Wickedpedia

by Chris Van Etten

  A few other cars were buoyed in the faculty parking lot, but for now the high school was largely deserted. He cherished the lonely predawn hours when hallways were left unlit, swallowed up in darkness, and the only sounds were those of his footfalls on the fawn-colored carpet or the coo of his red Sharpie on tests and essays. School held its greatest potential for learning when it was empty, and none at all after it was filled with students, when the staff set aside teaching for crowd control.

  Arnold Drick was the exception.

  He was not a peacekeeper. He was an educator, and would remain so until he breathed his last — much to the disappointment of the department chair. “Florida is nice come the winter,” his boss would say. “Heck, it’s nice any time of year, really. Like now.” But even a casual observer could see that retirement wasn’t in the cards for Arnold. Just look at his workspace. There were no family photos tacked to the felt walls of his cubicle, no grandchildren anxiously awaiting his visits. No cruise brochures, no calendar counting down the days to his escape from employment. Nothing to distract him. Nothing else to which he wished to devote his time. He had no reason to give up teaching, and one very good reason to cling to it.

  Kids were stupid, and getting stupider.

  The evidence was plain to see.

  “Just examine the quality of their work,” he told the emergency faculty meeting called in the wake of Scott Dare’s death. “I can’t be the only one who’s noticed this degradation. It’s rife with shortcuts and stopgaps. It lacks form and critical thought. They slouch their way through their education just like they slouch in and out of class.”

  “Not to mention the way they dress,” snickered a rookie whose misshapen sideburns resembled smeared greasepaint. “All those untucked shirts and bare knees!”

  Arnold laughed gamely along with his younger colleagues. Every school’s staff was a cast, and each teacher had a role. Arnold was the designated fuddy-duddy, and deemed perfect for the part: a crotchety, rumpled sexagenarian, prone to cogitating and surprise spittle, with plainly visible ear hair a plus. It did no good to fight the label. So he embraced it.

  “Their clothes are as indicative of their contempt for schooling as their overreliance on computers to aid their studies,” he said, and proceeded to suggest mandatory school uniforms, only to be shouted down.

  “We aren’t here to discuss dress-code policy,” said the principal. “I want to outline the plan for ongoing grief management in wake of the tragedy that claimed Scott Dare’s life….”

  And what precious little that life amounted to, Arnold tsked as he neared the offices of the history department. Scott was affable enough, if settled and lumpen, a beanbag chair in the form of a student. The administration had struggled to provide enough content to fill the Day of Grieving or the Time for Mourning that followed, to say nothing of the Week of Remembrance through which the school community now slogged. Arnold wondered how he might avoid twiddling his thumbs during the Celebration of Life in just a few days’ time, where photo essays and speeches on Scott’s love of soccer and board-shorted summers on the Cape would smother any reflection on his other, less estimable qualities, like his utter lack of curiosity or baffling array of baseball caps. Arnold was sure he’d never seen the young man wear the same hat twice.

  It seemed to Arnold that Scott had done little of note in his life but die. When the most interesting part of a person’s time on earth is the nature of its end, you know you’ve got problems.

  Especially when that end is murder.

  This was plain to Arnold well before the brouhaha in the cafeteria instigated by the flat-faced if comely television news reporter. An air pump? To the neck? To be sure, the boy was an idiot, but not so big an idiot that he’d accidentally turn himself into a blimp. Suicide was equally preposterous, and when the police came around with their questions, he told them so.

  “Scott Dare simply had too much self-regard to end his own life,” Arnold resolved to the gum-chewing detectives, “and too little self-awareness to do it with such grotesque poetry.” The detectives had then shot each other a sidelong glance. Crackpot.

  But the coroner’s report proved him right, as he knew it would. His student had been murdered and, as evidenced by the bumbling suburban detectives’ obtuse questioning, the identification of a suspect was far off, to say nothing of an arrest.

  Arnold had ideas, though.

  Ideas that might break the investigation wide open.

