Penny & Squirt: A Love Story

by T. M. Haught

  “Swell...” she said.

  Travis stopped walking when he got directly behind Jonah, and without even acknowledging Jonah’s presence there, he leaned forward a bit, looking Penny over from head to waist as if she was a centerfold without the staples. Even his voice dripped sexual innuendo.

  “Well, hey there, sweet thang,” he said.

  Penny’s eyes narrowed as she looked back at him briefly, then she rather forcibly stabbed her fork into one of the meatballs on her plate and held it up for him to see. “Get lost!” she told him.

  Travis flinched slightly, but maintained his lecherous leer. He raised both hands and shrugged. “Hey, don’t get cranky. Later, then. Come on, guys. Let’s go where we’re appreciated.”

  He headed off with his wingmen in tow, resuming his original course, and quickly reached the table where Tiffany and the other girls were sitting. Tiffany once again brightened and went into full charm mode, clearly working it for all she was worth.

  Jonah looked Penny in the eyes and made a subdued clapping gesture of approval. “Nice move! I think he got the point.”

  “He will if he keeps it up,” said Penny meaningfully. She watched Travis and Tiffany going through their usual routine of posturing and mutual ego-stroking. “Those two really deserve each other. I bet they both shed their skins the same time of year, too.”

  “Yeah,” Jonah agreed with a chuckle. “He may be Big Man on Campus now, and the two them are favorites for Prom King and Queen from what I hear, but can you imagine them twenty years from now? She’ll be fat with a bunch of kids and he’ll be a used car salesman working at a crummy lot on the outskirts of town, bragging about the old days when he won football games.”

  Penny laughed and her eyes crinkled merrily. “Good one!” Then her gaze grew more wistful as she stared into Jonah’s eyes. It was that soft look that she sometimes got when she wasn’t being silly or playful or teasing, and it was that look that melted Jonah’s heart more than anything else.

  “And what about us, Jonah?” Penny said. “How do you see us in twenty years?”

  Jonah smiled gently. “Us? I see us as... as whatever we want to be. Still together. And the sexiest damn couple in the entire town. Maybe the entire state. Maybe the whole freakin’ world!”

  Penny’s smile broadened and brightened until its radiance was intense. Her lips formed a self-conscious pout and she said nothing. But she used the finger of her right hand to slowly point to her eye, then to her heart, and finally to Jonah.

  Jonah grinned back, then mimicked the gesture she had made with him, except pointing at her, and adding at the end the extra gesture of holding up two fingers. He picked up his glass of chocolate milk and held it toward her. She raised hers and they clinked glasses.

  Then they noticed that a couple of the nerdy kids a few seats down were staring at them with their mouths slightly agape. Penny and Jonah looked at each other again and laughed at their own seriousness, then they resumed eating their lunch....

  * * * * * * * * * *

  By the time sixth period ended Penny was more than ready to leave. She quickly stowed the textbook and her notebook for French class in her backpack and zipped it closed. Only two of her classes overlapped with those of Jonah’s, so except for those and lunchtime she didn’t see him while there at school. As everyone hurried out of the classroom she followed, pausing outside the door.

  She looked up and down the hall for a glimpse of Jonah, but did not see him yet. For the past two days, since their relationship had undergone its dramatic change, Jonah had hurried from his own last class to the hall outside her classroom to meet her so they could walk together to the front of the school and wait outside for the school bus. It was a small thing, and yet not really a small thing to either of them now.

  She waited, watching as what began as a crowded mass of students in the hallway began to thin out with everyone working their way to the front of the building and the big doors that led outside. She checked her watch. Five minutes had passed since the bell rang, and when she checked again it was ten minutes. Penny frowned. Now she was starting to get worried.

  She dug into the small purse slung over her shoulder, looking for her cell phone so she could text or call him to find out what was going on. She kept digging. Finally, in complete frustration, she knelt on the floor and dumped everything in her purse on the marked and dented linoleum tile. She frowned harder now. There was no phone. Had she lost it somewhere? She tried to think back to the last time she had used it.

