Catholic, Reluctantly (The John Paul 2 High Series)
Page 21
Allie gulped. “No, you don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t know him. I just recognized his laugh…”
“Oh yeah, sorry,” Officer Jordan said. “You said it sounded sort of like the guy who shot at you, right?”
“Right,” Allie said. “But I…I could be wrong, I don’t know.” Her heart sank.
“What do you think?” Coach Lamar said.
“Well…” Officer Jordan said. “It’s not like I don’t take this sort of thing seriously, Arthur; I do. And I’m ready to believe this intruder had ill intent…but the bottom line is, we don’t have a lot to go on. I’ll dust the doors and hacksaw blade for prints, and I’ll see if I can get a forensics team down here, but…”
“But don’t count on it?”
“Yeah. I mean, all you got is a hacksawed door or two, really. That’s all.”
Allie turned away, feeling hopeless. “I can’t believe there’s not going to be more…” she muttered to George and Celia. Liz was there too, having been dropped off by Rich at the school so she could meet Celia for a ride home. “They’ve got to find the guy and stop him.”
“Well, at least you got to hear his voice,” Celia said. “And we got to see him.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t mean much,” Allie snapped. “And I didn’t really get a good glimpse. Did you?”
“No.” Celia sighed. “I didn’t.”
Allie’s cell phone rang. She opened it wearily and put it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Who is this?” a frantic voice said. “Is this Allie? Allie Weaver?”
“Yeah, this is Allie,” Allie said, alarmed. “Who’s this?”
“Allie, this is J.P.!” the voice said. “J.P. Flynn! Listen, uh…who else is there? I mean, from our school?”
“George is here.” Allie glanced around. “And Celia, and Brian. And Liz. Why? What’s going on?”
“Just get down here right now!” J.P. said frantically. “And bring everyone you can!”
Do you see J.P. anywhere?” Celia whispered.
Allie nearly fell after tripping on a hidden tree root. “How should I know where he is?” she whispered back crossly. “I don’t even know what we’re doing here!! It’s just going to be some more bull…”
Suddenly someone grabbed her hand and steadied her. “Watch yourself,” George said quietly.
His hand was warm, and strong. She found herself looking in his eyes again. “Um,” she said. “Thanks.”
He didn’t say anything, just grinned at her and then looked ahead and kept walking. But he didn’t let go of her hand.
“Where exactly are we supposed to meet—?” Brian whispered ahead of them.
“Quiet!” Suddenly, J.P.’s voice came from the underbrush. “Is that you guys?”
“Yeah, it is,” George said. “The gangs’ all here,”
“Minus James, who just wants to be left alone,” Liz inserted.
“Shhhh!” J.P. appeared in a dirty white T-shirt and jeans with a crazed look on his pale, freckled face.
“Thank God you guys got here in time!” he said. “I’ve been staking the place out all day, and he’s been here for ten minutes…”
“Who?” Brian said. “Not the poltergeist?”
“One and the same, my friend,” J.P. said, and pointed.
Allie rolled her eyes, but consented to look.
The John Paul 2 High building was only fifty feet away, and right as she looked, she saw some movement in the parking lot next to the woods.
“He was using a spray can,” J.P. whispered. “There’ll be some graffiti on the school on Monday…”
“Oh!” Celia said breathlessly. “I see him!”
Allie peered through the woods, her heart beating fast; and sure enough, she could make out a thin figure walking alongside the school. He was holding a can in one hand; and suddenly he raised it to the wall and started spraying.
“Oh my gosh!” Celia gasped. “I can’t believe it! How could he do that? What are we going to do?”
“Never fear, Celia,” J.P. said, and fished a cell phone out of his pocket. “This is the best part. Here comes the exorcism!”
He pushed a few buttons on the cell phone…and instantly pandemonium broke loose. The lights of the school turned on, and there was the sound of alarm bells going off; sirens, air horns, and even the familiar school bell.
The figure started, and he bolted away from the school and into the woods.
“Yeah! That’s right, you’d better run!” J.P. crowed as the rest of them jumped up in amazement.
“Come on!” George said, and took off running after the man. Allie kept pace with him, everyone else following. But even before they reached the woods, they heard the sound of a car starting.
“He’s getting away!” George gasped, and dropped Allie’s hand to sprint towards the road. But—too late!—a pair of red taillights sped away.
“Oh, man!” George said, panting as he watched the car go. “Did anyone get the license plate number?”
“AWWWWWWW YEAH!” J.P. was standing in front of the school doors, pointing at them and laughing his head off. “Who’s your daddy? That’s right! Who’s your daddy? I was RIGHT, there WAS a polterGEIST! I was RIGHT, there WAS a polterGEIST!” He started doing an incredibly stupid dance, right there in front of the school as they all watched him with open mouths.
