Miss Taken

by Sue Seabury

  I nodded solemnly. He gave me a double finger pistol and a big grin. Holding my hands up in surrender, I then pretended to collapse from getting shot. I almost scribbled back asking him how he did that wrist-flick thing but I decided that we had had enough note-passing for the day. Instead I wrote, “We’re supposed to take notes on the video” to indicate that our chat session was at an end. I didn’t attempt anything fancy, but rather passed the ball directly into Kyle’s hand. Our fingers brushing caused some piloerection all the way up my arm. I was glad it was dark in the room so no one could see it.

  Kyle read my response and then surveyed the room. There were kids following M. Waddell’s lead and taking naps themselves. Others were playing finger football with little triangles of paper. A couple of girls were braiding each others hair. A few people might have been taking notes, but it was more likely they were doing homework for other classes.

  His skeptical look caused a giggle to escape my lips. I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle it. Kyle wagged his finger at me in an admonishing way that was also sexy. I was very happy to hear the bell ring. Time had never passed so quickly in French class before.

  As we walked out of class together, Kyle said, “I thought you were joking when you said you just watch videos all the time.” I nodded my head like the wise old owl. “I’m so glad I transferred into your class.”

  I felt a little rush at the idea that Kyle transferred into the class because it was mine and not just because all we do is watch videos.

  “That Mirabelle is one foxy lady.”

  I guess I was wrong about that.

  Kyle went on, “So, what’s up with Mr. Waddell?” He said it like ‘waddle’ again. Good thing we were out of the room. “Does he nap every day or just on days when he goes on a bender?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Kyle put his hand up in front of his mouth like he was drinking out of a bottle.

  I stopped dead. “You think M. Waddell is getting drunk at school?”

  Kyle tipped his chin down so he could look me in the eye over the top of his sunglasses. “Absolutely.”

  Detective Robin Jane felt like she had been taken down a peg or two. “How can you be so sure?”

  “The smell.” Kyle tapped the side of his nose in Gallic fashion. “I’d know it anywhere.”

  Before I had the chance to ask him how he would know that, the bell rang. “Oops.”

  “I gotta hit my locker before shop. See ya,” said Kyle. Wink. Pistol shot.

  “See ya,” I said to his back.

  I was slightly furious that Kyle had figured out the mystery of M. Waddell’s ‘special’ smell after just two classes while I had been wondering about it since the beginning of the year. Then again, Kyle might have been making up his theory just to show off. I wasn’t totally sold on the idea. I wanted concrete evidence.

  I got my proof, no pun intended, soon after, just by having the idea put in my head. M. Waddell asked me to get something for him out of the supply closet. He requested, so I wasn’t snooping.

  Well, he asked me to get him some more chalk, and since I found it right away, I figured I had a little bit of time to snoop.

  I discovered a bottle, and not very well hidden either. You would think someone who deals with teenagers for a living would be more careful or at least somewhat creative. It was inside a cardboard box that was merely folded closed. The bottle itself was labelled “cleaning fluid,” but I had never seen any cleaning product in that particular shade of tan. One whiff told me it was Scotch. I recognized the odor from having to act as waitress to a bunch of my parents’ friends at their boring bridge parties.

  There was no time to mess around. I composed my face and went to make the delivery to M. Waddell. I am sure I gave nothing away but chalk.

  When I got back to my seat, Kyle whispered, “See a ghost in there?”

  Okay, so maybe my expression was somewhat grave. But this was serious.

  I had to talk to someone. I tried Ned, but all he said was, “Don’t knock any teacher who’s willing to give you an A for showing up.”

  Of course he had a point, but it is my duty as Robin Jane to be helpful. I didn’t think Diana would care because she didn’t even have M. Waddell, plus she had been a little hostile toward me ever since Kyle showed up. Miss Kindley was my next choice except that I didn’t want to get M. Waddell fired.

  The only logical person left was Kyle.

