Point of No Return

by Paul McCusker

  Oscar swallowed a bite of bologna sandwich. “But I think it will stop. Even if it doesn’t, I’m still doing what I think Jesus would do and that makes me feel great! I got to keep my lunch money, too!”

  “I don’t care,” Jack said. He and Matt looked at one another.

  Matt nodded with understanding. “Okay, this afternoon.”

  Oscar peered at Jack, then Matt, then asked, “This afternoon? What about this afternoon?”

  “None of your business,” Matt said.

  “What are you guys up to?” Oscar asked, instantly worried. “Remember: What would Jesus do?”

  Jack leaned toward Oscar and told him, “You just leave it to us.”

  Matt also leaned forward and smiled. “Don’t forget that Jesus made whips and drove the money changers out of the temple.”

  “Did you find the copies?” Karen asked Lucy anxiously when they sat down at lunch.

  “No. I guess you didn’t either, huh?”

  Karen shook her head. “No sign of them. What did we do with them, Lucy?”

  “You didn’t take them home, did you?”

  “I don’t remember ever having them! How could I know if I took them home?” Karen asked.

  “Well, I know I didn’t,” Lucy said.

  “Maybe Mr. Laker will forget I ever brought it up,” Karen wished. “Without those copies, I’m just an insane kid who makes stupid accusations.”

  “Uh-oh,” Lucy said, looking over Karen’s shoulder.

  Karen turned and saw Mrs. Stewart crossing the cafeteria toward her. A sinking feeling worked through her stomach.

  Mrs. Stewart arrived. Her face looked pinched and worried. “Mr. Felegy wants to see you right away,” she said.

  Karen shot a parting glance to Lucy and followed Mrs. Stewart out of the cafeteria.

  “Thank you for coming so fast,” Mr. Felegy said when Karen arrived at his office and had taken a seat.

  Karen nodded. “You’re welcome.” She wondered if Mr. Laker had said something to Mr. Felegy about their conversation that morning and tightly clung to the arms of the chair.

  “This is a little awkward, Karen. You’re a student whom I trust and hold with great respect. For those reasons, I thought I’d talk to you before I called your parents.”

  “Call my parents? But—why?”

  Mr. Felegy handed her a computer printout. At the top, it said: Student Council Finance Statement. Underneath were columns of figures related to how the student council had been spending its small budget. Karen recognized the form. As president she had to be familiar with it, but she couldn’t imagine why Mr. Felegy was showing it to her. “You know this.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then perhaps you can explain that bottom line. The one that says ‘Miscellaneous Expenses.’ ”

  She looked down the page until she came to the phrase. Next to it was the figure “$347.00,” and in parenthesis it said, “(Karen Crosby).”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Karen said.

  “Don’t you?” Mr. Felegy asked. “It means that you personally spent $347 on something, but we can’t find out what it was. There are no records in the student council files, except a receipt showing that you’d taken the money out of the account. Think, Karen. Why did you need the money?”

  Karen worked through her memory of any time or reason she may have used money from the student council funds. “I had posters made for the charity car wash…the walk-a-thon…the fund-raiser for the trip to Chicago…”

  “All of those expenses are accounted for elsewhere,” Mr. Felegy said.

  Karen was at a loss. She couldn’t remember spending as much as $347 on anything. Even if she had, she would have filed the receipts so that a strict accounting could be made. “I don’t know, Mr. Felegy. Why did this come up?”

  “The school is being audited by the district office and Mr. Laker pointed out that—”

  “Mr. Laker?”

  Mr. Felegy explained, “As school administrator, he’s in charge of all the finances. You know that.”

  “I know, but…did he bring this to you?” she asked.

  “Yes. He said he didn’t consider it a major problem, except that it seemed irregular. But I consider it a problem when $347 disappears from the student council funds and we don’t know where it went.” He kept his gaze fixed on her.

  “Mr. Laker keeps all this stuff on his computer?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Suddenly it clicked into place. Karen bit her nail and thought it through: Mr. Laker must have somehow juggled the figures on his computer. But did she dare say so to Mr. Felegy? Perhaps this was the moment of truth. What choice did she have?

