Teaching Her a Lesson Pt. 23

"You have a basement, right? I think I remember seeing a basement door at your party, a little before those stupid bitches turned me into Mr. Canon's fuck toy. We could just go down there, right?"

"No, my mom's a super packrat. She's not a hoarder or anything, but there's basically no room down there to--"

"Shhh." I held up a hand as I made my way to the front windows. Sure enough, there were headlights moving up Megan's driveway, the muffled drone of that rattletrap engine of theirs. "They're here."

"Already?"

I nodded. "Stay here."

I stepped outside, shivering almost instantly. It was supposed to rain overnight, and the temperature was already dropping. I watched as Abbie and Taylor hopped out of their car. No Justin this time, thank god. Both were dressed in dark colors like their peers, though less ninja-esque. They looked surprised to see me meeting them out on the lawn, but not displeased.

"Sup, brah," said Abbie, grinning. "Missed ya at school."

"Ms. Stern," I answered tersely, then to Taylor, "Ms. Stern."

"Why so stern?" quipped Taylor, crossing the yard toward me.

I didn't smile. "I think you know. Egging my house? What the hell were you thinking? Do you have any concept of how much trouble I could be in because of you two? Do you haveany remorse for your actions?" I glanced around. I was pretty sure we weren't being observed, but it was hard to be sure.

"I mean, it was pretty uncool having Whorin' Horen see my snatch," Taylor replied, frowning at the cold reception. "So I guess I'm at least alittle remorseful. You know, you could always--"

Before she could say anything else, the lawn was flooded with red and blue lights as the squad car pulled up to the curb. Their timing was impeccable, just in time to catch the three of us engaged in dialogue. The Sterns' eyes widened in dawning horror, caught standing in the front yard of the very teacher with whom they stood accusing of having illicit relations. I could see Abbie tensing to bolt, but there was no point. Their car was in Megan's driveway, blocked in by the police. Even if they ran, they were caught nonetheless.

"Hold it right there," said one of the two officers, her flashlight shining back and forth between the three of us.

"You wanna get that light the hell out my face?" snarled Abbie. Taylor looked no less displeased, but had the sense not to smart off to the police, at least. Not yet.

The other officer walked right up to them, a broad-chested man who towered over the girls. Me too, really, though he wasn't looming at me. "You mind telling us what you're doing here tonight?" he asked.

Though the question was directed at them, I supplied the answer hastily. "They're here to egg my goddamn house is what they're doing here!"

"Sir, please, keep your voice down. Is there any truth to that, ladies?"

"No! No, we were just here to visit, um, Cassie. Brown. She's a friend of ours. That's it."

"Is that her house?" The female officer gestured.

"Yeah. Just knock on the door. She'll tell you," insisted Abbie. "She invited us over."

"Don't bother," I interjected. "She's over at my house."

"WHAT?!" hissed Taylor. "Are you fucking nuts, C-dawg?"

"She and Tabitha Hutchings both," I added. "I can get them, if you like. They can help shed some light on all this."

The two officers shared a look, and after a moment the woman came with me. I led her inside, where two nervous-looking young women were standing by the front window, where they'd been watching the scene unfold.

"Are you Cassie Brown?" the officer asked.

"I'm Tabitha. Tabitha Hutchings? My father is--"

"I don't care who your daddy is, miss. So you're Cassie Brown, then?"

Cassie nodded. "Y-yeah. Are... are we in trouble?"

I shook my head. "If I may? I told this to the dispatcher already. The short version is, these two have been repeat victims of bullying by those two young women outside. Tonight, they were being pressured to help egg my house. Since Cassie lives next door, that was their, well, I guess you could call it a staging ground? I'm a teacher at their school, and we've been through some... drama of late. These two felt bad enough about it that they kindly came over early to confess and apologize. That's when I placed the call."

"You called the police?" Cassie asked incredulously.

I shrugged. "I didn't want you two to panic, so I made the call from the bathroom." True. "I'm sorry. Just with everything that's going on, I couldn't risk any further... Just... Look, I'm sorry."

The officer looked between the two of them. "That so?"