  Penny looked up as someone moving caught her eye. Although she had hoped it was Jonah, she was disappointed to see that it was Tiffany Jeskavech moving down the hall, still in full cheerleader regalia, herself distracted while she rummaged through her own purse as she walked. Penny quickly grabbed everything off the floor and stuffed it into her purse, then got to her feet and approached Tiffany. Not her favorite choice of people to talk to, but there was simply no one else in the hall to ask at this point.

  “Ah... Tiffany?” she said.

  The cheerleader looked up and almost started to smile automatically, but the expression froze when she saw who it was. Her eyes narrowed and she bristled as Penny reached her.

  “You?” she said coldly. “What do you want? I’m heading for practice on the football field.”

  “Sorry to bother you,” said Penny with more politeness than she truly felt. “Have you seen Jonah?”

  “What am I, his keeper?” said Tiffany sarcastically. “I don’t keep track of the little twerp, and I certainly don’t have to tell you anything!”

  Penny sighed. “I know.” Her look was pleading. “Please, Tiffany, I’m worried. If you do know anything...?”

  Tiffany stared at her a moment longer, then she seemed to back out of anger mode and relent, at least slightly. “All right... I did see him heading down the cross corridor toward the gymnasium. You can probably catch him if you hurry.”

  “Thanks, Tiffany!” Penny said over her shoulder as she turned and hurried off in that direction.

  “Whatever,” Tiffany said disdainfully, shook her head, then resumed walking in the direction she had been before.

  Penny reached the cross corridor and turned down it, heading for the gym. This hall was completely deserted too, now, which wasn’t surprising. It took a few minutes to reach the end of it, moving past the rooms where the shop classes and some of the art classes were held. The corridor ended in a “T” with a hall that had both left and right entrances to the gym near the middle and outer exit doors at either end.

  There was not a soul in sight here, either. Penny sighed, getting more and more frustrated and puzzled. And worried... especially worried. Why would Jonah head this way? Some unknown mission for one of his classes? Some errand for a friend? Maybe... maybe following some other girl that caught his eye? He did have a lot more self-confidence now. Penny quickly put that thought out of her mind. That was too much to deal with. She knew that Jonah, after everything they had been through together, had said to each other, had shared together, simply wouldn’t be cheating on her. Not already. Why would he?

  She decided to try the door to the gym, the one closest to her, and she opened it and looked inside. The electric lights were off inside, with only the illumination from the skylight windows above brightening the huge room. It appeared empty, too. There was no sign of Jonah here either.

  Penny heard one of the other doors close and she stepped back into the hallway. As she turned she stopped dead in her tracks and drew a sharp intake of breath. Her eyes widened. Travis and the other two Jock Boys were standing there, barely a foot away from her, positioned and spaced so that getting past them and back to safety would be difficult. To make matters worse, she now saw that Tiffany Jeskavech was quickly approaching from the other direction, an evil grin on her face that was, in its own way, even worse than the lecherous leers on the faces of the boys. Penny’s heart started racing.

  “Ah... excuse me,” she said, trying to push past one
of the Jock Boys. “I need to catch the bus.”

  Travis grabbed her arm roughly. “Hey, not so fast there, sweet thang. We went to a lot of trouble to set up this meeting. And if you’re thinking of yelling for help, no one will hear you way back here. Everyone else is out front waiting for rides, or on the athletic field. Isn’t that right, Tiffany?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “You could call for help on your cell phone, I guess, but... wait a minute, you don’t have your cell phone do you?” Tiffany reached into her purse and pulled out a familiar looking cellular unit. “Because I have it, see? I snuck it out of your bag earlier, and I used it to send a text message to your boyfriend before the last bell. I told him to ‘meet me’ on the front sidewalk, where the buses stop, and that I might be a few minutes late. He must have thought it was from you. Silly boy.”

  Penny looked worriedly from one face to the other. “You... you don’t want to do this. Please just leave me alone!”

  “Do what?” asked Travis. “We just want to get better acquainted. Tiffany got to wondering about you, so she had one of her friends who works in the administration office when she’s not in class look up your file.”