  “Karen, it’s an awful lot of money and I certainly don’t consider you irresponsible. But I need you to think very hard and tell me where you spent it.”

  “I didn’t,” Karen said, working up to her confession.

  “Then who did?”

  “I don’t know, but it wasn’t me,” she said. “Maybe nobody spent it. Maybe it was never there.”

  Mr. Felegy looked at her quizzically. “Explain, please.”

  “Well,” Karen began slowly. “I work on our computer at home with my dad. I’ve seen him do our finances. Last April, he pulled a joke on my mom by putting in the computer that she had spent $1,000 on groceries in one day.”

  Mr. Felegy frowned and said, “Why are you telling me this story?”

  “Because I think Mr. Laker put in a bogus figure to get me in trouble,” said Karen. There. It was out in the open.

  Mr. Felegy pushed back from his desk and looked at her with a strained calmness. “Why would Mr. Laker want to get you in trouble?”

  “Because I was going to get him in trouble.”

  “Oh boy,” Mr. Felegy groaned. “I don’t like the sound of that. You better tell me everything.”

  So Karen did: from when Mrs. Stewart gave her the file until her conversation with Mr. Laker that morning. It sounded almost ridiculous even to Karen’s ears, but it was the truth and it had to be said.

  “These are serious accusations, Karen,” Mr. Felegy said after a long pause.

  “I know.”

  “Do you have any proof?” he asked.

  Karen cringed. “I knew you were going to ask me that.”

  “Well?”

  “I do have proof,” Karen said. “Somewhere. I just can’t find it.”

  Mr. Felegy sighed. “Karen, you’re putting me in a very difficult position. I’ve got a computer printout that shows you spent $347 that wasn’t yours to spend, and you’re telling me that Mr. Laker is on the ‘take’ with our best printing company, but you don’t have proof. Do you realize how this looks?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How do you suggest I proceed?” he asked.

  Karen closed her eyes and prayed for a miracle. “Let’s get Lucy. Maybe she found the copies we made of the documents in his file.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  LUCY WAS HAVING PROBLEMS of her own. After lunch, she went to the Odyssey Owl office to make sure their next issue was coming together the way she’d hoped. Three of the Owl’s reporters—Mike, Sean Campbell, and Debbie Calhoun—were gathered around the table, talking in low, conspiratorial voices with Mrs. Stegner.

  “What’s going on?” Lucy asked.

  Startled, they spun around.

  Lucy approached them. “Come on, guys. What’re you talking about?”

  “A friend of yours,” Mrs. Stegner said.

  “Which friend?” Lucy asked.

  “Karen,” Mike replied, and handed her two sheets of notepaper.

  Lucy looked down at the pages. The first was an accounting of the student council’s funds. Highlighted in yellow was a column that said “Miscellaneous Expenses: $347.00 (Karen Crosby).” She didn’t know what to make of it. “So?”

  “Keep reading,” Mike said. He had a smile on his face, but it wasn’t friendly. He seemed to be taking pleasure from Lucy’s ignor
ance.

  Lucy held up the other page. It was a plain sheet of paper with a note typed to Mike:

  Mike,

  You’re the “hot” investigative reporter for the Owl, so this information will be interesting to you. There’s a deficit in the student council funds. (See highlight on the next page.) It’s obvious who took the money. Maybe your editor knows her, too. Worth a story?

  —An Anonymous Friend.

  That’s why Karen got called to the office, Lucy thought. She was dumbfounded. This was the kind of thing that happened to big-city newspapers, not little school papers. “A news leak? A news leak in our school?”

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” Mrs. Stegner said.

  “Well, Miss Crusading Truth-Finding Editor, can I do an article about it?” Mike asked.

  “No!” Lucy snapped.

  Mike gestured to Mrs. Stegner, Sean, and Debbie. “What did I say? She’s going to cover for her friend.”

  Lucy turned on Mike. “I’m not covering for anybody! For one thing, Karen wouldn’t steal the council’s money. For another thing, we don’t have any of the facts besides this anonymous note and the treasury report!”

