Chapter 104: The Blunt Baggie Bandit

Tuesday, April 3, 1984

The news from school wasn’t as good as we’d hoped, but better than it could have been. We were still suspended today, but (pending a review by the School Board) our suspensions would be lifted tomorrow. Unless the School Board disagreed, there would be no black mark on our record, either.

I took advantage of the free day to check in with Martin Connelly. Since nothing had changed with my 1983 taxes, and since I wasn’t eligible to open any individual retirement accounts (thanks to how the IRS treated gambling winnings), he had everything we needed and would get me the tax paperwork shortly. This would involve yet another large check, but that’s how the whole thing worked, of course. At least this payment would be on time.

Angie and I just stayed at home until just a bit before school ended, then headed off to pick up Jas and Paige for Study Group. They told us that Principal Riggs had spent nearly ten minutes on the announcements going over the rules around lockers and the penalties anyone tampering with one, even for a harmless prank, would face, as well as reminding everyone not suspended that the honor code prohibited anyone from discussing specifics of their exams with those of us who were suspended.

I wasn’t sure that stressing locker rules was the best approach. Sure, the penalties would scare anyone, but the odds of being caught were extremely low. Most likely anyone who was caught would be some moron who was doing some dumb copycatting, anyway. Whoever’d done this in the first place was probably fairly good at it and knew how to keep a low profile.

In other words, calling out the penalties just highlighted how ineffective the school actually was at enforcing the rules. It called to mind the old adage ‘Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.’

In any case, there had been no further incidents. Cammie had heard from Megan that the UIL was making Calvin redo his drug test, but she was also certain that he’d pass, so that was mostly a non-issue, and would likely work in Calvin’s favor overall.

Study Group was a bit weird, since those who had taken the tests we’d missed wouldn’t talk about them, and we still needed to study for them. We managed, though. I suspected they’d either make a different test or at least change the order of the questions, but who knew?

Mel was fine. Her parents were just a trifle upset, but (like everyone else) they accepted that it was hardly Mel’s fault, not with so many others caught in this mess.

After Study Group, we went around picking up the winnings from the various bookies. Most just shrugged at the payout. They’d undoubtedly collected a lot of money that people had bet on Houston, after all, and while my winnings were an annoyance, that’s how the business works. Bookies have plenty of ways to make money, and there’s little attraction to betting if there aren’t winners.

The amount that I’d won from each bookie was nice, but quite reasonable. Of course, it amused me that cumulative winnings that would constitute a good couple of years’ salary for most middle-class people were no longer a particularly big deal for me. Useful, yes, but we had bigger fish to fry overall. The return on the Dell deal would absolutely demolish all of my gambling winnings. Admittedly, that was also a calculated risk, but of a different kind.

Of course, getting a large settlement in an auto accident case had never been part of the road map. This way we didn’t touch that money, which would keep Dad guessing about a lot of things. That was all to the good. I felt that we might well owe Mom and Dad some answers one day — but that day shouldn’t be too soon.

It might never come, at that. The situation was seriously different from that with some of the other people who we’d told. Right now, there was little question in my mind that Mom and Dad would be upset. In ten years? They might not be upset at all — indeed, they might be happy and flattered.

The past nearly four years had been barely recognizable compared to my first life. How in the world could we really predict how the coming years would go?

Brave new world indeed! Just, hopefully, more of a utopia than a dystopia.

Wednesday, April 4, 1984

We returned to school almost as normal, with the exception that everyone who had been suspended had to visit the office and formally get approval to be back on campus. That didn’t take much time, and the rest of the day wasn’t too bad. I wound up having three exams, though, which was worse than usual. By the time we headed to Drama I was feeling just a bit wrung out.

We heard from most of the people affected (the ones we knew, at least) over the course of the day. Everyone was doing fine, just annoyed at the way it’d disrupted exam week.

It felt like everyone else — teachers, other students, etc. — felt that way, too. Steffie went a bit easy on us today, but we’d pay for it sooner or later. ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ wasn’t going to memorize itself, after all.