  We didn’t get a chance to talk during biology. My former partner Raj was still out, apparently sick with mono. I had to wonder who kissed him because he has a face only a mother could love. But he didn’t deserve to get mono just because he hasn’t grown into his ears yet. So I hope whomever it was was worth it.

  It took until wood shop for us both to have a little free time. I beckoned to Kyle with my eyes and he came. I could definitely see how Hannah could get carried away with this type of power.

  The whine of the table saw was pretty good cover, except that I had to talk louder because of the noise.

  I figured it’d be safest to start off non-specifically. “So you were right.”

  Kyle played along. “Oh. That’s nice. I always like to be right.”

  “About, you know, M. Waddell.”

  “That he’s a great teacher because he shows us videos of foxy chicks who don’t wear bras?”

  I could have easily allowed myself to get pulled off track and given Kyle a full discourse on the objectification of women and their misportrayal in the media. But since I didn’t have that much time, I let his unbelievably sexist comment about Mirabelle pass.

  But I really don’t see what is so enthralling about Mirabelle. Other than the times when she sports unnecessarily low cut sundresses, she wears boring unnecessarily tight sweaters. All are in drab colors that are not at all flattering to her skin tone.

  “About, you know.” I made a quick drinking motion with my hand. But since it involved removing one of them from my piece of wood, sharp-eyed Mr. Krakowicz caught me and launched into yet another lecture about the dangers of inattention and carelessness while operating power tools.

  His voice is such that his warnings can probably be heard by people at the opposite end of the school and possibly even in the next state. But since he stood directly behind me to deliver this speech, I had to drop my topic and pretend to care about running my warped piece of wood through the machine.

  I was soon finished cutting, thank goodness, but that meant that I didn’t have any reason to stand right next to Kyle anymore. Claiming that I needed help with the sandpaper would have been a difficult position to defend. The revelation had to wait until the end of the period and then we only had the four minutes between classes. I made it quick.

  “So what should I do about it?”

  “About your bookshelf? I say chuck it. It’s hopelessly crooked.”

  I huffed impatiently. Kyle was not acting the attentive suitor that I was used to. M. Waddell’s potential drinking problem was more important than my bookshelf, that I was working very hard on by the way.

  “I mean M. Waddell!”

  “Oh.” Kyle clacked his invisible gum reflectively. “I don’t know. I don’t think I would do anything. The class is easy, why mess it up?”

  I was a little disappointed to get a response that was more or less exactly like the one Ned had given me. Then I felt bad that I had even wanted or expected a more considered answer from a kid I barely knew rather than my boyfriend. I huffed again, but this time to myself.

  Kyle took it personally. “What do you want me to say? That we should head up a committee of concerned students and teachers and stage an intervention? He seems harmless enough. I say leave him alone.”

  He had a point. But the teensiest germ of an idea started growing in my head. And once it got in there, I couldn’t get it out again, as distasteful as part of it might be.

  I devoted an entire afternoon and evening trying to decide whether or not this was really a good plan. I triple
checked with myself to make sure I was not certifiably insane to voluntarily go see Mrs. Rochel and compliment her cooking.

  The facts are as follows: 1) Mrs. Rochel had a son in rehab for alcoholism. 2) She is a widow. 3) M.Waddell is a widower.

  If anyone at the school would be sympathetic to M. Waddell’s situation, there was a good chance it would be her.

  The longer I thought about it, the more it seemed like a Robin Jane-esque thing to do, especially with Valentine’s Day coming up.

  Strange but true scientific fact: Female scorpion flies are attracted to males who make the most spit. Using his enlarged salivary glands, the male both attracts and entraps her so she can neither fly away nor eat him until the deed is done.

  Using personal time on any day I did not have lunch with Ned, I would stroll by the faculty lounge to check if M. Waddell and Mrs. Rochel were ever there at the same time and if so, to see if they were chummy. I never saw M. Waddell, but a few times I saw Mrs. Rochel, or at least evidence she had been there, leaving her foul baked goods lying about for anyone foolish enough to take a chance on them.