  “Those are two pretty good pieces of evidence,” Debbie said. “What more do we need?”

  “These aren’t facts, they’re circumstantial evidence.” Lucy appealed to Mrs. Stegner. “I’m right, aren’t I? We can’t write an article speculating about missing money and then suggest that Karen took it. Since when do we write about any of our fellow students like that? We’re a school newspaper, not muckrakers!”

  “What do we do then?” Mrs. Stegner asked.

  “Nothing—until we get more information,” Lucy said.

  “A cover-up!” Mike cried out. “If it wasn’t Karen and you weren’t in your do-as-Jesus-would-do phase, you’d jump all over this story. You’d have us running ourselves ragged digging out the facts!”

  Mrs. Stegner nodded. “He’s right, Lucy. I’m not sure you’re being objective about this. Are you sure you’re not protecting Karen?”

  “I don’t have to protect Karen. She wouldn’t steal, it’s as simple as that. But I’m not afraid of searching for the truth.”

  “Newspapers aren’t interested in only the truth, Lucy,” said Mrs. Stegner. “They’re interested in reporting the facts—as they emerge. If a bank gets robbed, you don’t wait until you have the whole truth of what happened, you report what happened when it happened.”

  “But we don’t even have all the facts, Mrs. Stegner,” Lucy said.

  “Then what do you do next?” she prodded.

  Lucy hesitantly answered, “We investigate the story and assemble more facts.”

  “Right.”

  “But we won’t print anything until we have them all,” Lucy added as a qualifier.

  “I’ll go talk to Mr. Laker,” Mike said enthusiastically.

  Lucy looked surprised. “Mr. Laker?”

  “Sure, he’s in charge of the school finances. He has to know about it.”

  Lucy smiled knowingly. Mr. Laker is the anonymous note-writer, she realized. He’s setting her up! She looked at the faces of her coworkers and knew she couldn’t tell them. But suddenly it changed everything for her. “You’re in over your head,” Mr. Laker had said to Karen.

  The reporters took off with various ideas about tracking the story, leaving Lucy and Mrs. Stegner alone.

  “It’s hard for you,” Mrs. Stegner said sympathetically. “But this is what being an editor’s all about.”

  Lucy nodded sadly. “I won’t betray my friend.”

  There was a knock at the door. Mr. Felegy opened it and peeked in. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said as he stepped fully into the room. Karen followed him, looking lost and helpless.

  “What can I do for you?” Mrs. Stegner asked.

  “It’s what Lucy can do, actually,” Mr. Felegy said. “We were wondering if she found the mysterious copies that Karen needs right now.”

  “Copies?” Mrs. Stegner asked.

  “I haven’t found them,” Lucy admitted quietly. She spread her arms to Karen, as if to say, What can I do?

  Karen turned to Mr. Felegy. “I don’t blame you if you won’t believe me, but…I didn’t take the money, Mr. Felegy.”

  Mr. Felegy shook his head. “Karen—”

  Karen interrupted him: “At the council meeting tomorrow, I’ll…I’ll resign as president.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JOE DEVLIN GAVE HIS friends a few parting punches on their arms—just to remind them who was boss—and ducked into the woods. He followed the path through the bare trees like he always did at this time of day. He had to get home in time for dinner. His mom got very angry when Joe was late. And Joe knew it was dangerous to make his mom mad.

  The fallen leaves crunched under his leather boots. He liked the sound. It made him feel powerful, as if he were destroying entire cities under his feet like Godzilla in those Japanese movies. He marched on through the woods, oblivious that he was being watched.

  The trees suddenly gave way to a clearing and, a few yards beyond, Joe heard the creek pouring over the time-worn stones. The wind kicked up, so he tugged the zipper up on his leather jacket. He made his way to the large tree that had conveniently fallen to bridge one side of the creek to the other. He had crossed it so often that he didn’t think twice about whether or not it was safe. He jumped on and strolled ahead.

  When he reached the halfway point—identified by a rotted branch that stuck out of the side of the log—he heard a noise. It wasn’t any of the familiar sounds he took for granted—the snapping of old bark from the tree, the creek gurgling below, birds singing somewhere in the forest—that made him stop and listen. This one was different. Joe waited and it came again: It was the unmistakable sound of someone clearing his throat.

