Chapter 20: Turning the Tables

Monday came, and when nothing spectacular happened before the scheduled assembly and the kids walked unimpeded into the auditorium, there was a real sense of letdown. Tamara took a seat in the center, about ten rows back from the stage. She ensured that no one sat directly in front of her by “suggesting” to nearby kids that there was chewing gum stuck on the seats there, yuk.

As she expected, Dr Barello had decided to let Mr Laguerre run the show. He was standing on the empty stage and was using a microphone on a stand while three teachers stood near him, two men and a woman. Tamara recognized the woman; it was Miss Tina Pierce, a P.E. teacher, and most of the girls disliked her for her bullying attitude toward those kids who weren’t athletic and the rumor was that she liked girls—the buff ones. Tamara had experienced a few problems with the teacher too; she had noticed that Tamara was a very talented volleyball player and had excellent speed and form when she ran on the track and had begun pressuring her to join the volleyball and track teams. When Tamara had refused, the woman began bullying her too.

Tamara had also deduced several things about Mr Laguerre’s nature from sensing his emotional aura. He was interested in the Program because he was somewhat of a voyeur; Tamara had noticed how the man’s emotional state changed when a pretty girl passed him. Not only did his eyes follow, his libido surged too. She didn’t know much about the other two men, but she could feel the emotion of excited anticipation from them.

Okay, they’re all sort of perverts too, she decided.

“I want to welcome everyone to our much-delayed assembly about our Naked in School Program,” Laguerre began. “With me are your P.E. teachers. When the time comes, I’ll be calling up onto the stage the selected Program participants for the week and have them undress. For those who need assistance or are unwilling, these teachers will help.”

Some moans and hissing sounded from the audience. Tamara turned on the maser she had built into her backpack, the one she had tested on her rats. She turned its power up to maximum and kept it aimed at the group standing on the stage.

Laguerre began describing the Program rules from the booklet that everyone had gotten.

“The Program requires that all participants be totally naked, between now and midnight on the coming Sunday, during school hours and also while attending any school-sponsored activities. You mustn’t make any attempt to hide or cover yourself; doing so is a Program violation which can result in your being required to repeat your week. If you don’t complete the Program, you won’t be allowed to graduate.”

Tamara watched the teachers as they became more and more uncomfortable, beginning to shift around and fan themselves with their hands.

“When you’re not in class, then you must permit other students to touch, fondle, or play with your sexual parts—that’s what we call ‘Reasonable Requests,’” he went on.

While she was beaming the RF waves at them, she was close enough to lock into one teacher’s after another’s eyes as she “pushed” a pinkish-green taste at them, one that she had found would make the suggested person quickly give into subconscious impulses.

Laguerre was visibly sweating now as he tried to keep his composure.

“In the classroom, during the beginning ... of any class, participants are allowed ... ah, um, to masturbate to orgasm with or without assistance of another student—we call that ‘Relief.’ Err, ah, um ... And teachers can choose to use Program students for any necessary ... ahh ... teaching demonstration, such as a model for sex studies in biology ... aah ... or as a figure model in art or photography.

“Boys and girls on the Program, err ... must use the rest room facilities and locker rooms and showers of the opposite sex. Those of you ... ahhh ... who are in sports or performing arts ... will participate in those activities naked as well.”

Making eye contact with the teachers on the stage, Tamara started “pushing” hard the suggestion that the extreme heat and the Program and the required nudity and the discomfort and the pretty girls and it was okay to be naked—for all of these reasons, they all needed to join in with the Program’s required nudity too. She wondered if her doing that could even work; it was such a long shot and the weakest part of her plans for wreaking mayhem. But something in her thoughts had assured her that the people on the stage, being so interested in voyeurism as they were, would be susceptible to that suggestion. Even so, she was amazed and gratified by what followed.

Sweating profusely now, Jude Laguerre forgot all about the rest of his planned instructions and muttered, “Oh, hell,” and began to tear off his clothes. The others on the stage, yielding to Tamara’s “pushed” emotion which made them surrender to their subconscious impulses, followed Laguerre’s lead and quickly followed suit. Within a few seconds, the four were standing there, on the center of the stage, naked, staring blankly at each other and at the turmoil that had erupted in the audience. They couldn’t understand why everyone out there was in such an uproar.

The kids in the audience couldn’t believe their eyes, while the teachers in the auditorium aisles began running around, trying to find blankets or something to cover the naked teachers; finally two teachers went up on stage and persuaded the naked four to go into the wings.

Tamara shut off her maser, congratulated herself, and thanked the lwa. She was sure that they had played a hand in that performance. Now, let’s get people out of here while there’s still an uproar going on, she thought.

She slipped away to a dark corner of the hall, took out her mike—which she had prepared by taping some layers of cloth and aluminum foil over the working end—and in a quavering voice, spoke.

