“I got a call from the alarm company saying the alarm was set off.” He spoke quite sternly.
“It was,” I said trying to be very evasive. I was still kind of surprised. I had never talked to our father on the phone before. He never called to check on us or anything. It was weird hearing his voice on the other end of the line.
“Enter 1672 and then hit the off button. I’ll call back the alarm company and tell them it was a false alarm. After that I am coming straight home, so your friend better be gone.” Then he hung up. I didn’t have a chance to have any kind of reaction or response.
I went and shut off the alarm and then went to the back of the house to tell my sisters that our father was coming home. A look of shock and amazement was on both of their faces. Each day our lives kept getting weirder and weirder.
We all went off to our rooms to do homework, but I couldn’t concentrate. I was too tired and too busy thinking of other things. I threw down the book I was reading for lit class and lay back on my bed letting my mind drift to Jeremy. I was so happy to have him in my life at that moment. He seemed to have helped keep me grounded. Who knows what kind of nut case I would have turned into without the support and understanding of somebody else. I mean I had my sisters, don’t get me wrong there, but it was nice having somebody else, somebody who would just listen and always had a smile to make me feel a little better. I was thinking of Jeremy’s smile when I heard our father come in. You couldn’t miss when somebody came in the house because even though the actual alarm was off the door chime stayed on. The chime was downstairs saying, “Front door open, front door open.”
Then I heard him scream for us. “Girls,” he shouted in a booming voice.
I rolled over and stuck my head under my pillow.
“Girls,” he shouted again with much impatience.
I got up and slowly meandered down the hall towards the stairs. Isabelle and Clarissa also emerged from their rooms. We all walked downstairs with our heads hanging low. Our supposed father was waiting for us in the front room standing there with his arms crossed over an argyle sweater.
“Sit,” he demanded.
We listened and all sat on the couch.
“You girls haven’t been behaving like the proper young ladies you were raised to be. You’re really pissing me off,” our supposed father snarled.
“What, do you want us to act clone like?” Clarissa snapped.
Reginald, that’s what I’m calling him from this point on, made a grunting sound and shook his head up and down. “I figured you girls knew. Mr. Carl told me you have been paying him visits, but he did not mention what he told you.” He grunted and let out a deep breath. “I don’t know what to do with you girls.”
“You’re just peeved because we’re trying to find answers and we figured everything out on our own. When were you going to tell us Reginald?” I asked with my voice seething.
“You need to shut your goddamn little mouth,” he growled pointing a finger in my face. “You will address me as father.”
“You’re not even our father,” Clarissa screamed standing up. “The only way you even got us was because you raped our mother and stole her genetic makeup.”
Reginald walked right up to her and looked down with a nefarious grin. “You are misinformed. It was her idea to use herself.”
“Did you do away with her after she had Elizabeth? Did you kill her because she was in the way of your grand scheme of things, of your precious science,” Clarissa shrieked with a brilliant red face.
Reginald reached up and slapped her right across the face. Clarissa stood there in total shock holding her cheek with her eyes glazed over by moisture. “You girls will obey me. I brought you into this world I could easily take you out!” He said in a low threatening tone.
“Just kill us now because we will never obey you,” I exclaimed getting up off the couch. “You are an evil psychotic heartless bastard of a man.”
He whipped around in my direction with a look in his eyes like he really was going to kill me. In one large stride he had his face in mine. He took his large mitt of a hand, grabbed me right under the chin and squeezed my mandible, lifting me off the ground. He brought my face to the level of his. “You girls think I’m joking, no more bullshit.” He let go. I dropped to the ground. My jaw ached from his grip. He then glared at Isabelle warning her not to do or say anything. Reginald left the room and then a couple minutes later left the house. We were left alone once again in our own prison.
Chapter Sixteen
The bus took forever to get to school. That morning traffic was quite awful. The air outside had quite a chill. It seemed that winter would soon be upon us. I think I was able to even see my breath on the bus. When we did reach school it looked like something was going on outside of it, like a parade or something. The sidewalk was crowded with a flood of people which spilled over onto the school lawn. As we got closer I could see the yellow jackets of the school security guards spattered about. Everybody on the bus rushed to the windows to see what was going on. For a moment I thought the bus would tip due to all the weight being on the one side. There were cops along the sidewalk standing in defensive poses. I thought perhaps some awful crime was committed or something. Then what I really noticed were the cameras. There were television crews everywhere and reporters standing with their microphones. I looked on the other side of the street and it was lined with all the TV vans with those big satellite antenna things on top.
“What the hell is going on,” Clarissa whispered into my ear.
“I think I know what is happening,” Isabelle said in my other ear.
The three of us were holding onto one of the bus poles, standing near the back door to the bus. My stomach started feeling very queasy. Isabelle nodded at me like she knew exactly what I was feeling. The world had found out the truth about us.
The bus screeched to a stop in front of the school. The doors opened. The three of us didn’t move. We let all the other kids off first. My stomach was flipping and flying all around.
