Higher Learning (The Charlie Davies Mysteries Book 4)

by Clare Kauter

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Tim’s words were still ringing in my ears as I walked home. He wanted me to get my hands on at least one of those letters, and although I’d asked both James and Will to show me theirs, neither had agreed. Tim was right – that kind of suggested that there was something worth reading in their letters. Something that had been missing from mine. I gritted my teeth. This would have all been a hell of a lot easier if Topher had just explained to me what was going on. Why were James and Will still being so secretive five years on? Surely enough time had elapsed that they could tell me what had happened. What could it be? It wasn’t like Topher had murdered someone. I grimaced. Actually, then it would kind of make sense that the McKenzies wouldn’t tell me about it. I shook my head. That was ridiculous. Topher wasn’t like me. He could control his temper. He was the good sibling. I don’t think he’d ever so much as punched anyone. He certainly wasn’t a murderer. But then what else made sense?

  I couldn’t understand why James and Will wouldn’t just tell me what was in those letters, and the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. The angrier I got, the more justified I felt in breaking into their houses and searching for the letters. Yes, it was unethical and yes, they would not be happy if they found out. But what option had they left me? He was my brother, for fuck’s sake. I had a right to know what had happened to him. Besides, James didn’t even like me. It wasn’t like I was going to be ruining our friendship by betraying his trust.

  Trouble was, James lived in a mansion with a state of the art security system (run by Baxter & Co.), so breaking into his place was going to be nigh impossible. Will, on the other hand, lived in a dodgy flat with the kind of flimsy lock on the door that you would find on a little kid’s lock up diary.

  It was decided, then. I was going to break into Will’s place. And beg Aphrodite not to let him find out. Will was one of my best friends, and he wouldn’t take being betrayed by me very well. Hence he could never find out. My plan had to be watertight.

  As I mulled it over, I started to formulate a plan. Man, was I actually going to do this? Breaking into my friend’s flat to read a secret letter from my brother... It was like a super low-key heist. Tim and I would need to discuss this, I decided. Tim was the only person I knew who had actually pulled off a heist – he and his sister Ellie had stolen a bunch of cash from Ellie’s casino boss boyfriend. Of course, things had gone a little wonky when he’d tracked them down eight years later, but there was no need to sweat the details.

  I pushed through the front door of my house and wandered in, still lost in thought. I’d definitely need to talk to Tim about this some more. I hadn’t been sure when he’d suggested getting the letters without permission that I was OK with the idea of breaking into the houses of one of my best friends and a cop respectively, but now that I’d thought it through, it was seeming more and more justified.

  For now, though, I had a more pressing issue to focus on.

  “Stace?” I called out. “Lea?”

  Somehow I needed to magically transform into an amazing cheerleader by the next day. It was probably impossible, but if there was any chance of it happening, I’d need my housemates to coach me. However, when I called out there was no answer. I checked the readout on my phone. Four o’clock. OK, so the others were still at work. What now? Should I plan out my heist? YouTube cheerleading tutorials? Prank call John at the office and ruin his day?

  I grinned maliciously at that last thought, but decided not to go through with it. I was fairly sure my mobile number was programmed into the phone at the office. He’d know it was me, even if I used my new ‘Charlotte Daniels’ mobile. The one downside to having a company phone.

  I decided to grab a snack instead. Making my way to the kitchen, I headed for the fridge and studied its contents, completely uninspired. I never did the grocery shopping, because the other people I lived with were definitely more grown-up than me and thought that I probably couldn’t be trusted with important decisions like what food to eat. Eventually I decided on a carrot dipped in wasabi, which was kind of like a depressing low carb nori roll.

