Girl Squad

by Kim Hoover

  I was confused and tried to get Jennifer’s attention, but she wouldn’t make eye contact.

  “Homosexuality is a sin.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said and practically jumped out of the car.

  “God will forgive you, but you have to repent,” she said, leaning across Jennifer to shout at me through the passenger window.

  I turned away from the car and started walking.

  “We love you, Cal. It’s our Christian duty!”

  I kept walking, not looking back. What the heck? Christian duty? It’s your Christian duty to leave me alone. Inside I found a note from Dad telling me he had bought my favorite TV dinners. I took one out of the freezer and heated it up in the oven. I sat at the kitchen counter, numb and unable to eat anything, playing with the food in the foil tray. The telephone rang and I answered it, expecting it to be Dad checking in.

  “Cal, it’s me!” Jane’s voice sounded hushed and frantic. “Thank god you’re okay.”

  “Hey, I’m hanging in there, barely.”

  “Why weren’t you there at the time we said?”

  “Are you crying?”

  “Of course, I’m crying! I’ve been crazy worried about you!”

  “You won’t believe what’s happening.”

  “Didn’t you give your mom what she was looking for?”

  “That whole thing wasn’t even real.”

  “What?”

  “She was messing around with me. It turns out what they really want has something to do with what your dad does.”

  “How?”

  “Something about that petroleum reserve thing. Do you know anything about it?”

  “A little,” Jane said. “But why?”

  “The gang just figured out that it’s there. It’s way bigger than the gas syphoning thing they’ve been up to so far. I think we can use this to trip them up once and for all. If we play it right.”

  “I don’t know,” Jane said. “I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t like it either, but I feel like I don’t have a choice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t want to scare you, but my mother threatened me with the most awful things today. It has to do with you. The gay thing.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Jane said. “Sick.”

  “I have to take her seriously. If I don’t come up with something, she could make trouble for you.”

  “What is it they want?”

  “Some kind of codes—security codes. If they have them, they can get access to the reserves. Or at least that’s what they think.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “I know, but is there anything you can think of that might help?”

  “Well,” Jane said, “I never thought this would come up, but I think I know what your mom is talking about.”

  “How do you know?”

  “When we first moved to town, I overheard my dad on the phone. I didn’t mean to. I was in his library looking for something and he didn’t realize I was there. I heard him talk about access codes. When he saw me, he went white as a ghost. He swore me to secrecy. Told me I had to forget what I’d heard.”

  “This sounds super serious.”

  “It’s national security, Cal. We can’t mess around.”

  “I understand. My plan will protect national security by setting up the Brazos River Gang to be caught and put away.”

  “I don’t know. It could backfire. I can’t believe we’re in the middle of this.”

  “I get it. It’s risky. Really risky. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to tell me.”

  “Wait,” Jane said. “Who says you have to give them the real thing? You’re setting them up anyway so the Texas Rangers can catch them.”

  “Yeah, but it has to look real.”

  “Here’s what I know. Half of the code is in a notebook in the monitoring room at the plant. The other half is in a safe place outside the plant. My dad would never tell me where that is—for my own safety.”

  “Is this something I could memorize when I find it?”

  “No. It’s too complicated. But do you have a Polaroid camera?”

  “My dad does.”

  “Get yourself into that room and use your charms to get a picture of that code in the notebook. That should be good enough to lure them in.”

  “I’ll be so glad when this is all over,” I said.

  “Hey, I have to go. They’re calling lights out here.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I promise everything will be okay.”

  “Cal,” she hesitated. “I…it’s just that…I love—”

  The line went dead as I glanced at the clock and watched it turn to ten p.m. As I hung up the phone, I decided on a plan, for better or worse. I couldn’t sleep, so I waited up for Dad. He got off at eleven p.m. on the evening shift.

  “Can I go to work with you tomorrow night?” I asked him after he put away his things in the closet. “I have a science project and we’re supposed to research something from the real world.”

  “Sure,” he said, “but do you know what you’re looking for?”

  Do I ever.

  “I figure you can show me what you do for work. You know, let me see some gauges and instruments and I can write something up.”

  “All right, I’ll pick you up from school and we’ll go,” he said. “Now you should get to bed.”

  I went to sleep feeling guilty that I was going to use my dad this way. But I couldn’t risk my mother going after Jane. Her words rang in my ears. Shipped off to a camp for deviants like her.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Ready?”

  It was Dad, pulling up to the front of the high school as I walked out.

  “Let’s do it.”

  I pretended to be enthusiastic about the fake science project. We pulled into the plant campus through an iron security gate. The place smelled of a sickening sweet chemical mixture. I was used to it from the way his work clothes smelled, and the stench could be detected from miles away, but this close, it nauseated me.

  “How do you work in this smell?”

  “You get used to it.”

  “Gross.”

