Just Another Hero Read online

  Rosa Gonzalez, who worked as a student aide for Mrs. Sherman, sat at the desk outside her door. “How can I help you?” she asked officiously, picking up a pencil and a notepad.

  “We need to see Mrs. Sherman right away,” Arielle explained.

  “And this is in regards to…” Rosa put the pencil behind her ear.

  “Oh, come on, Rosa,” said Dana impatiently.

  Mrs. Sherman opened her office door then and said to them, “And how can I be of assistance to you ladies today?”

  Arielle wondered how long it took an adult to develop that tone, that body language, that attitude that made a teenager feel like a kindergartner who’s about to wet her pants. “Can we come in to discuss a private matter?” Arielle asked, glancing at Rosa.

  “Of course!” Mrs. Sherman, dressed in a tailored navy blue suit, stepped aside and ushered the girls into her office. Arielle wondered where the woman shopped for clothes.

  Her office, obviously not decorated by school board funds, was done in tones of pale green and gold. Gold woven drapes covered the institutional-looking windows, and a large, pale green area rug covered the bare floor. Decorated with roses and lilies, the room reminded Arielle of a grandmother’s parlor, not a school office. A comfortable-looking leather sofa sat on the far side of the room. Dana, November, and Olivia hurried to sit there, looking a little overwhelmed. Arielle took the brocaded wing chair in the front of Mrs. Sherman’s desk.

  “What seems to be the problem?” Mrs. Sherman asked kindly.

  “My iPhone has been stolen!” Arielle blurted out. She didn’t want to cry in front of everybody, but she knew what waited for her at home.

  Mrs. Sherman scribbled some notes on a yellow pad of paper, then looked up. “Hmm. A cell phone, you say? How can that be when cell phones aren’t allowed on campus?”

  “Well, you know, every kid at school has a cell phone, and everybody knows that.”

  Mrs. Sherman nodded. “You’re right, my dear. I can’t stop progress, but the school board, made up of folks who are older and even more uptight than I am—if you can believe that’s possible—is determined to pass laws I can’t possibly enforce. Nevertheless, let’s at least make a report of this and see if there is anything we can do.”

  “She’s a lot more human than I thought she’d be,” Dana whispered to November.

  “And her hearing is still pretty good!” Mrs. Sherman said with a smile. “Chill, girls. I’m not here to make your life miserable. Honest.”

  The three girls on the sofa seemed to relax, but Arielle’s stomach still churned with the thought of what would happen if she went home without the iPhone. “Can we search people?” she asked hopefully.

  “First of all, we have more than two thousand students in this building, so that would be impossible. But more importantly, it is illegal to search anyone without a warrant. Didn’t you learn that in American history class?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess,” Arielle murmured. “But I might know who took it.”

  “And who would that be?”

  “Well, it might have been Osrick Wardley.”

  “And why would you accuse Osrick?” Mrs. Sherman asked, her tone changing. “That young man suffers quite a bit from bullies around here.”

  Arielle wondered if she should say something about the swimming pool incident. She thought for a moment. No, she’d promised. And Osrick couldn’t possibly be the thief—could he?

  Arielle blurted out in a rush, “He sits behind me in world history class, and I had my bag on the back of my chair, and it was open, and when I went to lunch, the iPhone was gone.”

  “Did you see him take it?”

  “No, but…”

  “Did anyone else see him take it, or see him with an iPhone?”

  “No, I just discovered it was gone,” Arielle replied. “And Osrick is, you know, a little strange.”

  “That doesn’t make him a thief,” Olivia interrupted. “Trust me, I know what it’s like to have no friends and not fit in.”

  Arielle knew that Olivia’s comment was in part directed toward her. But she still had to add, “But who else could have taken it?”

  Mrs. Sherman addressed Olivia first. “You’re right, Olivia, about being the outcast kid at school. I, too, had my share of teenage difficulties.”

  The girls looked at one another and rolled their eyes as if to say, Too much information!

  Mrs. Sherman continued, “And unless there are witnesses, there is nothing I can do right now.” She stopped and sighed. “I’m sure you girls know that there has been a real increase in petty thefts around our building lately.”

