by Nancy Isaak
With the exception of the Foxes—those we left in place.
* * * *
Because we didn’t really know what to do with the files—and because Jay and I didn’t want to chance being caught with them—we decided to hide everything in the school, rather than try and get them past the Protection Detail.
Jay did most of the dirty work.
She bravely teetered back and forth on a chair we precariously balanced upon a desk, tucking the files up inside the ceiling of the yearbook room. I was the one who stood at the door—peeking out into the hallway—waiting for someone to come and ask us what the heck we were doing.
Our little misadventure went quite quickly, though.
Well…it would have gone quickly.
Except that I had to go and gawk at some pictures of Jacob Riker that had been pinned to a bulletin board. They were in among some photos of the football team that the Committee had been considering for one of the yearbook pages.
I, of course, only had eyes for my future-husband.
“He’s so hot,” I murmured to myself.
In the photo I was looking at, Jacob had his hands in the air, about to catch a football. Even wearing a helmet, his ice-blue eyes were visible—and mesmerizing.
“Who’s hot?”
* * * *
I immediately froze—because it wasn’t Jay who had just spoken. In fact, when I turned toward Jay, she looked terrified.
“I said…who’s hot?” the voice asked again.
Slowly, I turned in the opposite direction.
Crap…
Tray and two 12th graders from the Protection Detail were standing at the open doorway. One of the older girls actually had her gun out—although she was holding it down by her side.
“Jacob…Jacob Riker,” I managed to squeak out in a tiny voice.
Leaving the two 12th graders at the door, Tray entered and walked over to look at Jacob’s photo on the bulletin board.
(I always feel weird around Tray. She’s about three inches taller than me and about ten pounds lighter—an absolute stunner with her dark hair and amber eyes. It’s like I know she’s beautiful, but I hate myself for knowing it. I can’t really say that Tray actually makes me feel insecure. What I can say is that Tray makes me feel—less.)
“Definitely hot,” nodded Tray, running a finger over Jacob’s picture. Then she turned her head slowly in my direction and her amber eyes bore into mine. “What are you doing here, Kaylee Michelson?”
Part of me started stuttering, searching for an excuse; the other part of me was decidedly more juvenile, delighted to have just learned that—Tray Davis actually knew who I was!
“I’m…uh…I’m on the Yearbook Committee.”
Tray grinned. “Well, sweetie, I guess you missed the part about there not being a yearbook this year. End of the world and all that.”
“I know. I just…”
“You just what?”
Words failed me; I became tongue-tied trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t get me in trouble. Jay—thankfully—came to my rescue.
“She wanted a picture of Jacob.”
Tray snorted, amused. “You really think you’re in Jacob Riker’s league, Kaylee?”
I shook my head no.
Of course, I wasn’t in Jacob’s league.
With a quick movement, Tray’s hand shot forward. For a moment, I had the irrational thought that she was going to hit me. Instead, Tray reached past my head and pulled Jacob’s photo off of the bulletin board, laying it gently on the palm of my hand.
“Go ahead, Kaylee…dream on. Looks like it’s all any of us can do anymore. Now, bugger off, the two of you. This area’s out-of-bounds from now on.”
Holding the photo close to my heart, I quickly scuttled toward the door. The two 12th graders from the Protection Detail moved slightly aside, just enough to let me pass. Jay caught up with me just outside the door and we immediately started sprinting down the hallway.
Behind us, meanwhile, the yearbook room filled up with cruel laughter.
* * * *
Breakfast in the cafeteria that morning was oatmeal and that Jewish bread called matzo. I have to be honest—it was all terrible.
Personally, I would rather have been eating at our townhouse, firing up the hibachi and warming up one of my stews.
Still, as my mom always says—if you don’t like the food, just consider it as fuel and eat it anyway.
* * * *
By the time Jay and I sat down beside Jude and Lily, they were already halfway through their oatmeal. Two bowls were set out opposite theirs—one each for Jay and me—two tiny squares of matzo on a napkin to the side.
“Any good?” asked Jay, picking up her spoon.
“Sucks butt,” Jude answered.
Jay took a taste. “Why, yes, it does.”
I picked up my own spoon and dug in, taking a big bite. “Wow,” I said, trying not to gag at the taste. “Like yuck-wow!”
Jude leaned in close, speaking softly. “How’d it go?”
I lowered my own voice to match. “We hid the files, but we almost got caught.”
“What happened?”
“Tray and her goons showed up.”
“Were they suspicious?”
Jay leaned across the table to join our conversation. “I said that Kaylee was there to steal a photo of Jacob Riker,” she whispered. “They bought it.”
“Well, of course they did,” Jude responded, matter-of-fact.
My hackles immediately rose up. “What do you mean by that?”
She snorted. “Dude, it’s not like it’s a big secret. Everybody knows that you love the boy.”
“No, they don’t,” I said—a little offended.
Jude turned to Lily. “Sailor Moon, who does Barbie got a crush on?”
Lily was busy sniffing at a spoonful of oatmeal. She didn’t even look up when she answered, “Jacob Riker with the blue eyes.”