“Maybe we should just keep going,” I said, which sounded like a very good idea to me.
“I think they’ll find us wherever we go, now that they know,” Isabelle concluded.
I sighed knowing Isabelle was right. The bus driver looked back and glared at us.
“C’mon,” I said stepping off first. I thought for a moment nobody noticed us arrive, but that lasted only about three seconds before we were spotted.
All of a sudden there was a full on rush for my sisters and I. I could barely get three feet. There were people holding cameras, shoving microphones in our faces, people were screaming things and the ones holding the microphones were asking questions, but there was so many coming from every which direction, and there were people holding up those big fuzzy microphone thingies or whatever they are. The three of us all stood back to back. Soon we were totally surrounded. I lost my sense of direction because I didn’t know which way to go to get to the school. Clarissa grabbed my hand. I grabbed Isabelle’s and Clarissa just kind of plowed through the crowd.
“Excuse me,” she screamed even though it seemed like nobody heard her or perhaps just didn’t listen.
All those people just wanted was a bit of us. I heard parts of what people were screaming or asking. Clones, the first, special, how does it feel. It was mass chaos outside. I really wanted to be in the school building. I really wanted Jeremy. I wanted him to come and scoop me up out of the madness, but even if he was in the crowd somewhere he probably couldn’t get through all the reporters and camera crews.
A couple of cops rushed to our aid and started swatting the reporters away. Next a couple of the school security guards in their yellow jackets made their way through the crowd and led the brigade. We made it down one of the sidewalks that led up to the school. One of the security guards opened up the doors and we were ushered up the steps and inside. Once inside, the dull light of the school hallway felt comforting.
“You girls okay,�
� one of the cops with a crooked nose asked.
“Yeah, physically,” I said.
“We’re okay,” Clarissa answered giving the cop a more appropriate response.
Right after the cop asked if we were okay everything froze at that moment. We stood frozen in the entry way to school. Everybody who was in the hall at that exact moment also froze in place staring in our direction. Nobody said anything or moved or even pointed a finger. All I could feel was my heart beating in my chest and an overwhelming amount of anxiety filling my body.
Then somebody snapped their fingers and we were back, walking down the hall to the office and people were talking and pointing and saying things like; “Oh my gosh that’s them,” and “I have a class with the one. She seems pretty normal,” and others whispered things into their friends’ ears. I then heard a couple different people shout out Clarissa’s name. I looked at Clarissa. She was actually smiling. At that point she didn’t seem to mind the attention that much.
I then heard, “Oh my God Charlotte,” and saw Jeremy running down the hall shoving some twerpy kid aside. His hair was flapping everywhere and his face was filled with concern. He didn’t seem to notice we were walking with cops and security guards and ran up to me, picking me up, squeezing me as tight as humanly possible. He then dropped me to the ground and took my face in his hands and gave me a kiss.
“Get outta here kid,” the one cop said swatting Jeremy away.
“But, she’s my girlfriend,” Jeremy proclaimed defensively.
People were stopped in the hall just watching us and watching Jeremy slip in another hug.
“Go on,” one of the security guards with chipped teeth demanded.
Jeremy looked at the ground in defeat. “I’ll go to my locker and come back,” Jeremy said as he was being swatted away by another school security guard.
We were led into the main office, all the secretaries and teachers that were in there stared as we were led through. We went into the principal’s office. I didn’t know why, it’s not like we could have been yelled at for being clones or something. I couldn’t help but feel like we in trouble. I felt like I was at the police station all over again. The cops left and the school security guards stayed near the door. We were on lockdown all over again. While we waited for somebody to show up the three of us looked out the principal’s office window. It looked onto the street where everything happening was. News reporters lined the streets in news reporting stances, holding their microphones mid chest and putting on a serious yet pleasant face. Cameras guys and crews meandered all about, regular citizens and bystanders stood around trying to see what was happening. On the sidewalk people were holding up handmade signs. I couldn’t read them earlier because of all the commotion, but I could get the gist of a few of them from the principal’s office. I was blessed with fantastic eyesight. Some read things like; They’re not natural, Only God gets to make our children, No clones, and then some along the lines of clone invasions, and then there were a few positive ones, but I was pretty sure they were from our Xtial friends because those signs said things like; They will save the human race, They are perfection and so on and so forth. It was all so crazy. It was like all of a sudden the whole world was instantaneously informed.
After many minutes of anxious waiting the principal Mr. Santiago showed up. He was with Ms. Kudlow. The school psychologist as she told us. She was a tall woman with shiny chestnut hair and a fitted pant suit.
Nobody sat. We all just stood there looking at each other. I don’t know if the principal even knew why he had us in there. Did he want to know something? Was it for our own protection? Did they want to make sure we weren’t going to go nuts? I mean what do you say when you find out your students are clones. I’m sure they probably weren’t even sure if the claims were true or not, but what was one to say to us?