  If he was ever paid more than a speck of attention.

  But no one wanted to listen to old Arnold Drick, did they? Not his students in class, not the police taking his statement, not the checkout girl at the supermarket who insisted his prunes were ten cents more expensive than advertised, and certainly not the cable service helpline who told him he’d fix his signal by resetting the box even though he’d already done that, thank you very much!

  Kids were getting stupider. People all over were getting stupider. But not Arnold Drick. He was sharp as a switch and getting sharper, by God. He’d show them, once he cracked this case —

  The door to the history department’s offices was ajar. A soft, spectral light pooled beneath it, sprung from within the room beyond. Someone was inside. But none of Arnold’s colleagues ever beat him to work. He pressed open the door and entered.

  In the back of the space, from behind a corner cubicle, a flashlight’s halo shone up at the ceiling. It provided just enough light to help Arnold’s watery eyes spy a ripple of movement. With it came the hush of rustled papers, and the familiar double squeak of a desk drawer opening and closing. He was in and out of that drawer all day, taking and replacing red pens, red markers, red pencils. He’d asked the custodial staff months ago to oil the drawer. He thought they hadn’t listened, but didn’t mind being wrong once in a while. Arnold rounded into his cubicle.

  “Perhaps you’ll have an easier time oiling the drawer with more light. No need to make your work harder.”

  But the person inside his cubicle was doing work of a different sort. Arnold’s computer was on. His grading program was open in a window half hidden by his e-mail program, blinking with a new message.

  “You’re early,” said the intruder, who wore baggy pants and a sweatshirt, hood draped low, concealing the face. Not in evidence was the custodian’s jumpsuit, nor the telltale jangle of hundreds of keys slapping thigh.

  “And you’re no custodian.”

  The intruder held a fistful of red pens and Sharpies and uncapped one. “Very astute of you.” Even in the low light Arnold could tell that something was amiss with the writing implement. Where there ought to have been a tip soaked with red ink was something else. Something pointy and lethal. Something that glinted.

  A blade.

  The intruder took a step forward, raising the pen/knife high and swinging it down in a long arc, aimed at Arnold’s jugular.

  Arnold lifted his briefcase with both hands just in time to shield himself from the blade. It dug into the leather hide and lodged there like a squatter. The force of the blow sent Arnold reeling backward, and his attacker with him. The briefcase bounced and unlocked, splaying essays and tests into the air. Toppling over, Arnold found himself wondering how much a leatherworker would charge to repair the puncture to his beloved briefcase, a gift from himself to himself upon the twentieth anniversary of his first day as a teacher. Too much, he thought. Then he wondered something else. Am I about to die?

  Arnold extended his arm to break his fall. The fall broke his arm instead. He knew it the instant he heard the pop, not unlike the sound of breaking Bubble Wrap. Pain followed immediately, and with it, nausea. He hadn’t thrown up in decades. Streak over, he thought as his stomach revolted and its contents surged like an angry mob. There was a moment, mid-puke, when he felt sorry for his assailant, who caught the worst of it. What if that sweatshirt is a prized possession? Does vomit come out in the wash? Then Arnold remembered. This person just tried to stab me.

  Arnold clambered dizzily
to his knees and then up to his feet, cradling his mangled arm close to his body. The attacker lay facedown on the floor nearby, down but not out, clutching ribs and groaning while Arnold steadied himself on the edge of a desk. What now? Press his advantage? Call the police? Run like the dickens? The moment’s indecision was enough to grant his attacker a second wind. Arnold lumbered down the walk space between the two rows of cubicles, bumping against the partitions as he made for the door. Behind him came the sound of his would-be killer scrambling on hands and knees, scuttling after him like vermin.

  Each labored step took Arnold closer to the door, but did it matter? His pursuer was younger by far, stronger — and gaining ground.

  And perhaps re-armed.

  Arnold dared not find out. Already injured, he would not survive another encounter with that blade. But nor would he win a footrace to safety. Arnold was doomed, whether he made it out the door or not. He could only survive if he was granted mercy — or with help from others.