Jay burst into amused laughter, which ended abruptly as Jude turned in her direction, grinning wickedly. Immediately suspicious, Jay turned to Lily. “Did Jude say that I had a crush on anyone?”
The little girl looked up at Jay with her huge, innocent eyes and just smiled.
Jay turned back to Jude. “What did you say to Lily?!”
Jude, of course, just ignored her. Instead, she leaned in close and lowered her voice once again. “Have you noticed how much happier everyone seems to be than last night?” She motioned to the girls eating breakfast all around us.
“Guess they don’t feel like they’re all alone anymore,” I said, quietly.
“They’re not alone.” Jude was whispering now, barely moving her lips. “Look outside the cafeteria…through the windows, right at the edges of the room.”
Trying to appear casual, Jay and I both turned and looked. There were 11th and 12th graders outside—at each corner of the building—peering in through the cafeteria windows.
“Seriously,” Jay murmured, “like this is getting so bizarre!”
“Check out where they’re looking,” Jude told us.
Jay and I turned around again and carefully looked from one window to the next. It took only a moment for us to figure out what Jude was getting at; the Protection Detail was watching three girls in particular, all seated at the same table.
“Cherry, Wandy…and Cherry’s little sister,” I murmured. “They’re watching the Continuation girls. I wonder what’s up with that.”
“Could be just school rivalry,” Jay suggested. “The Continuation kids have always been kind of separate from us.”
“The Foxes and the Detail don’t seem to have any problem with Sophia, though,” I said, “and she goes to the Continuation School.”
In fact, Sophia Rojas was presently moving back and forth between tables—talking to girls, giving hugs, making sure everyone had enough to eat.
“Hmm,” mused Jay. “Do you know what Sophia makes me think of when she acts like that?”
“What’s that?”
“Those French people, back in World War II, the ones who used to help the Germans.”
Jude snorted, amused. “Collaborators.”
“That’s it,” nodded Jay. “Sophia’s a collaborator.”
“Stop it,” I said. “She’s just being Sophia. She’s always nice to everybody.”
“Well, Cherry doesn’t look too amused, does she?”
Indeed, Cherry did have a sour look on her face.
(Of course, the girl generally looks that way. I always wonder if Cherry is disappointed, depressed, or just plain old cranky. It’s unfortunate, too—because under all that make-up and pink hair—Cherry Winslette is really a very pretty girl. Not Tray-beautiful—but definitely above my own soccer girl-looks.)
“Anyone notice that the Foxes aren’t here?” asked Jude. “I guess they’re eating their oatmeal somewhere else.”
“If they’re eating oatmeal at all,” groused Jay. “They’re probably having waffles and bacon and orange juice.”
“Shhh…” I elbowed Jay to be quiet.
Four of the Protection Detail—all 12th graders—had just entered the room.
They fanned out—one to each corner—standing with their backs to the wall, watching us. I noticed that each one was wearing a gun, and one girl even had a large knife tucked into her waist belt.
Were they armed for our protection?
Or against us?
* * * *
“It’s so weird. We should be really happy,” I said, quietly. “Yesterday morning, it was just us. Now look at how many people are here. There’s got to be over sixty girls. And most of these girls are from our own school—a lot of them are our friends.”
“Weren’t my friends,” snorted Jude
“I just don’t understand,” I continued. “Why are we being so paranoid and suspicious? Why is that?”
Jude looked at me like I was an idiot. “Dude…it’s the end of the world—and the mean girls are still in control.”
* * * *
“Darn it…seriously?”
I turned to see what had just irritated Jay.
It was two 12th graders—riding up on horses—just outside the cafeteria. When the older girls dismounted, I got a good look at the horses they had been riding.
Suddenly, I was just as irritated as Jay. “They’ve got Beauty and the brown horse. That’s not fair!”
“Are those your horses?” asked Jude.
“No…but well…”
“We had kind of called dibs,” Jay admitted.
Jude burst out into laughter; Lily just looked confused.
Meanwhile, the two 12th graders entered the cafeteria. They walked to the front of the room, then turned to face us. One of the girls—Alice—was a tall redhead with a manly jaw and no bosom. (I didn’t recognize the other girl.)
Behind Alice’s back, I knew that some of the kids at Agoura High called her ‘Brady Bob’. It was kind of a stupid reference to her looking somewhat like a cross between a man and the maid, ‘Alice’, on “The Brady Bunch”—an old television show from when my mom was little.
Like Tray, Alice had a reputation for being mean-spirited and violent.
I once saw her smack a guy in the hallway just because he had made some crack about the dress she was wearing. The kid wound up in the nurse’s office with a bloody nose; Alice wound up with two day’s suspension and bragging rights.
* * * *
Alice waited until all conversation in the cafeteria had stopped before she began to speak. “You all know your work teams. If you don’t, check the sign-up sheets taped to that wall over there. You work until noon, then come here for lunch, which will go until 1 p.m. Work will then resume again until 5 p.m. You will return here for supper at 6. After that, your time is your own.”