  “I found out your old school,” said Tiffany. “Made a few calls. I have friends everywhere. Got the whole sordid story.”

  “Story?” said Penny nervously.

  “Yeah,” said Travis. “Seems you had quite the rep back there. Sounds like you were more of a wild thang than a sweet thang. If you know what I mean.”

  Penny blinked. “It’s not true.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Travis. “Me and the guys here mean to find out for ourselves if you’re as good as they say. Shouldn’t take long.”

  Penny tried to back away but couldn’t break free of Travis’s strong grasp. Worse yet, he now twisted her arm around and down and forced it behind her, then grabbed her other wrist and overlapped them. One of the other boys dangled a short piece of rope in front of her face, then proceeded to tie it around her wrists and knotted it. Then Travis spun her back around to face him, his awful leer leaning in close to her face.

  “Please...” Penny said weakly. “Please don’t...”

  Tiffany smirked nearby. “This will teach you to make fun of me.”

  Travis stuck his big fingers roughly into her neckline and jerked violently down, breaking the string of her necklace and spilling beads everywhere. The force of the movement tore her pretty blouse all the way down to her waist, snapping her bra strap and revealing her left breast.

  “Oh please,” Penny said as tears started. “You’ll never get away with this.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Travis. “Assuming you have the guts to say anything, whose word do you think they’ll believe? Ours? Or the word of a girl like you with a slutty reputation?”

  Travis reached up to fondle her exposed breast, grinning with a vile sense of enjoyment as she reacted. He unsnapped her jeans next and ran the zipper slowly down, smiling as her hot pink panties came into view. “Hey...nice,” he said. Then he froze as a male voice somewhere behind him called out in an imperative tone.

  “Leave her alone!”

  Travis turned, frowning, to look behind him. As he did so, Penny could see past the edge of his shoulder and view what he saw, and what the others now saw as well.

  Jonah was walking toward them purposefully, an anger on his face that was beyond description. But he was all alone, with no “back-up” for help. There were no adults behind him. Not even any other students. He could get killed.

  “Run, Jonah!” Penny called out. “Go get help!”

  “I’m not leaving you,” he said. He dropped his backpack on the floor and kept marching toward Travis with the same determined look.

  Travis grinned. “Well, isn’t this just perfect? Now we have nerd-turd, too. Tiff baby, do you think you can hold onto this piece for us while we deal with this poor excuse for a boyfriend?”

  “No problem,” said Tiffany.

  Jonah stopped directly in front of Travis, glancing first to meet Penny’s frightened gaze, then to the left and right of Travis as the other two boys took up positions flanking him. Though shorter than Travis, he stared unblinkingly at him.

  Travis met that gaze and said, “Damn straight you’re not leaving, nerd-turd. You wanna know why? Because first I’m gonna beat the crap out of you, and then I’m make you watch while me and the guys try your girlfriend here on for size. What do you say about that?”

  Jonah looked from Travis to the boy on his right, then to the boy on the left. All three of them were bigger than he was, and all were strong from their constant sports activities. He looked to Penny next, and the fear in her eyes was clearly as much for his safety as it was for her own.

  “What do I say?” said Jonah calmly. “I say, neither one of those things is going to happen, Travis.”

  “Oh really? And just who’s gonna stop me? You?”

  Jonah looked at him with an unwavering gaze. “Yes.”

  “Hey, did you hear that, guys?” said Travis with a chuckle. “Nerd-turd here is threatening me. I may need your help. Hah! Not really.”

  Travis stepped toward him and took a fistful of Jonah’s shirt front, pulling him closer. He drew back his other fist and started to swing a crushing blow.

  Penny sobbed, closed her eyes and turned her head. She couldn’t bear to watch what would happen next. Worse, she felt as if she was to blame for it all. If she had just left well enough alone, she thought, then maybe none of this would be happening now.

  She gasped and flinched as the sound of a vicious, violent blow was struck against unguarded flesh, followed by another and another, seconds apart. The horrible commotion was painful just to listen to, and then it was in over in less than twenty seconds.