  “I had ten dollars taken from my purse in the girls’ locker room,” Dana offered.

  “And I had a camera stolen a couple of weeks ago,” said Olivia. “Also from the girls’ locker room.”

  “Why didn’t either of you report this?” Mrs. Sherman asked.

  Both girls shrugged. “I figured nobody would care about a lost ten-dollar bill,” Dana replied. “But it was all I had in my wallet, so I know somebody took it. It was there before gym, and not afterward. It was my lunch money. I didn’t lose it, and it didn’t fall out.”

  “And the camera was one of those cheapo-drugstore types. It wasn’t expensive, but it did have some cool pictures of me and my boyfriend on it,” said Olivia. “I hated to lose those.”

  Mrs. Sherman continued to take notes, then looked up. “Oh, by the way, welcome back, November. I just received your paperwork from the homeschool teacher. It seems you’ve worked very hard to keep up with your classes.”

  “Thanks. Will I be able to graduate with my class in June?” November seemed surprised that the principal knew her by name.

  “Well, it’s too soon to determine that, but if you continue to do well, it’s a possibility.”

  “Yes!” November said, squeezing her fists together.

  Mrs. Sherman put down her pencil. “Okay, then, I have your report. There’s not much more I can do right now. I’ll keep my eyes open, as should you. Keep your valuables at home, and your money in a jeans pocket. If you hear or see anything else, don’t hesitate to come and see me.” She stood and made it clear that their time was up.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Sherman,” said Arielle sadly. “I’m gonna be in big trouble at home.”

  “I’m sure your parents will understand,” Mrs. Sherman told her gently.

  “Not likely.”

  KOFI

  CHAPTER 9

  WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9

  KOFI STOOD IN THE MAIN HALL, SIPPING from a bottle of water, waiting for English class to start. He stayed by the wall, keeping away from the group of guys who circled Eddie Mahoney, guys who spent every morning before class talking smack—about upcoming weekend plans, past weekend victories, and the girls that made all that happen. Eddie had been back for just a couple of days, but since his return, he had become some sort of celebrity to certain kids.

  Eddie told his story over and over, each time adding details and making the juvenile detention center sound like the Ritz Hotel. Kofi hated how the younger kids especially seemed to think he was so cool.

  “Yo, Eddie, when’d they let you out?”

  “Not too long ago. I got to pick my own release date, you know.”

  “For real, dog?”

  “Yeah. The food was great, the beds were soft, and a couple of those female guards were like, hot, you know what I’m sayin’? So I took my time leaving the place.”

  The guys all elbowed one another, laughing.

  “Any girls up there?” asked a wannabe tough-looking ninth grader named Ryan.

  “They kept the girls one unit over—just a thin wall separated us. You could smell ’em at night,” Eddie said, sniffing the air as if remembering.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Their powder and perfume and girl sweat. Powerful, dude.”

  “Any of them ever get past that thin wall?” a sophomore asked hopefully.

  Eddie motioned them closer
. Kofi stretched to hear. “Every Saturday night, man. Heaven came knockin’ at eleven p.m. Heaven at eleven. Why you think I stayed up there so long?” He let the lie sink in as the guys high-fived one another.

  Kofi shook his head, amazed at what the group would swallow.

  “You ever get busted for that?”

  “Naw, man. I’m Eddie Mahoney—slick like ice and twice as nice.”

  His admirers laughed raucously.

  “So it wasn’t like the jails on TV?” another sophomore asked. A couple of boys punched him in the shoulder for asking a stupid question. But Eddie was cool.

  “You’re thinkin’ about places like Attica where they got gangs and solitary confinement and killers and rapists and stuff, dude.”

  The kid nodded, looking fascinated.

  “The place they put me was more like one of those vacation villages. We had three meals a day—better than my mama can cook. Steak on Tuesday. Fried chicken on Wednesday. Apple pie and ice cream every night. And a movie every Saturday. With popcorn.”