They looked to me, obviously confused, but I hoped that it played out more that they were shocked and afraid to be confronted by the police. Which I had counted on. Tabitha could act, but Cassie's emotional reactions had all the subtlety of a thunderstorm. One by one, they nodded. Tabitha ad libbed a few details as needed; Cassie simply stood by and let us handle it. My girls.

"They brought over the eggs, too. I don't know if you guys bother collecting evidence for small stuff like this or anything, but... here, hang on." I excused myself to the kitchen, returning quickly with two cartons of eggs. They were both full, but one was actually refilled, Taylor's message still scrawled across the top of the lid. I flipped it up and showed it to her.

PS sorry bout the eggs dawg!

"That's fine, sir, but we really don't need to go to that length for a prevented incident," the officer stated, but I was already pressing my case.

"Don't you fucking touch me!" came a shriek from outside. I gritted my teeth, but it wasn't my place -- my character's place -- to intervene.

"I didn't figure, officer, but you see, there's another incident on-going that involves, well, all of us." And with that, I launched into a short summary of the case Shipman was investigating, framing it as a spurned girl with a checkered past and her sister, bitter about the after-school help she was forced to accept, preying on two weaker girls to antagonize their strict teacher. It was interspersed by periodic shouts and accusations from the Sterns outside.

"You said Shipman is the primary on the investigation?"

"I think so? I don't know police lingo, but he's the one I spoke to at the station yesterday."

"We're weren't gonna fuckin' egg shit! You see any mother fuckin' eggs, asshole?!" demanded Taylor.

The officer in my living room nodded. "I'll make sure he sees this." The woman shook her head as I handed over the carton, eggs and all. "Damn kids."

"Thanks, officer. It's not the first time some kid has thought to have a little fun at my expense, and normally I'd handle it myself. With all that's going on, though..."

"No, you were right to call. Ladies, you did the right thing, coming forward. Now why don't you head on home. It's still a school night."

"Do you think Mr. Canon can go back to work now?" asked Tabitha quickly. "It seems really unfair that one of my best teachers is being treated like this because ofthose two. They're the worst girls in the whole school." She glared daggers at where Abbie and Taylor were still squaring off with the other officer on the front lawn.

"I don't have any say in that, miss. Go on, now."

The two didn't protest further. I answered a couple questions as she jotted down information for her report. Outside, Abbie and Taylor were being led into the back of the squad car. Shit. I'd hoped it wouldn't come to that, but I suppose it wasn't surprising that Taylor and Abbie would escalate a confrontation with an authority figure.Whatever you do, don't try taking her chapstick, I thought wryly.

Nothing I could do for them now, though. I could hear their streams of obscenities from inside. Attempted egging usually wasn't an arrestable offense, but there was only so much flak one could throw at a police officer before they got bored of it and decided to ruin your evening.

(Most police officers, anyway. I knew one who couldn't get enough of my abuse.)

As the police officers drove away, I could see Taylor pounding on the window, screaming something in the direction of my house. Delivered in the trunk of her own car, removed in the back of a squad car. My goddess.

The two were taken downtown, though ultimately not charged with anything -- not for the near egging, anyway. Lectured, parents notified, but otherwise released with a fairly generous warning. Good. It was as bad as I wanted anything to get for them. They'd egged my house, after all; I'd seen an opportunity to give the investigation a nudge, and seized it.

Shipman called me into his office the next morning to discuss the incident, and I told him what I'd told the other officer.

"That's her handwriting, all right," I said, returning the egg carton he'd shown me. "And only a handful of students call me 'C-dawg.' Not sure who started it."

"Oh, they confessed all right. Claimed they'd already egged your place earlier in the evening, but... so many lies, and the egg nonsense is way down the list of my concerns anyway."

"Are they going to get in trouble?" I asked.

He folded his arms across his chest. "Would that be a problem for you?"

It was a good question. There was a lot to unpack behind it. Abbie and Taylor had done more to create this whole mess than anyone. So much of what had gone wrong could be laid at their feet. For crying out loud, Abbie had literally enslaved several of her classmates, and that she hadn't kept them for herself was the only mitigating factor. Without them, Cassie, Tabitha, Isa, Candy and Justin wouldn't be involved in any of this.