  Tiffany, standing to one side of Penny, gasped suddenly. “Oh my God!”

  Penny thought sure they’d killed him, murdered her poor Squirt on the spot. She couldn’t help opening her fearful eyes now. She had to look, but was afraid of the horror she would see.

  Those fear-struck eyes widened as she looked. Her jaw dropped.

  Jonah was still standing there, exactly where he had been, and there was not a mark on him. The same was not true of the other boys. Travis lay on his side on the floor, his nose clearly broken and bleeding, clutching his groin and whimpering pathetically. Jock Boy #2 was also on the floor, on his back, painfully clutching one leg and crying. Jock Boy #3 was kneeling on the floor, hunched over, clutching his stomach and puking his guts out.

  Jonah briefly surveyed his handiwork, then his eyes rose to focus on Tiffany. He started slowly toward her.

  Tiffany’s eyes widened even more. Panicking now, she hurriedly untied Penny’s hands and dropped the rope. “There—she’s free now,” she blurted. “See?”

  Jonah kept walking toward her. “You know, I was always taught not to hit a girl, but in your case, Tiffany...”

  Penny, rubbing her wrists, flashed a pleading look. “No, Jonah! Please don’t hit her. Please don’t.” Her own eyes narrowed suddenly. “Let me do it!”

  Penny swung from her hip and caught the cheerleader directly on the chin with an uppercut that snapped her head back. Tiffany dropped like a rock to the floor.

  “Well, I’ll be,” said a new voice suddenly. A deeper, masculine voice.

  Penny and Jonah looked over and saw one of the school security guards, a tall and muscular African American man in his uniform, quickly approaching them. His radio was in one hand and his other hand hovered near his holstered weapon. He quickly took in the aftermath of the mayhem, then took his hand away from his gun.

  “Sorry it took me so long to get here,” he said to Penny. “The janitor had the hallway blocked for a few minutes and I had to go the long way around.”

  Tiffany, reviving, struggled to get to her feet. Her eyes flared with anger as she clutched her chin. She looked to the security guard for support.

  “Arrest her!” Tiffany yelled. “This bitch attacked me!”


  The guard looked her squarely in the eyes. “She... attacked... you?” His expression hardened. “As far as I can tell, this girl defended herself after you and your friends attacked her.”

  “What?” said Tiffany, deflated. “You weren’t even here.”

  The guard pointed a finger toward a small shiny thing in the corner of the ceiling about twenty feet back. “Guess you didn’t know we installed security cameras in this hall last weekend. I got the whole thing on video, Miss Jeskavech, complete with audio, start to finish.”

  “You do...?” said Tiffany weakly. “And you know my name?”

  “I don’t know all the students here,” said the guard. “But I keep track of the key players, like you and Travis and the boys there. And I’m giving a copy of that video to... these folks here.”

  They all looked past him and saw that four uniformed city police officers, three of them men and one a woman, were quickly approaching him. The one in the lead was already radioing for ambulances and surveying the scene. Puzzled, he stopped in front of the guard.

  “What happened here?” he said.

  “Those three young men on the floor, they lured this girl here—” he indicated Penny “—and were attempting to rape her. The cheerleader is an accessory to their plan, and maybe the instigator.”

  The officer looked again at the boys on the floor. He raised an eyebrow. “Who stopped them?”

  “This young man here,” said the security guard with a smile toward Jonah. “Damnest thing I ever saw, or almost saw. I was already starting to head here when some of it went down, but it’s all on the video tape. Indisputable evidence, in their own words and deeds of the rape attempt.”

  The woman police officer stepped over to Penny and used her cell phone camera to snap a picture of her in her ripped clothes and state of disarray, and as she went next to snap pictures of the boys on the floor, Penny awkwardly tried to pull her torn blouse closer about her.

  Jonah immediately went to her. He helped her secure her blouse as best he could, and refastened her jeans. Then he ran to his backpack and dug through it, pulling a carefully folded nylon rain jacket out of its inner pocket. He brought it to Penny and helped her put it on, zipping it to cover her naked areas.