  Kofi rolled his eyes. Eddie had left out the barbed-wire fences, the police dogs, the body searches, the locked doors of the cells, and the total lack of privacy. Kofi had spent a weekend at one of those detention centers a couple of years ago, when he’d been picked up for a DUI and no one could locate his parents. It was not a hotel. Each cell had bare floors, thin, moldy mattresses and blankets, and a toilet in the corner of the cell that had no seat and always stank. The prison-issue orange jumpsuits, worn and ugly and thin, never fit right, and the food tasted like slop. He had sworn to never again do anything stupid enough to land him back in a place like that.

  “For real?” Ryan was asking.

  “Yeah, dude. We had a game room with a ping-pong table, a pinball machine, and get this—a huge big-screen TV with all the latest video games. Stacks of DVDs. Headphones and iPods to listen to at night. All the latest tunes downloaded.”

  Kofi now laughed out loud, but nobody paid any attention to him.

  Eddie was on a roll. “During the day we went to school just like you do, except we moved at a faster pace. I’m ahead in most of my classes here, so I got nothing to do but check out the honeys and plan my next move.”

  “And what’s that?” Ryan wanted to know. Kofi caught his breath.

  “I got plans, little man. I got some unfinished business around here.”

  “Like what?”

  To Kofi’s dismay, Eddie’s answer was drowned out by the bell. As the group split up, Kofi put the top back on his water bottle and followed him.

  But before Kofi got even halfway down the hall, the sound of Jack Krasinski’s crashing cymbals filled the air. Very few kids even looked up. Girls continued their giggled conversations, guys bopped to the music coming from the ear buds attached to their MP3 players, and even teachers just shook their heads wearily. No one told him to stop. Until Kofi.

  “Hey, Jack. Can you chill with those things a little? I had a category two kind of headache hurricane, and you just upped it to a category five!”

  Jack was sturdy and muscular—Kofi guessed from carrying his heavy bass drum in the marching band. He wore his black hair long and shaggy, the ends matted and uncombed. He was one of the few seniors who sported a full beard. Kofi thought he looked a little like the guy from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

  “My bad. My bad,” said Jack as he lowered the two golden disks. “I was just freein’ the noise, and colorin’ the world a little, you feel me?”

  “Yeah, I feel you,” Kofi answered. “The whole world feels you, dude.”

  “The explosion of two cymbals is a splash of color in a dark gray world,” Jack told him. “Little kids use crayons. I use sound.”

  “Deep,” Kofi said, “but noisy.”

  “I’m an artiste,” said Jack, “a creator of meaning in a world that makes no sense.”

  Kofi didn’t think Jack was making much sense at that moment, but he didn’t say so.

  Jack continued, “You know what, man?”

  “What’s that?”

  “In spite of all my noise, nobody notices. Nobody cares.”

  “You got that wrong, man. Everybody notices!”

  Jack shook his head, his hair whipping around like black spaghetti. “No, they don’t. Watch this.”

  He picked up the cymbals and clanged them together with a flourish—two times. Kofi jumped from the sudden sound, and man, his head was pounding, but the two girls walking by didn’t even pause.

  “See what I mean?” Jack said sadly.

  “They hear you every day, Jack. But most of us are so used to it that, well, it’s kinda like the morning announcements. Nobody pays any attention to them, either.”

  “I’m wallpaper.” Now Jack sounded despondent.

  “Not hardly. You’re more like whiskey on the rocks, man!”

  Jack looked unconvinced as he ran his fingers over the disks. “Maybe they’d listen better to my drums. Hmm…the snare or the bass? Maybe I’ll bring both tomorrow.”

  Kofi hoped not. “Hey, Jack, let me ask you something,” he began. “You know anything about all these fire drills we been havin’ lately?”

  “I know I’m tired of freezing my tail off every time we have to go outside,” Jack answered.

  “You got any idea who’s pullin’ the alarm?” Kofi pressed. “We’ve had four in the past three weeks. People are gettin’ tired of it.”

  “Now that can’t be true. Every kid wants class messed up, right?” Jack said with a grin.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Kofi admitted. “You got Fox for history?”