  Beside the door, just steps away, was a red fire alarm.

  Arnold’s only shot at salvation.

  Get to the door.

  Pull the alarm.

  Pull it and the early arrivals will be alerted.

  Pull it and the maniac chasing you will have no choice but to take flight.

  Pull it!

  Arnold reached, trigger at the cusp of his fingertips — and then not.

  The floor gave out.

  Arnold looked down just in time to see his foot had landed on one of the assignments coughed up from his briefcase. It slipped out from beneath him, along with his legs, and for a moment he was weightless in midair, bicycling his limbs like a hapless cartoon carnivore, outwitted again. Arnold belly flopped, his head whiplashing to the ground, snapping his jaw. His breath evacuated in a gust, his lungs crumpling inside him. The assignment on which he slipped fluttered to his side, but the fire alarm remained fixed on the wall above him. He lifted his good arm toward it, even though he knew. There would be no help from others. As for mercy …

  The hooded figure appeared above him, pen/knife in hand, and retrieved the paper. “Oh, look.” That voice. “A B-minus.” Something about that voice. “Tough break for … Cole Redeker.” It wasn’t right. “You’re not an easy grader, are you, Mr. Drick?” It was familiar. But it didn’t belong. “But you’re not doing the grading now, are you?” The hood came off. “I am.” That face. “You didn’t prepare for this assignment, did you, Mr. Drick?” He knew that face. “Sloppy work. I’m afraid I’ll have to grade accordingly.” The pen/knife went up in the air, and came back down at his face. Into his broken, gaping mouth.

  People were getting stupider, Arnold thought as he was stabbed again and again, his mouth brimming with blood, flooding his airway, and he was stupid, too. The answers were there in front of him all along. He should have known this was coming. He should have figured it out. He could have stopped it. He could have saved himself. And others, too. But he was too late. His teaching days were over. He would be dead in moments. And not long after, others would be dead, too.

  * * *

  Cole hitched a ride with his dad and arrived at school an hour before class began. He went straight to Drick’s classroom. Drick wasn’t there, but Gavin was. “Talk to him yet?”

  “I thought he’d be here. You haven’t seen him?”

  Gavin’s face crinkled. “Isn’t he, like, up with the farmers?”

  It was weird, Cole thought. “Maybe he’s out today. Think we got a sub?”

  “Rise and shine, Cole. Dreamtime is over. You sent him an e-mail last night, right? Did you get a read receipt?”

  “I didn’t check.”

  “So let’s go find out.”

  They forgot all about Drick’s computer when they found Drick. Arriving at the history department, they saw a rust-colored stain streaking from the door down the aisle and ending at his desk. Someone stood there, between them and the desk chair, hunched.

  “Hello?”

  Chetley turned, his face the color of dull concrete, his hands gloved red.

  “He was like this when I came in. I swear. I tried to save him. But he was already gone.”

  Drick’s body was slumped in his chair. Cole wondered why he was wearing a bib. Then he realized it wasn’t a bib. It was blood. Congealing blood coated the front of his shirt and jacket. His head rolled to one side with the added weight of the foreign objects clustered together, protruding from his mouth, broken wide open.

  Red pens.

  Red pencils.

  Red Sharpies.

  And everywhere there were papers. Assignments and essays and tests and reports. All labeled with a giant red grade, the same red grade that was carved into Drick’s forehead.

  F.

  Arnold Drick

  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  * * *

  Arnold Drick is an American teacher of history. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from Amherst and a Master of Arts in teaching from Brown. During his career as an educator at Springfield High School he failed on average five students every year. His fickle method of grading contributed to countless others not receiving admission to their college of choice.

  He lived by the red pen, and he died by it, too.