  We parked in the parking lot and walked to his building. He showed me the locker room where the men changed into jumpsuits. He handed me the smallest size, which was still way too big for me.

  “You gotta wear it while you’re here.”

  I took it into the ladies’ restroom, as there was no locker for women, since they worked in the clerical offices in another building. Dad had brought my boots with him. I took my notebook and a pen and did my best to look like I was on a research project.

  “Okay,” I said, stepping into the hallway where he waited. “Where’s your work area?”

  “This way,” he said, our steps echoing down the cinderblock hallway.

  He took me into a room full of instrument panels, each with dozens of dials and gauges and meters with needles measuring who knows what. They kept the temperature super cold because of the machinery. Despite the jumpsuit, I was still cold, my teeth chattering a little. There were two other men in the room, each with clipboards marking sheets that looked like graph paper. I took notes about the room, not just for my fake project, but also to get me thinking and lead me to some sort of bright idea as to how to locate the code I was supposed to find.

  “What’s this?” I pointed to what looked like a leather-bound atlas.

  “That’s the National Petroleum Registry,” Dad said. “It’s maps and geological data on just about everything you’d ever want to know about oil in the whole world.”

  “Wow. Can I look at it?”

  “I don’t know why not. It’s pretty technical. I don’t think it’ll mean much to you.”

  I opened the book and paged through it, getting an idea of how it was organized. It was indexed by region, then by country, then by specific categories like total oil production, crude oil production, refinery capacity and p
roven reserves. I found a section all about Texas, and there I noticed a page called Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

  “Clear as mud?” Dad said from across the room, looking at a gauge and writing something down.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But it’s giving me some ideas for my report.”

  I saw a reference to Palo Duro Canyon and thought this could be it. It was jargony, but it seemed to say that the government had made a decision to hide a certain amount of petroleum in Palo Duro Canyon as a hedge against OPEC countries’ manipulation of the oil market. The reserve was secured by a complicated code, not guarded by people, so as not to call attention to the exact location. But I couldn’t see a code or a reference as to how to find the code.

  I closed the book and looked around the room. Back in a corner I hadn’t noticed before was a bank of monitors, small black-and-white television sets. One of the men was sitting at a desk watching them. This might be what Jane was talking about.

  “Mind if I watch?” I asked him.

  “Go ahead,” he said, pointing to a chair next to him. “My name’s Bud.”

  As I sat down, Bud straightened up in his chair. “Your dad’s the best boss out here.”

  He was young, probably only in his early twenties. He smoothed his shirt and ran his fingers through his short-cropped hair. I caught him looking at me for a second too long and thought he might try flirting with me.

  “Really?”

  “He’s saved my butt more than a few times.”

  “Huh,” I said. “What do you know?”

  “Yeah, I probably would have been fired by now if he didn’t have my back.”

  My dad really is a good guy.

  “What is all this stuff you’ve got going here,” I asked, pointing to the bank of little television-looking machines.

  “These monitors, most of them, are security cameras around the plant,” he said. “But this one, it’s top secret.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “Hmm…I really shouldn’t say.”

  “C’mon. I’m just curious. I won’t put it in my report.”

  He thought it over. “It’s Palo Duro Canyon,” he said quietly. “There’s a vault out there. Full of oil.”

  “Wow,” I said. “What’s it for?”

  “In case the bad guys cut us off,” he said, his eyes narrowing.

  “Has anyone ever tried to break in?”

  He shook his head vigorously. “No way. It’s on lockdown like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I bet if somebody was really smart, they could figure it out.”

  “It’s foolproof,” he said. “They had this math guy from Massachusetts or somewhere come up with this mile-long equation or, I don’t know, something like that.”

  I started laughing.

  “I’m serious, girl,” he said, taking a key to open a drawer and reaching in for a notebook. “Look at this.”

  He showed me a long, complicated string of what looked like calculus computations.

  “I see what you mean,” I said.

  “Damn right.”

  “Hey,” I said. “All this research is making me thirsty. Do y’all have Cokes around here somewhere?”

  “Back in the locker room. I’ll get you one. Could use one myself.”

  He got up and I held my breath as I watched to see if he would leave the drawer unlocked. He did, and as soon as he was out of sight, I grabbed the notebook. I took the Polaroid out of my bag and snapped a picture, then another and another just to be sure. I just got the camera back in my bag when Dad came around the corner.

  “Gettin’ some good stuff?” he asked.

  I closed my notebook. “Perfect,” I said. “I can write my report now.”

  I fell asleep in the breakroom waiting for Dad’s shift to end. But when we got home, my mind was running wild as I hit the pillow. I knew what I had to do and I couldn’t let myself think about the consequences to my mother.

  “I don’t have anything yet,” I said the next morning to one of the Hart boys who was lurking in the shadows near the entrance to the high school.