  “Yeah. Hatin’ it! Sergeant Fox, the king of worksheets and quizzes.”

  “I got him too—he’s a bear. You takin’ geometry this year?” Kofi asked casually.

  “Yep. Hatin’ it!”

  “What about band?”

  “Lovin’ it! Of course.”

  “Who you got for English?”

  “Techno-Spoon. She’s cool. I think you’re in her afternoon class—I got her first thing in the morning, before the caffeine in her diet Coke kicks in.”

  Kofi chuckled. “Spoon hates extra fire drills—she says they interrupt her flow.”

  “But isn’t it the fire department who pulls the alarms? Aren’t they the ones who decide when we have drills?”

  “Yeah, man. I guess so. Later.”

  Just as Jack disappeared around a corner, he yelled out to Kofi, “I’ve got a geometry test this afternoon!” Then the sound of his crashing cymbals followed a few seconds later.

  Kofi just shook his head. He’d lost Eddie in the crowd, but he brightened when he saw Dana coming toward him. Dressed in tight dark jeans and a pale orange sweater, she looked to him like a sunrise. She was frowning, however.

  “Hey, babe,” he said softly, reaching for her hand.

  She jerked away from him.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked her.

  “I waited for you for over an hour last night! What’s up with that? And then you didn’t even call!”

  “Huh?” He had no idea what she was talking about.

  “The library! We were supposed to meet at seven to study, remember? Or have you found somebody else to hang with at night?” He wasn’t sure if she was ready to cry or to smack him, but it was clear she was pissed.

  He rolled his head back. He’d completely forgotten about her. He’d gone home from school, taken two pills, and slept hard until morning. He hadn’t even seen his parents, and he hadn’t done any homework, either.

  “Oh, snap! I’m sorry, Dana, but you know how it is at my house. Ma was in one of her moods, and she couldn’t find my father, and well, you know how it is.”

  He looked up at Dana and hoped she had believed him.

  She seemed to soften. “I’m sorry, Kofi. I sometimes forget you live in Wack City.”

  “Big-time,” he agreed. But his mind was scrambling, trying to figure how he could have been so completely out of it.

  “You coul
d have called or texted me to let me know,” she reminded him, hands on hips.

  “It won’t happen again, sugar lips.”

  “If you want to taste these lips of sugar, it better not!” she teased. Then she got some lip gloss out of her purse and applied it slowly so he could see every stroke. “Suffer!” she said, and then dropped it back into her bag.

  He grinned, took a sip of water, and popped an Oxy into his mouth.

  “What’s that you’re taking?” she asked. Her smile had disappeared.

  “It was an aspirin—what’s the big deal? I got a wicked headache.”

  “It looked more like one of those pain pills you were taking when you broke your arm.”

  “It was just a plain old ordinary aspirin—quit sweatin’ me.”

  “Let me see the bottle.”

  “No! What are you, some kind of narc?” he asked her defensively.

  She reached into the outside pocket of his backpack even as he twisted away from her, trying to make her stop. But she was quick. Neither of them said anything for a moment as she held the bottle accusingly in her hand.

  “These things are easy to get hooked on, Kofi.”

  “I’m not jammed.”

  “So why are you still taking them?”

  “They relax me.”

  “Try taking a hot shower instead.”

  “You don’t understand the stress I’m under, Dana!”

  “I know lots more than you think. You better lay off those things,” she warned.

  “I can stop anytime I want to.”

  “Prove it.”

  “No problem. Take them. You can even keep the whole bottle.”

  Tilting her head quizzically, she stared at the bottle, which contained only two tablets, then tucked it into her purse. “No more?” she asked.

  “Straight up,” he replied.

  But Kofi knew he had a full refill at home.

  ARIELLE

  CHAPTER 10

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10

  ARIELLE’S MOTHER WAITED FOR HER OUTSIDE the school in her brand-new, strawberry red Mercedes. Even though it was February and most cars were covered with the muck of dirty, leftover snow, this one gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. Arielle had to admit it stood out and looked really good in the line of vehicles waiting to pick up students.