me he had to be, well, a bit rough. Did he hurt you?” Castor inquired.
On the surface, it seemed like he had extraordinarily good manners, but Helen didn’t buy it.
He was just trying to gauge how strong she was.
“I’m fine,” she replied tartly. “Not a scratch.”
His eyes widened ever so slightly. She didn’t know why she was baiting a full-grown man, a very big man in the prime of his life at that, but she simply couldn’t help herself.
Usually, she hated arguments so much she couldn’t even bear to watch those trashy daytime talk shows where everyone screamed at each other, and here she was for the second time in half an hour looking to mix it up with someone much bigger and stronger than she was.
Thankfully, she wasn’t as desperate to kill Castor the way she had been with his son.
No one had ever enraged Helen the way that Lucas had, but she still wanted to put a few dents in Castor’s fender. That urge confused her deeply.
“I’m glad you’re all right,” Castor said with a smile, diffusing the situation.
He turned to the principal and made it clear that he and his family did not want Helen punished.
As far as he was concerned Helen had been ill, and the whole incident should be forgotten. He left as abruptly as he had entered.
As soon as Castor’s footsteps faded away, the sobbing sister vanished and the whispering stopped. Helen no longer felt angry. She slumped down onto the cot like a balloon with a fast leak.
“You’d best take her home now, Jerry,” Mrs. Crane said with a no-nonsense voice and a comforting smile. “Lots of fluids, no direct light, and get her to take a cool bath to bring her core temperature down. All right?”
“Sure, Mrs. Crane. Thanks a lot,” Jerry replied, reverting back to the teenaged boy he had been the last time he was in Mrs. Crane’s office.
Helen kept her head down on their way out to the parking lot, but she could feel the other students staring at her as she passed.
As she jumped up into the passenger seat of the Pig she saw the door by the principal’s office open and the two Delos boys leaving with Castor.
Lucas’s eyes went straight to hers and held them.
Castor pulled up and put his hand on the back of his son’s neck, talking to him.
Finally, Lucas broke his stare contest with Helen and looked at his father briefly before nodding and looking at the ground.
It started to rain. One, then two, then three big, fat drops of summer rain splashed down, and suddenly the air was full of water. Helen slammed her door shut and glanced over at her father, who was also looking back at the Delos family.
“Which one did you jump?” Jerry asked, fighting a grin.
“The bigger one,” Helen answered, a half smile of her own creeping up her face.
Jerry looked at Helen, whistled once, and started the engine. “You’re lucky he didn’t seriously hurt you,” he said, not joking around anymore.
Helen nodded meekly, but she was thinking that Lucas was the lucky one. The strangeness of her own thoughts scared her silent for the rest of the drive home.