Mr. Santiago started talking first. “All right girls, most obviously everybody saw the news, were on the internet, or read a newspaper. The word is out and everybody wants to have at it.” He had his hands splayed in front of him while he was standing. For a second I thought he was going to break out into dance. It would have been interesting too because he was a large man. He looked like he could have been a linebacker or something. “Do you girls feel comfortable going to class?”
My sisters and I looked at each other and all kind of shrugged. We had not an idea about anything.
“You could take a pass today if ya need to,” he said putting his finger tips together like he was making a little chapel.
“Girls, we all know this is probably a lot for you to handle. Do you want to go and talk?” Ms. Kudlow asked with fake sympathy. “So you know, if you girls need anything we will all be here for you.” She gave us a big cheesy grin. One I would imagine a coach would give his players, like a go get ‘em team kind of grin.
The three of us said nothing. We let them do all the talking. Clarissa looked at her shoes. I stood with my hands shoved in my coat pocket and Isabelle bit her nails, which I had never seen her do before then.
“Do you girls want to go to class?” Mr. Santiago asked.
“If during the day you feel overwhelmed or need to talk you could come to either of our offices,” Ms. Kudlow said with a little nod.
“I guess we’ll go to class,” I said speaking on behalf of my sisters and I because really, where were we going to go, home. What was there?
“All right girls,” Mr. Santiago said. “Take it easy.”
He made it sound like we were diseased, or sick, or going away forever, or something. I gave him a thumbs up and we were back to battle the hallways. Luckily the bell already rang, so for the most part everybody was in class. The only bad thing though was we were going to have to go in to class late. I guess I was going to have to get used to the staring because I was pretty sure that the story wasn’t going anywhere for a while. The first cloned children is a pretty big thing. Clarissa and Isabelle went off to their classes and I went to go to mine. I went to turn down the hallway when somebody popped out at me.
“Jesus Christ,” I yelped out surprised.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Jeremy said grabbing me by the hand.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
Jeremy shrugged. “I said I’d come back.”
“Thanks,” I said. I needed the support. I think I actually needed somebody to push me to class because I was having second thoughts on going.
“You could always skip,” Jeremy suggested picking up on my vibe. He then reached up and pinched my chin.
“I might as well get it over with. If I don’t go today I’ll have to go tomorrow and I’m sure they’ll still be staring tomorrow.”
“Gotcha,” Jeremy said walking me in the direction of my class. “I’m here for you, whatever you need. Okay.”
“Yeah, I know.”
We quickly arrived at my class.
“Front door service,” Jeremy said.
I kissed him, let go of his hand and opened the classroom door. I turned the knob and looked over my shoulder at Jeremy. “Thanks,” I told him.
He responded with a wonderful smile. I pulled open the door to the classroom. I took a deep breath and walked in. Automatically everybody, including Mrs. Brown turned and looked at me. I pulled my sweater sleeve over the heel of my hand and gave a little wave. I wasn’t sure what else I was supposed to do. I could hear my own footsteps as I walked to my desk. No other sound was in the room. I threw my bag and coat on the ground and took a seat. I tried to look forward at the board, but I could feel all the eyeballs in the back of my head. I turned in my seat, so I could look over the whole class.
“Yes,” I announced. “Is that what you all want to know because I don’t look any different today than I did yesterday, but yes it’s true, if that’s what you all want to know.” Nobody responded or said anything. They all just stared at me. I pulled my sweater sleeves all the way over my hands and tried to preoccupy myself with that action while everybody just stared.
>
The rest of the class was spent in awkward silence. The rest of my whole day was actually quiet awkward.
In division I went and sat next to Rain again. I figured she probably at least hopefully wouldn’t just straight up stare at me. I was right. She just said hi when I sat down.
“Hey,” I sighed.
“Long day already,” she inquired.
“Yes,” I murmured as a few other students walked slowly into the room staring at me.
“That has to obnoxious,” Rain speculated noticing the staring.
“Severely.”
“Is it true though?” She asked.
“Yes,” I responded.
“Well, I think it’s kinda cool,” Rain said.
“Yeah?”
“Yes, it makes you unique.”
After she said that I wanted to correct her and tell her how it made me so very un-unique, but she was trying to be nice, so I just smiled in response.
The day couldn’t end quick enough. I just wanted to go outside and smell some fresh air, so that’s what Jeremy and I did after I got my pass and went to the library. He took me to the courtyard of the school. We sat on a cement bench around the school’s beautiful, blooming, fall garden and breathed in the fresh air. It was nice and quite there and I was able to be outside, but remained unseen by any reporters, protected by the brick walls of the school. I pulled my feet up on the bench and wrapped my arms around my knees.
“I don’t know how I’m going to put up with this all. It hasn’t even been a whole day and it all is getting to me already.”
“You’re strong Charlotte,” Jeremy reassured me with the utmost gentleness in his eyes.
“Thankfully I have you,” I said feeling such strong emotions for him. I didn’t know if it could be love because it was so soon, but I knew it was something, but then I was never in love with somebody before, so how was I to know what it felt like, or how quick it could happen.
In the Image of Grace Page 14