  My strategy for now was delay. I didn’t feel right about any of this, but so far I hadn’t come up with another way out. I knew I only had another day or two before they really upped the pressure on me.

  “Rachel’s back home!” someone said as I made my way through the crowded halls.

  That was good news, but I immediately wondered why she hadn’t called me if she was back from Dallas. The school day dragged on for what felt like an eternity. When I got home, I ran to the telephone and dialed her number. Her father answered.

  “I’m sorry, Cal, but Rachel is resting now. It would be better if you didn’t call her.”

  “Dad!”

  I heard Rachel in the background.

  “Let me talk to her!” Rachel said.

  “Goodbye, Cal.”

  Her father hung up the phone. So the adults were trying to keep us all away from each other for their different reasons. I knew a way around that. Rachel and I had long ago figured out how to come and go through our bedroom windows. I hopped on my bike and headed over there. She opened the window when I tapped on it.

  “You look good,” I said. She was her normal color again, and one sure sign she was herself—she had origami butterflies all over the room.

  “Oh, my gosh, Cal. That’s insane,” she said when I told her everything my mother had asked me to do. “You shouldn’t be dealing with this alone. You’ve got to go to the authorities.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not? If you just tell them what’s going on, they can protect you.”

  “It’s not that. There’s something else.”

  I stood up, looked in the mirror, and turned back to face Rachel.

  “My mother threatened…threatened me about Jane. You know, about how Jane is.”

  She looked confused at first and then it dawned on her. “Oh, that’s so mean.”

  “Yeah,” I said as I plopped onto the edge of the bed.

  “But what could she do to Jane?”

  “I don’t know if she could really do anything, but she scared me. I guess there are places where they try to turn people from being, you know, that way… She says she could get Jane sent to one. I can’t take any chances with that.”

  “What if you got in touch with Bev?”

  “That’s exactly what I have in mind. She and I could work together on this and make up for what happened in Tyler.”

  “You should call her right now,” Rachel said. “I’ve still got her home number. I bet she would accept a collect call.”

  Rachel picked up the phone and listened to make sure no one else was on it and then dialed the operator for a collect call. When Bev accepted the charges, we huddled on the receiver.

  “You should have called me right away,” Bev said, scolding. “This is a whole different level from syphoning gas.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I am so scared about Jane.”

  “Fine,” she said, “but no more secrets. This is the national petroleum reserve. I can’t for the life of me figure out how they know about it at all, much less where it is. I don’t know how they think they can pull off an attack there. It’s a suicide mission.”

  “They seem so sure of themselves. My mom was almost cocky. I wonder if we’re missing something.”

  “Maybe they’re working with another group, a much more sophisticated group. But whatever it is, it’s a very big mistake.”

  “It’s Cal I’m worried about,” Rachel said. “Her mother has put her in a terrible position. She’s been handling it all alone. Can you protect her?”

  “This kind of thing is way beyond the scope of the Rangers. I’m sure the next thing will be to call in the FBI. I’ll talk to my superiors about providing protection for Cal.”

  “Something’s got to happen fast,” I said. “They’re expecting me to get them the code. I can’t stall much long
er.”

  “I’ll do my best, but in the meantime, tell me everything you remember. You said they took you to a warehouse somewhere,” Bev said. “What can you tell me about that?”

  “All I know is it was about forty-five minutes from town. I checked my watch when they took the blindfold off. I don’t know which direction, but it was a big building with really high ceilings.”

  “Like an airplane hangar?” Bev asked.

  “Maybe. I’ve never seen one.”

  “Those are some good clues,” Bev said.

  “What about Jane?” I asked.

  “She’s safe where she is. I think your mother is bluffing. She’d give herself away if she tried to pursue that.”

  “If you’re sure—”

  “Just keep your wits about you. I’ll get things moving immediately.”

  “This is so much worse than I thought,” I said after we hung up the phone. “I can’t understand why my mother is doing this to me. And Jane. And even you.”

  “I hate to say this, but it seems like she just doesn’t care what happens to us.”

  “Right. And I’m starting not to care what happens to her.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I was almost back home from Rachel’s when a truck came to a sudden stop at the corner and two men jumped out and dragged me inside. I closed my eyes, not bothering to resist.

  “Cal,” my mother said, sitting in the front seat.

  I jerked to attention, looking at her.

  “You have the code. Give it to me.”

  I didn’t move at first.

  “Now!”

  I dug around in my book bag for the Polaroid pictures. I handed them to her.

  “You can let me go now,” I said.

  “Oh, no, honey. You’re coming along for the ride, as insurance in case this information is bogus.”

  “But—”

  Oh, boy. I had to think. Had to figure out a way to escape. They hadn’t blindfolded me this time. Looking out the window, I realized we were headed out of town in the direction of the canyon. I had an idea. There was a big culvert near there where we’d played as kids. It led to a sewer drain we used as a secret passage from that part of town back to our neighborhood.