“But now he got away,” George said in some frustration. “If you had just told us what you were going to do, we could have cornered him or …” he stopped, and then threw up his hands and grinned. “Okay, way to go, J.P. The poltergeist was real.”
“He was RIGHT…there was a polterGEIST,” Brian repeated, and then smacked himself. “I can't believe I just said that.”
“Pretty cool trap, huh?” J.P. said, running up to them.
“J.P.,” Celia said. “I’m so sorry. I really did think it was you.”
“Yeah, I did too,” Liz said. “Sorry.”
“How did you get those alarms to go off?” Brian asked, with an impressed look at the school, where the lights were still on and bells were still wailing.
“Oh, most of it’s running through my laptop,” J.P. said. “Recordings, you know. But the lights were on timers that I ran through my computer, and…”
“You did this all yourself?”
“Yeah, well, when I finally realized that I was up against a professional, I started working really hard at catching him. I had to work on it before school and during study halls…The least I could do was scare him away if he came sneaking back.”
“So,” George said after a long pause, “I guess we all misjudged you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” J.P. said, spreading his arms in a generous gesture. “The important thing is that the truth has finally triumphed, right? Like my namesake said, Verify the Spender!”
Silence, punctuated only by giggles from Celia and Allie greeted his words. Brian sighed and shook his head. Liz rolled her eyes. “What?” George said.
“I think he means Veritatis Splendor,” Allie said. “You know, the Splendor of Truth.”
“You know what that means?” Brian said.
“Well, I paid attention sometimes in Theology,” Allie said, playfully. “But…I think it means more to me now,” she said to herself. The Truth Guy, who had been following her around, had saved her, somehow or another… and the truth had helped her save George…and now, she remembered, it was her turn to do the following.
“Veritatis Splendor,” she whispered again, and for the first time she thought it sounded beautiful. “Veritatis Splendor! Wow!”
“Uh, Allie?” George was giving her a strange look. “Are you okay?”
She smiled at him. “Never better.”
There was a rustle from the dusky forest to his right. It was ever so slight, but George’s ears caught it. He pretended not to notice, his mind racing to form a plan of action. They were at least a minute’s run from the school, probably more through the woods, in the snow, in the dark. He co
uld outrun whoever it was, but Allie—
“Everything’s fine,” he said out loud, then whispered to Allie, “When I move, run!”
He took a step, made as if to take her hand. “GO!” he hissed in her ear, and whipped around in a low crouch, ready for anything. Allie, to her credit, took off toward the school without hesitation.
He knew he needed to buy Allie some time before he could make his escape, but the sound of her tearing through the woods was gone, and there was no sound of pursuit. Maybe there really wasn’t anybody there. Or maybe it wasn’t Allie he was after.
George’s heart was pounding with fear and adrenaline as he slowly, silently approached an old, hollowed-out tree near the frozen stream a few yards from the Rock.
Suddenly the surrounding forest was alive with sound and movement. He’d caught something by surprise; whatever it was jerked back from the tree, causing clumps of snow to drop from the overhead branches. They landed on George’s head, cold and sudden, startling and blinding him for a moment. He put his hands up out of reflex to ward off any blows and quickly shook the snow off.
He heard a cracking sound, and a scraping, and saw a person wearing a black trench coat stumble across the ice to the opposite bank—James?
No. Maybe.
He wasn’t sure. But whoever it was took off into the woods, glancing back as he ran. In the waning moonlight, George caught a glimpse of a face, perhaps looking back to see if anyone was following. It was a frightened face, distorted with surprise and anger, only turned toward him for a moment.
But that moment was long enough for him to recognize the menacing glare of Tyler Getz.
Christian M. Frank is the pen name for a group of writers known as the John Paul 2 High Team. They developed the series and created the characters, and several of them take turns writing the books.
Book One was written by John Doman. The sixth of ten children, it took John years to find out what he wanted to do with his life. After his graduation from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2000, he embarked on several different career paths—sports writer, barista, singer-songwriter, pizza guy—before he found his true calling: fixing computers. John lives with his wife Katie near Philadelphia, PA. In his spare time, he posts videos on YouTube of himself playing crazy songs on the guitar for his young son, and writes books for Catholic teens. If you run into him, give him a dollar.
Table of Contents
1. The First Day
2. Under Inspection
3. Great Wall of Quotes
4. Followed
5. Trying Out
6. Into the Woods
7. Feast of St. Francis
8. Fresh Meet
9. Guns
10. Squealer
11. That Weird Word
12. Don't Have a Cow
13. 'Schooled
14. James' Idea
15. Two Bad Jokes
16. Saints vs. Spooks
17. Choosing Sides
18. James' Revenge
19. The Big Decision
20. The Hazing
21. Sectionals
22. The Splendor of Truth
The Story Continues...
About the Author