  I took my phone from my pocket so that I could Snapchat a picture of it to Adam (it seemed like his kind of snack – healthy and sad) and found that I had three new friend requests on my fake Facebook account: Abhati, Jared and Elliot. I accepted the first two but hesitated over the third. Why was Elliot adding my fake Facebook account? Were teachers allowed to add their students? His name was ‘El B.’ on Facebook, and I’d only recognised him from the picture. (It was a photo of his mum’s poodle, Susan.) Why did he have such a secretive account? Didn’t that kind of negate the purpose of having an account in the first place? My mind immediately jumped to the idea that it was for drug dealing and hooking up with students. No, that was ridiculous. Plenty of people hid their real names on Facebook. I shook my head at myself, took a bite of my carrot and hit accept.

  Immediately my phone buzzed with a message from him. I groaned aloud.

  Hey, wats up

  I couldn’t believe this guy was a teacher. No concern for basic grammar. There should be a law against that. Did I have to respond straight away? I didn’t know if I had the energy for a conversation, but I gritted my teeth and typed back:

  Not much. Just practising my moves for the cheerleading tryouts tomorrow.

  I was hoping that would give me an out – surely he’d understand that I had more important stuff to do than message him. Then...

  Wish I was there to watch

  I wrinkled my nose. Yeesh. I hoped Celia never set eyes on that message. Elliot did not have the art of the flirty text down. I found myself thinking that he could use some pointers from James, and the second I thought that I rolled my eyes at myself. I needed to move on. A thought occurred to me and I took my timetable from my school bag. I grimaced. Third period tomorrow was PE theory. I wasn’t going to be able to avoid James forever.

  What was I meant to do? It was going to be incredibly awkward between us thanks to his drunken display last night. And, you know, the whole ‘not even slightly interested in me’ thing. But if I focused on being angry at him about being mean to Elliot (even though I was kind of beginning to wonder if he’d been right), then I wouldn’t be so upset over the other thing.

  I glanced down at the phone again and decided to ignore Elliot’s message. I couldn’t deal with that right now. I crunched off another mouthful of the carrot and sat down on the lounge with my laptop. (My good one, not the crappy one Adam had made me buy for school.) I loaded up a couple of basic YouTube cheerleading tutorials for kids as I finished off my not-sushi and then got to practising. There was one girl who was really struggling at the back of the squad in the video which made me feel better. You and me both, sister. Of course, she looked about five years old, but the solidarity of being totally uncoordinated transcended the age gap.

  By the time I’d mastered ‘liberty’ and ‘strong arms’ (maybe the two easiest moves in cheerleading), Stacey had arrived home. She was carrying reusable grocery bags (the sign of a true adult) filled with delicious, delicious snacks – I hoped. To be honest, that carrot hadn’t quite hit the spot. She took one glance at me, reached into a shopping bag, pulled out a granola bar and threw it to me. I’d kind of been hoping for something a little more sugary and/or salt and fat laden, but I’d take the granola bar.

  “I’ve been practising my moves,” I mumbled around a mouthful of nuts. (Shush, you.) “I’m getting really good. All I need now is some pom-poms.”

  Stacey clapped her hands excitedly. “Oh my goodness, does that mean I get to teach you a routine tonight?”

  “I’m counting on it,” I said. “My try-outs are tomorrow morning and I need to wow them.”

  Stacey’s brow wrinkled slightly. “You need to wow them?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The head cheerleader isn’t exactly in love with me. Basically I need to be exceptional to get on the team.”

  “Exceptional?” she said, brow wrinkling
further. “In one night?”

  That look wasn’t exactly encouraging. Stacey was endlessly optimistic. If she didn’t think it could be done...

  “At least passable,” I said.

  Her face brightened. “Now that we can do!”

  She took me out into the backyard and began to run me through drills. Eventually Lea arrived home and came out to join us. She and Stacey began to choreograph a routine for me based largely on the kids’ routine I’d watched on YouTube earlier. Frankly some of those kids’ moves seemed a little ambitious to me, but I was willing to give them ago. After what felt like another ten hours or so of practice – and a decent number of falls and bruises – Lea’s constant counting of ‘1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and’ was broken by a male voice.

  “Maybe you guys should go pro.”