Beside me, Jay snorted. I elbowed her in the ribs to keep quiet.
“For those of you going through the neighborhood,” Alice continued, “you’ll separate into teams—one team for each block. Right now, you’ll just be making lists of what’s available in all the houses. You are searching primarily for food, weapons, candles, and tools—those sorts of things. President Orla will review your lists this evening and then other work teams will be sent out tomorrow morning to collect whatever you have discovered.”
“President Orla?!” Jay snorted again—looking like she had just sucked on a lemon.
“Seriously, Jay!” I hissed in her ear. “Stop it…you’re going to get into trouble!”
Up front, Alice held up a piece of paper with some marks on it. “Sophia Rojas has hand-drawn a sample of how you are to mark the doors of the houses you enter. Please mark all doors of the same house with the same mark, so that you do not waste the follow-up team’s time by having them enter houses that contain nothing of value to us. If there is anything to be collected inside, you will mark all doors with a checkmark and the appropriate symbols for whatever supplies you find. If there is nothing of value inside, you will mark all doors with an ‘X’. If there are any animals inside, they should be fed and watered immediately and the Protection Detail notified for transfer back to the school.”
“Yup,” nodded Jude, speaking quietly. “They’re gonna’ eat the animals.”
“We don’t expect you to find any dead bodies in the houses but, if you do come across any, you will mark all doors with a double ‘XX’. A separate team later will properly dispose of the corpses.”
I pushed the last of my oatmeal away from me. “Okay…I am officially disgusted.”
“Finally,” said Alice, “there will be members of the Protection Detail roaming throughout the boundaries of our neighborhood. If you have any problems or questions, please do not hesitate to ask them for further instructions or for clarification. The Protection Detail is there for your assistance. Please make use of them. They will also be on the lookout for looters, so anyone taking anything from any house without prior permission will be considered as a ‘hostile’ to our community. As such, they will be punished accordingly.”
“Punished!” squeaked Jay. She turned to me, worried.
Jude, meanwhile, simply leaned back, crossed her arms, and looked bored.
A slight murmur began to spread throughout the seated girls.
Alice stopped for a moment, taking in the whole room. It was as if she was waiting for someone to object. Even the 12th graders in the corners seemed to straighten a bit, their hands hovering a fraction closer to their gun holsters as their heads swiveled back and forth, as if searching the crowd for possible dissenters.
Finally—when no one spoke up and the murmurs had died off—Alice continued. “Thank you all for your hard work in advance. If I don’t see you on my rounds, I’ll see you at lunchtime. Have a good day.”
There was silence when Alice walked out of the cafeteria. Everyone just sat there, looking toward the empty door. Meanwhile, the four members of the Protection Detail remained standing in their corners.
But they said nothing.
They just stood there—watching.
Eventually, conversation started up again.
Although there continued to be some worried looks here or there, it seemed that most of the girls were actually excited to be doing something—to be a part of this new community.
It made me wonder once more.
Were we just being paranoid? Overly-sensitive?
Was it actually possible that the Foxes really were just trying to bring us all together?
* * * *
It was a combination of luck and Jude that got us the work detail we wanted. When Section L of the townhouse complex was called out, Jude merely stuck up her hand and said, “We’ll search through that one.”
Her response was so quick that no one else really had a chance.
* * * *
Two 11thgraders—twin sisters who I knew slightly from soccer—were standing outside the cafeteria with our work supplies. It wasn’t much—just a crowbar, two clipboards with lined paper, some pens,
and a can of black spray paint.
While Jude waited with Lily to one side, Jay and I got in line for supplies.
All around us were other work teams coming together—some to go to Ralphs and Vons to begin bringing back all the food, others for organizing the school into various storage and habitation areas.
Moving throughout the teams were the 11th and 12th graders of the Protection Detail. They were always in sets of two, with guns and knives at their waist belts, their faces looking grim and serious.
At one point, Jay leaned in close to whisper in my ear. “You notice that it’s only the 9th and 10th graders on the work details?”
“That’s Sue and Rachel handing out the supplies,” I said, motioning to the twins in front of us. “They’re 11th graders.”
“Exactly…Looks like all the real hard work is going to be done by the younger grades.”
“You think the Foxes set it up that way on purpose?”
“Well, they had their Protection Detail going before anyone showed up for the first meeting last night in the theater, didn’t they? Think about it. That means that they must have already had at least one meeting before yesterday.”
“Then that would mean that the Foxes went looking for the 12th and 11thgraders before anyone else.”
“That’s what I think,” nodded Jay. “And I would guess that it was because they didn’t want any of the younger grades to be on the Protection Detail.”
I lowered my voice to the merest of whispers. “So, you think that the Foxes planned it from the start—that only the 11th and 12th graders would be the ones with the weapons?”
Jay nodded, whispering back. “We’re smaller, younger and—because they’re taking all the weapons—completely unarmed. Even before this, at school, the Foxes and her click have always ordered the younger grades around. The big difference was that they didn’t have any weapons then. And there was always an adult around to stop them when they got really mean. Now they can do what they want—because we don’t have anybody older to protect us.”