  By the time the police arrived on the scene of Drick’s murder, Cole and Gavin had been removed to the corridor, ordered out by the principal. Cole wanted to haul ass as far away as possible, even if that only meant going to first-period physics. But school went into lockdown as soon as 9-1-1 was called. Classes were canceled before they’d even begun. Gavin and Cole were the only students in the building, anyway, and Gavin wasn’t going anywhere, not until Spring Showers showed up. He was intent on getting on camera.

  “Wipe that disgusted look off your face,” he told Cole. “Like it or not, we’re headline news. ‘Hottie Heroes Happen on History Homicide!’ ‘Kids Catch Killer, Crowned Kings of Community!’ ”

  Cole surfaced from shock. “We don’t know Chetley killed Drick.”

  “Maybe you’re confused about the meaning of getting ‘caught red-handed.’ It has nothing to do with what happens when your mother interrupts your me-time.”

  “But what possible reason would Chetley have to do something like that?” The question had plagued Cole since the moment they’d happened on the gruesome scene. “Why would he kill Drick? And Scott? And go after Andrea? What does he get out of any of it? It makes no sense!”

  “Let the police make sense out of it. Our job is just to tell them what we found when we got here.”

  “And about the Wikipedia pages,” Cole reminded him.

  Gavin hurled a look at Cole. “I honestly don’t know how you got to be at the top of the class with that brain of yours. If we mention anything about Wikipedia, we’ll be bunking with Chetley in jail.”

  “I thought you said we were heroes.”

  “We are!” Gavin lowered his voice. “But that will be over as soon as it gets out we drew up a list of people we might like to see dead, then went and posted it online for the world to see. Because ha-ha, aren’t we funny? Too bad psycho Chetley didn’t get the joke and took it upon himself to carry out our wishes.”

  “We didn’t actually want them dead, though!” Cole protested. His head pounded. “Not really.”

  “Who is going to believe us, Cole? The truth about the pages comes out and we’re automatically linked to someone who killed a bright shiny star athlete and an old coot. At best the cops think we’re accomplices. At worst we’re the masterminds. And while I’m honored when you call me a mad genius, I’d prefer not to hear it from the district attorney at a press conference announcing my arrest!”

  He had a point.

  So Cole resolved to tell the police nothing about the Wikipedia entries, and nothing to suggest Drick’s death was connected to Scott’s, or to Andrea’s freak accident. Gavin and Cole ironed out a script, and when the detective finally came to interview them, they stuck to it. The detective thank
ed them for their help and instructed them not to discuss what they’d seen with anyone, especially the news media.

  They regrouped at Benito’s.

  “One good thing about Drick meeting his doom,” Gavin pronounced, mozzarella garlanded from his mouth, “his curve dies with him.” He slurped up the remaining cheese, the last of a pizza bianca, and raised a foamy mug of root beer to his lips. “To Bs of all varieties: We hardly knew ye.”

  Cole couldn’t even think about celebrating. His head was sloppy with images he might never be rid of.

  Chetley falling to his knees and humping toward them, whimpering his innocence.

  The police hauling him away, arms pinned back, cuffs tinkling a tuneless melody.

  Drick’s remains sewn up into a body bag. The zipper snagging on a gnarled thread, refusing to budge.

  Drick’s remains.

  Drick’s remains.

  Drick’s remains.

  “A guy died,” Cole croaked. “Just hours ago. And you’re already reaping the benefits.”

  Gavin dabbed a napkin at the corners of his mouth. “I’d call it ‘taking comfort,’ but that’s the difference between you and me. Me: glass half full.”

  “Me: glass half empty?”

  “No, you: glass smashed to bits.”

  Cole would never have described Gavin as the sensitive type. But his attitude now was callous, even for him. “Doesn’t it bother you? One day he was our history teacher. The next day he isn’t. He’s nothing. Gone. Just lesson plans and a lanyard. A corpse.”

  Gavin looked down at his pizza as though he might divine an answer in its crust. He looked back up at Cole. Something was different in his eyes. “Of course it bothers me,” he said, without a trace of amusement. “I just don’t know what you want me to do about it. I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to get dramatic. It’s not like Drick was my father.”