  Joe turned around quickly and saw Matt standing on the bank behind him. Something rustled in front and he looked to see Jack positioned on the bank ahead.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said.

  “Yeah, it’s us,” Jack answered.

  Joe took a step forward but halted when Jack raised his hand. In it was a whip. Jack flicked his arm and, in turn, snapped the whip. It cracked loudly, scattering the birds in a nearby tree. Jack smiled, impressed with himself.

  Joe squinted his eyes in a way he thought looked vicious. “Nice whip. Are you boys playing Indiana Jones this week?”

  Matt cracked his whip, too, and Joe nearly lost his balance on the log from the fright. “My dad is a collector.”

  “I’m happy for him,” Joe said sarcastically.

  “We’ve been thinking about it, Joe,” Matt said. “We decided that we’re sick and tired of you bullying Oscar.”

  “Am I supposed to care about what you think?” Joe said.

  “You oughtta care right now. Because you’re not coming off that bridge until you promise to leave Oscar alone,” Jack said.

  “Oh, yeah? What’re you going to do if I refuse?”

  Both boys cracked their whips.

  Joe sneered at them. “You’re pretty tough when it’s two against one.”

  “And you’re pretty tough when it’s you and seven other guys against Oscar,” Matt said. “Funny, but you’re not so tough now.”

  “What’re you going to do, whip me?” Joe challenged them.

  “Worse than that,” Matt said. “We’re going to give you a bath.”

  “What?”

  Jack continued, “If you don’t promise to stay away from Oscar, you’re going into the creek.”

  Joe nearly laughed at them. A dunk in the creek was nothing to him. “You think a little bit of water scares me?”

  Jack cracked the whip at Joe. Joe flinched and took a step backwards. “Watch it with that thing!”

  “You probably don’t care about the water yourself,” Matt informed him. “But that leather jacket and those leather boots won’t enjoy it very much. Water ruins leather, doesn’t it?”

  “It does if you�
��re drenched in it,” Jack said.

  Joe realized what they were up to and looked stricken. “You clowns better not try it. You ruin my jacket and boots and you’ll pay for them.”

  “Why should we?” Matt asked. “You won’t have any proof that we got them wet. You fell off the log on your way home.”

  “Besides, you probably bought them with the money you keep stealing from Oscar,” Jack said.

  “You force me into that water and you won’t live to regret it!” Joe shouted.

  Jack laughed. “What’ll you do? Get your gang together and beat us up?”

  “Count on it,” Joe said.

  “Yeah, but you can’t always be with your gang, Joe,” Matt countered. “Just like now. Whatever you do to us, we’ll catch you alone and do back.”

  Jack cracked the whip again. “Y’see? You guys aren’t the only ones who can play rough.”

  “On the other hand,” Matt said, “all you have to do is promise that you’ll quit bullying Oscar.”

  Joe spat at them. “I’m not making any deals with you sissies.”

  “I guess that’s his answer,” Matt said, and cracked the whip at Joe.

  “Sounds like it,” Jack agreed and flicked his whip at Joe, too. They were careful not to hit him, but he didn’t know that. He moved first in one direction, then the other, struggling to keep balance on the log.

  “Promise?” Matt called out again as they slowly worked their whip ends closer to him.

  “No!” Joe yelled back.

  The two boys inched their whips closer and closer. Jack got a little too close and hit Joe on the hand.

  “Ouch!” Joe cried out. “That hurt!”

  Jack was surprised, but didn’t show it. Having Joe in a state of fear encouraged him. “Now you know how it feels when you hurt other people.”

  Joe paced like a lion between two tamers. His mind raced, trying to think of a way out—besides going into the water.

  “Just promise, Joe!” Matt said.

  Joe considered promising—and then going back on his word—but couldn’t get the words out. It was galling to him to make any kind of promise to Matt and Jack. His pride wouldn’t let him.

  “That’s it,” Jack announced. “You’re going in!”