  After a few days of background research, I went home and baked a coffee cake using a reliable recipe and brought it in to school. It was a good thing I had thought to hide a chunk for M. Waddell or else Ned could have easily polished the whole thing off.

  “I thought you took home ec last semester,” Ned mumbled, mouth full.

  I scoffed distainfully. “I did not bake this in home ec.”

  It did occur to me that if M. Waddell had ever eaten any of Mrs. Rochel’s “treats” that my plan might unravel before it got a chance to take off. But then I thought that if I buttered up Mrs. Rochel enough, she might make an effort to cook something edible for a change.

  M. Waddell’s normally bleary eyes brightened when he saw the cake.

  “Here,” I offered him a big piece. I even remembered to bring a paper plate. “I learned some new recipes in Mrs. Rochel’s class.” I wasn’t even lying. I had learned plenty of recipes in her class, just none that I would ever serve to anyone.

  “Merci, uh,” said M. Waddell, clearly struggling to remember my name.

  “You’re welcome. I mean, de rien,” I said with a winning smile and an impeccable accent. I strode back to my seat with what I hoped was Mirabelle-like confidence. But remembering Kyle’s comment about her bralessness made me stop. I surveyed the faces of my classmates to see if they had been checking out my upper half for proper support, not that I had nearly enough stuff to bounce like Mirabelle.

  No one was looking at my chest, but more than a few were giving me dirty looks about the cake.

  Oh, well. Sometimes Robin Jane has to risk being unpopular for the greater good, not that I was ever popular in the first place.

  I took a seat next to Kyle in the back of the room. He was eyeing the small piece of cake left in the wrapper. I presented it to him. “You like?” I said, trying to sound foreign in an amusing and non-goofy manner.

  Guys are so predictable. I wonder why I don’t take advantage of this feed-them-and-they’ll-do-anything-for-you thing more often.

  Oh, yeah, now I remember. It’s because I’m a thoroughly modern woman who won’t be shoved back into the kitchen.

  “Thanks.” He dug in with gusto even though he really should have had the decency to wait until after class. “My mum made me a really lame lunch today.”

  Kyle was speaking loud enough that several people heard and saw my second cake exchange. While I wouldn’t have minded if the news got back to Ned about my generosity toward M. Waddell, I definitely did not want him to hear about my giving the very last piece to Kyle. Robin Jane needs to learn to rein herself in sometimes.

  I thought about being preemptive and telling Ned myself about the cake exchange (CE), but it was so silly and meaningless, I decided not to mention it. If he brought it up, I would feign incomprehension, and play it down to the last few crumbs in the tin foil.

  In the meantime, I had to get going on the second half of my plan. I screwed up my courage and went to see Mrs. Rochel on my way to art the next day. Mrs. Dipsey is too laid back - or spaced out - to worry about taking attendance, so it wouldn’t matter if I was a few minutes late.

  Mrs. Rochel had a cook book open in front of her. How she can be such a bad cook if she uses real recipes is incomprehensible. She looked confused to see me in her class. That at least was understandable.

  “Why, Miss Grey. What a surprise.” I’m sure she would classify me in the same category of ‘surprises’ as a worm crawling out of that apple she leaves on her desk. I know she put that thing there herself because for sure no student would ever give her one.

  I forged ahead. “Sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to tell you that M. Waddell, the French teacher, really liked the coffee cake I made from your recipe.” After replacing all the weird ingredients, like prune juice, with normal things, like butter, so it was actually worth eating.

  “He did?”

  Ohmygosh, she was such a pushover.

  “Yeah.” I smiled. “He’s a really great teacher, and a really nice guy too. His wife died a few years back, you know.”

  “I remember. It’s nice to hear he enjoys healthy cooking.” I could see the gears working in her head. Then, “Why are you just telling me now?”