  I stopped mid-jump and whipped my head in the direction of the voice. My stomach turned when I saw who was standing at the back door.

  James McKenzie.

  “Did you break into our house?” I snapped.

  “The – the door was unlocked,” he explained, taken aback. “I just –”

  “James! Brilliant!” said Lea. “Now we can do cannons!”

  “What?” said James and I in unison.

  “Where you stand in a line and do staggered movements,” Stacey explained.

  “Uh, that’s not necessary,” I said. “I only need to do a routine for myself.”

  Lea rolled her eyes at me. “They’re going to teach you a routine to see how quickly you pick it up too,” she said. “That’s what I always did when I was picking teams.”

  “Me too,” said Stacey. “That’s why you’ve gotta learn all the basics.”

  “James, you stand up the back,” said Lea.

  “I...” he said, trailing off. I think he was going to try and argue, but then decided not to bother. He sighed and joined the back of our line. Lea and Stacey took us through a couple more routines until they were satisfied with my cannon knowledge, then Lea took Stacey inside. She claimed it was so they could cook dinner, but I knew that Lea was intentionally leaving me alone with James.

  I gritted my teeth. Great. I didn’t even have until third period tomorrow to figure out what I wanted to say. I needed to figure it out now.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “No,” I snapped.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I don’t – what are you doing here?”

  He shifted uncomfortably and took a couple of steps towards me. After a deep breath he said, “I’m sorry about last night.”

  I folded my arms. “Oh, really?”

  “Really,” he said sombrely. “It was not pretty, I know, and I shouldn’t have drunk as much as I did or said what I did. I was just – after we spoke, I got a bit...”

  “I don’t know if I’m the right person to apologise to.”

  “I spoke to Elliot today,” he said quickly. “He, um, was a bit pissed at first, but I think it’s all sorted out now. I really am sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. It was just that seeing him reminded me of Topher.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “He really didn’t like Elliot. I guess I just forgot for a second that I’m not sixteen anymore and I should probably act like an adult. It’s none of my business who you date. I just... I want you to be happy.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded once. “OK. Apology accepted. And I can date whoever I like. That has nothing to do with you.”

  “I know,” he said, although he looked a little wounded by my words. What was his problem? He’d admitted that he just wanted us to be friends and nothing more. “I’m sorry again. I didn’t mean to get in the way.”

  I bit my lip as I felt tears prickling my eyes. No! I could not cry in front of him!

  “Anyway, I should go so you can get back to your training. Good luck tomorrow. I’ll be rooting for you.” And with that, he turned and left.

  As he disappeared around the side of the house, I groaned aloud. This was not even close to ideal. James being nice about everything made me feel a lot worse. It was much easier to be OK with him not being in love with me when he was acting like a complete dickhead.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  On Thursday morning, I got to sleep in until seven and it was glorious. The cheer tryouts were to be held before school in the morning so I didn’t have to endure another morning working out with Ma’am or anyone else. Of course it was only for one day, but I’d take what I could get. The tryouts were being held this week because the older kids were about to go into exams and weren’t able to cheer anymore so they were bringing in fresh blood. I didn’t know how many spots were open, but I needed to get one of them.

  I made a banana smoothie for breakfast (bananas, water, oats, maple syrup and cinnamon) since that was about the only thing I could make. Cooking was really not my strength. Along with exercise, patience, anger management and a number of other life skills. (One day I’d figure out what area I really did have talent in. Surely there had to be one.) As I sipped the smoothie (sweet and delicious) and slapped together a vegemite sandwich for lunch, I realised my stomach was filled with butterflies. What the hell? Was I actually nervous for these tryouts?

  No, I realised. I was nervous for my case, which was hinging on my performance this morning. And also maybe a little nervous about facing James and Elliot in the same room. As if that situation wasn’t going to be awkward enough, I was going to have to dance in front of them and a bunch of other people. I could not have thought of a worse situation to be in.