But also without them,Cassie, Tabitha, Isa and Candy wouldn't be involved. And they had come through for me on occasion to help me clean up my own sloppy mistakes. Plus, they were eighteen. Nineteen, next week, for Taylor. As badly as they were screwing up high school, they'd have their hands full in the real world as it was without having to deal with legal troubles and whatever fines their shenanigans might have incurred.

Even in character as the aggrieved teacher whose efforts to help had blown up in his face, I could show empathy. It was that impulse I seized upon when I at last responded.

"They're just kids," I answered. "What they did was stupid, and mean, and wrong on so many levels. But they're just kids."

"Not in the eyes of the law, they're not, unfortunately."

Something in his eyes... no. "I guess not. But if I have any say in the matter, I don't want to press charges, if there's charges to be pressed."

He studied me for a moment, then gave a curt nod. "I'll keep that in mind."

I waited for him to say more, but that was all he said. "Is that it? Anything else I can do to help?"

Shipman stroked the point of his thin beard for a moment, then sighed and planted his forearms on the table. "So you know, I've concluded the investigation. I'll notify your principal shortly once I finish up the paperwork; you'll have to follow up in-house for employment-related matters. Ms. Crawford, your custodian, vouched for you, said she'd seen you and Taylor Stern together a dozen times in your after-school meet-ups, and never a whiff of anything inappropriate."

It took me a moment to realize who Ms. Crawford was -- good ol' Randi! It had somehow never even occurred to me to wonder what she had or hadn't seen. All the times she'd nearly seen something, but still she came through. How was that for dumb luck? I made a note to double my gift to the custodian next Christmas.

"I hated to make you sweat there, but I had to do my due diligence no matter how thick the file Barbour kept on those two. I'm sure I don't need to tell you in this 'me-too' era that we have to be as sure before we throw out charges like these, but after what I've read on those two, I'd think twice before I believed them about the time of day. Now after last night, we'll have to look into the Stern girls."

"What? Look into... but they're...!"

He raised a hand. "I hear you saying they're 'just kids,' but... hell, you're the one who walked in on their little stunt the other day. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how grown up they are, eh."

There it was, that glint I thought I'd seen in his eyes, now spread across his whole face. That Coach Mosshammer grin.

Damnit, I liked him better when I thought he was only trying to put me in prison.

He went on. "A minor incident, sure, but that's how these things can start. Two little sociopaths like that, absolutely no contrition for what they've put you through..." He shook his head. "You may say they're 'just kids,' but the sheer number of crimes they're implicated in now is too much to ignore."

I sat up straighter. "What? What crimes? Egging someone's house isn't a felony, is it?"

"They didn't egg your house, so that doesn't make the list. Still, that leaves us indecent exposure -- aggravated by doing it in a school. Coercion. Intimidation. Giving false information to an officer of the law. Incrimination on false evidence. We could add resisting arrest after how they carried on last night." He shook his head. "I don't know how deep it goes, but from what I've seen in their disciplinary files, it wouldn't surprise me if we found more."

"But... they're..."

"Kids, yeah. To you. And it's sweet that you see them that way, and the way they all swore you had nothing to do it so insistently, so across the board, I actually thought they might be trying to cover something up. But I tell you what, the way those girls spat out your name last night... if that's covering for someone they care about, I'd sure hate to see what they'd do to someone they hate."

"Can't... can't we just let it slide? Nobody actually got hurt, after all. Embarrassed, maybe. Frightened, but not--"

"You're thinking about them like innocent little children, pal. And hey, your job requires you to see them that way. But mine... well, sometimes, the way I see it, we get lucky and catch them early before anybody gets seriously hurt. Gotta say, between you and me, after sitting across a table from those girls, I'd much rather have seen them how you saw them."

After a wink -- a fuckingwink! -- Shipman stood, offering his hand. Numbly, I shook it. As he walked me to his office door, his thick hand came down on my shoulder. "Relax, Mr. Canon. Your troubles are over."