  Ha. I was prepared for this. “Oh, because I made one and brought some in today. But he remembered the time I made it in your class and he was so happy to have some more. I just wanted to pass along his compliments.” Okay, a slight fib. Hopefully, they won’t get together to compare the minor details of the story.

  Mrs. Rochel was still smiling. I worried her face might crack. “Well, thank you for stopping by, Jane. That was very nice of you to take the time just to tell me that.”

  Never once the entire semester had she ever addressed me as ‘Jane.’

  “He has lunch sixth period.” I threw it out there.

  I could see the gears working again. She nodded slightly. “Don’t you have a class to get to?”

  I worried I had been too obvious by telling her when M. Waddell had lunch, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  It was a good thing that I had my little project with Mrs. Rochel and M. Waddell to focus on, because otherwise I would have spent far too much time thinking about Kyle. As it was, I was making too many unfavorable comparisons between him and Ned. Even when I wasn’t in class with the boy five times a day, I seemed to run into him everywhere else. This did not help my decision to not be interested in him, nor did Ned’s continuing to be grounded, which he was again this weekend.

  Fortunately Friday was C day. We managed a fabulous makeout session and even squeezed in a little math (I insisted) to help me get through the long, lonely weekend ahead.

  Strange but true scientific fact: Fireflies use their light to attract a mate. Some species of female fireflies have learned to imitate the mating patterns of other types of fireflies. They flash a welcome and then eat the poor fool who fell for it.

  Many behaviors are successful across different species.

  Hannah and I meet up for tutoring most Saturdays. We had settled on the neutral zone of the library. Hannah didn’t want to come to my house and risk running into my brother following a slightly humiliating incident at a school dance. (Okay, so I had had a hand in that as well, but we’d been able to move on.) She was adamant that I not come to hers. Of course this made me extra curious to see the place, but she stood firm.

  We talked radical roots for a little while when Hannah veered abruptly to, “So Kyle’s pretty cute, huh?”

  Although it wasn’t a total non-sequitur with his flaming orange hair, I was not pleased with her for bringing him up. I hadn’t thought of Kyle for the last ten minutes at least. “Hm?”

  “Oh, come on,” said Hannah, with an unsettling glint coming into her eye. “He’s, like, totally into you.”

  A warmish glow spread across my mid-torso from liver to pancreas. Give away nothing. “What
are you talking about?” I mumbled to the tabletop.

  “Please. He’s crazy about you.”

  I had to scoff to cover my utter delight. Hearing such an assertion from a master of the dating world was hard to resist. “What makes you think that?”

  Hannah showed her teeth in the way that used to frighten me but I now know is just her smile. “I can tell. Trust me. He’s way cuter than...lots of boys. You’re lucky, Jane. Guys like you just for being who you are.” Hannah said this last bit a little wistfully as she fluffed her perfectly highlighted golden hair that just about every male on the planet was willing to do anything to be allowed to touch and almost every other female on the planet would be willing to kill for.

  It would have been easy to be insulted by her insinuations. That I wasn’t pretty enough to deserve all this attention. And that Kyle was cuter than Ned. But flattery works on a weak mind and I was just hormonal enough to want all the attention from boys that I could get.

  “You should totally go for him.”

  “I’m with Ned!” I protested, loudly enough to get a few dirty looks from the surrounding tables.

  Hannah shrugged. “Trust me, nothing makes guys hotter for you than keeping them guessing. Treat ‘em like crap and they’ll be crawling all over you.”

  Although what she was recommending went against Robin Jane’s code of honor, advice from the dating guru was not to be lightly thrown away.

  Then a little alarm bell went off inside my head. “If he’s so cute, why aren’t you going for him?”

  “Oh, much too young. And the freckles,” Hannah shook her head. “Not my type. But he’s cute enough for...he’s cute. Plus, he’s really into you. Go for it. You only live once.”

  Once again, the implied insults could have prickled. He wasn’t handsome enough for Hannah but he was good enough for me. But when we got down to brass tacks, what she was saying was perfectly, if painfully, true.