  I took a deep breath and mentally ran through the routine that Stacey and Lea had spent hours drilling into me the night before. I could do it. I knew I could. Damn it, if I could put my feet flat on the floor during down-dog in yoga now, I could do anything. I finished my smoothie, packed up my gear and met Tim outside. He dropped me off around the corner from school, wishing me luck, then went to the library.

  When I reached the hall where the tryouts were to be held, I found far more people than I’d been expecting. Cheering had really picked up in popularity since I’d left school. Taking my cue from the other cheer-wannabes in the room, I began to stretch, still mentally going through my routine. I could do this. I could. I could. I just needed to ignore the hell out of James and Elliot who were currently conversing across the room from me. The door to the hall opened and Principal Skinner walked in. What was she doing here? She was wringing her hands, looking nervous. God, was she here to check up on me? Nobody had any confidence that I was going to get onto the team.

  The door opened again and Mucus came in. Great. Why was she here? Just to laugh at my misfortune should I injure myself, probably. She spoke to Skinner, gesturing across the room to me. Skinner was shaking her head and I strained to hear what they were talking about.

  “... shouldn’t be allowed on the team. I had to put her on detention yesterday. She has no respect for her teachers. That isn’t the sort of behaviour you should be rewarding in your students, Helen.”

  James and Elliot glared at Mucus in disbelief, willing her to shut up. Skinner crossed her arms. “Prudence, she’s just moved here. There’s an adjustment period for students when they start at a new school. Give her a chance.”

  “I don’t think she deserves a second chance,” said Mucus.

  This woman was unbelievable. Mucus knew that joining the cheerleading squad was my main objective in returning to the school, and yet here she was interfering, trying to thwart me. Just like in my real high school maths class, she clearly didn’t want me to succeed. What was her problem – did she want more kids to overdose? I nibbled my lip, wondering. Could she be the dealer? It would make sense that she’d be trying to sabotage me if she was, but honestly she was just that vindictive that she could simply be doing it because she didn’t like me. Nevertheless, I added her to my mental list of suspects. That kind of cheered me up. Maybe she would end up being arrested! Then I could visit her in prison just to gloat. I smiled to myself, imagining her being dragged a
way in chains.

  Elliot turned in my direction and saw that I was watching what was happening. We made eye contact. I quickly glanced away, but I could see he was already heading in my direction. Shit.

  Then Chelsea blew her whistle and I was saved.

  Chelsea got us organised, lining all the hopefuls up and instructing us to perform moves. Excellent. My butterflies floated away. This was how I’d spent my entire evening the night before. I knew what to do. Chelsea split the wannabes into two groups and taught us a short routine. I smiled to myself. It was pretty clear to me that one of the groups had the truly shit cheerleaders in it – and I was in the other group. I was in with a shot.

  The routine she took us through was remarkably similar to one that Stacey had taught me the night before and I picked it up faster than anyone else in the group. It involved kneeling and jumps and everything, so I looked a lot more capable than I was. Chelsea eventually thanked the other group of girls and asked them to take a seat. Then she divided my group in two and had us run through cannons. Again, I was all over it. Chelsea asked a couple of girls to sit down and handed the rest of us pom-poms. Then she lined us all up, put some music on and told us to wow her.

  The first girl had clearly been watching the same kids’ tutorials on YouTube as I had, but she hadn’t had two former cheer captains as housemates to mix things up and make her routine interesting. A few more girls went through and I realised that everyone else was going for way simpler routines than the one I’d prepared. I wondered if I should change up what I was doing. There were still a couple of moves I was a little shaky on and if I left them out, my routine would be a lot easier to perform.

  No, I decided. I was going to do the difficult moves. Easy was boring and I wanted to stand out.

  When it was my turn, I took a deep breath and walked to the centre of the floor. All the girls who had already tried out were watching me, along with the cheerleaders already on the squad and all the teachers. I shut my eyes for a moment, telling myself to focus. I could do this. Chelsea hit play on her phone and the music started. Time to wow them. Or at least ‘huh’ them.