Sam and I compared notes on Sadie Hawkins. The plan was for me to pick her up around five on Saturday, chat with her parents briefly, then take her to dinner before the dance. I’d long since met her parents, of course, so that was merely a formality. They wanted pictures, though, and I’d be happy to oblige.

During Drama, Angie, Jas, Paige, and I decided on dinner at Rico’s, but that was it. We’d do something more on Friday.

After a bit of thought, we invited Jess to join us, and she readily agreed.

Jess looked around Rico’s once we’d ordered and taken a seat. It was busier now, though we’d gotten there at a still-quiet time.

“This place is definitely a find,” she said.

I nodded. “A fair bit of luck involved in it.”

“I don’t think I ever would have gone in here before,” Paige said.

Jasmine shrugged. “I might have, but it’s hard to say.”

“And, for me ... probably?” Angie said. “Chicago’s got plenty of places that look shady on the outside, but are great on the inside.”

“Though probably half of those are actually shady,” I said.

Angie grinned. “Yeah, but the food’s good, and as long as you don’t ask why big strong guys in suits keep coming and going from the kitchen, all will be well.”

Paige snorted, then said, “Okay, now you have to take me to one of those places.”

“It’s a date!” Angie said.

“Me, too, if I get to Chicago,” Jess said.

“Everyone’s welcome!” Angie said, grinning.

“So, just to catch you up,” Jess said, “None of my sources know anything. At all! Not even a tiny bit. That probably doesn’t mean anything, because if any of them had done it, they’d be keeping quiet, too. I have this feeling that we’re never going to know. This could be anything from terribly stupid to wonderfully clever.”

“Good thinking on not picking it up,” Angie said. “I mean, obviously, but still. We all owe you one!”

Jess nodded. “I’m not sure what happened there. Was I the target? Or was I actually supposed to foil it? Was the whole thing intended to fail? That’s what I mean about wonderfully clever. Half of the good explanations work out to someone spending a fair bit of money on a scheme that would intentionally fail.”

“Just in case you’re wondering, there’s no parallel from my first-life universe,” I said.

“Nor mine,” Angie said.

Jess nodded. “I figured not, or you’d have warned us. The whole thing has me baffled. I’d worry about it more if we weren’t so close to graduation.”

“Yeah,” Jas said. “Out of sight, out of mind, pretty soon.”

“I still don’t like just letting it go,” Angie said. “But ... that’s another potential angle. Maybe the whole goal was to provoke a revenge war.”

“Someone with a lot of enemies trying to hit a few at once, and spread chaos along the way?” Jess said.

Angie nodded. “See, I want to blame Trish Harrison, but it’s just not her style. Well ... it wasn’t, and this one seems similar.”

“And it’s not Mike’s style,” I said.

Jess said, “You go way back?”

“With Mike, junior high for me — but I didn’t know him well until freshman year, really — and freshman year for Angie,” I said.

“And Trish and I were partners in crime my first go-round. Literally, in a few cases, though those cases only ran to kegs and joints,” Angie said.

Jess smiled, and said, “It goes without saying that I’m happy I’ve got this version of you.”

Paige grinned, then said, “I’m ecstatic! I don’t really like even thinking about that one too much. What I would’ve missed...”

Jas nodded, saying, “That’s me and first-life Steve. So much I’d have missed.”

“We all agree,” I said. “This universe is much better, even with some pot-baggie-stashing-lunatic on the prowl.”

Angie rolled her eyes.

“The Blunt Baggie Bandit,” Paige said.

“Good one!” Jas said.

We dropped the subject and moved on to other things. There wasn’t a lot more to be said. It was a mystery, and quite possibly always would be so.

Thursday, April 5, 1984

With everyone back and the bandit still on the loose (and likely to remain so), school returned almost entirely to normal, with the exception that everyone was considerably more careful about opening their lockers. That had happened before, after the other incidents, but this one was more likely to stick, I thought. No one wanted to be suspended, after all.

That, of course, was probably not true, but the people who wouldn’t mind the vacation from school still probably didn’t want it to happen the way it did for us.

Probably.

I was all caught up with exams by the end of the day. Not so for many of my friends, though, who still had more tomorrow. Drama and Debate took a lot of the worry out of things, thankfully. They added their own worries, of course, but that was fine.