“This is what the spirits do when teachers plan to mistreat our children. Now, children, leave this hall of meeting and never obey any improper demands to remove clothes. Ale byen vit pou yo pa bezwen plis nidite! I, Anansi, the spider trickster spirit, have spoken.”

The broken, garbled voice boomed out of the auditorium’s speakers, but the words were understandable, even the Kreyòl, “Depart quickly lest more nudity is needed!” The kids reacted with shouts of approval and laughter when they saw that many teachers were among the first people to flee the room; several were actually running.

The shouts were heard: “Yeah, Anansi!”... “Love the spirits!”... “Way to go, Anansi!”

Keeping her “small” aura of projection, Tamara moved closer to the front of the hall, near the wings where the naked teachers had gone. She had seen Barello go up there a minute ago and was curious to learn what her teacher victims thought.

“I’m so fuckin’ embarrassed!” she heard Pierce exclaim.

“Whatever possessed you to do that?” Barello asked.

“‘Possessed’ is exactly the word!” shouted one of the male teachers. “Something in my head demanded that I ... damn! The heat! It was so damned hot up there too—look, my clothes are soaked.”

“The auditorium is cool,” Barello objected. “There aren’t any floodlights—how was it so hot?”

Laguerre spoke, “I was sweating rivers and then it came over me like a compulsion, I had to strip. Not only I had to, it was like—ah, doing that was proper, since this was the Program.”

“The Program is for the children, not the staff, let me remind you,” Barello told him dryly.

The other male teacher interrupted, “Why is all this shit happening? ‘Spirits’ taking over the P.A., fiery floors, tampered locks, crazy bells ringing randomly—all of them are like scenes out of ‘locked-room’ mysteries. And disembodied voices too. I know that I was possessed somehow. I always thought voodoo was just superstition, but this is way too much...”

“Yeah, Patricia, can you explain this crap away? I’m not gonna be able to face my kids again—this was fuckin’ mortifying.”

“Well, Tina, I really can’t answer. There really does seem to be some strange power at work here. We had a service guy spend a day here trying to find the problem with the school’s bells and he found nothing.”

Mrs Leonard had joined them and she spoke now.

“It seems that all the recent problems have occurred when we try to have an assembly. What if we just call the children to the office and start the Program week like that?” she asked.

“We tried that once or twice. The P.A. stopped working, remember?” Barello told her. “Look, we’re solving nothing here. Let’s just try to get the day back on track now.”

When Barello got back to the office and tried to use the P.A. to ask the students, who were milling around everywhere other than where they belonged, to go to their classrooms for the current appropriate period, she found that it wasn’t working again—and then the school period-change bell rang. It was midway through the second period now—the bell should not have rung then. Angrily, she slammed the mike stand down on the counter and stalked into Leonard’s office.

“Maria, how are we going to get the children back? The P.A. stopped working again and the stupid bells are screwed up again too!”

Tamara slipped away to a quiet alcove that led to an emergency exit. Good. No one here, she thought, relieved. Have to work fast.

She got out the wireless mike and with a deep, raspy voice, she intoned, “My treasured children. You have seen the anger of the spirits, now you must return to your studies. I will cause the bell to ring now—go to classrooms. I, Papa Ghede, have spoken.”

Tamara activated the bells, then she went to the office.

“Hello, Mrs Leonard, Dr Barello. Anything for me to do?” she asked innocently. “It’s all been crazy today and I guess there’s just a half period now, or what? The bells keep going. And who’s been in here using the school P.A.? The kids are going crazy with those weird announcements.”

The two women looked at each other and shrugged.

“Tamara, I wish I could answer. I’ve truly lost control of this school,” Barello moaned. “Let me check this thing again.”

She turned the P.A. mike on again and tried, “This is Dr Barello.” Leonard gave her a thumb’s up and she nodded. “Classes will resume now on the regular schedule. Please be orderly during class changes; today has been ... unusual. That is all. Thank you.”

She walked over to a chair in the waiting area of the office and slumped into it.

“Maria, what’s happening here? Is Edison really haunted?”

Leonard could only shrug her shoulders.

One week later

The following Monday, Barello had decided not to try to start the Program with an assembly—she’d have Mr Laguerre—of whom little had been seen all week—bring the participant list to the office to call the selected students to come to the conference room to strip.

Laguerre took out a very rumpled-looking envelope from a folder, turned on the mike, and tentatively spoke into it.

“Attention, Edison students. This is Mr Laguerre. We are commencing calling participants to begin the Program this morning, so when I call your name, take your backpacks or whatever, and report to the office. I will call you by grade, beginning with the twelfth.”

He read the list of eight names and waited expectantly. And waited. Finally, with five minutes left in the home room period, he announced the names again, adding, “If I called your name, you must report. If you fail to do so, you will have a second week added to your Program participation.”

Nobody came to the office and the bell rang, ending the period. A teacher stopped into the office.

“Jude, can I see that list?” she asked and he handed it to her. “Ah! Where did you get this? All these kids graduated last year.”

Laguerre looked helplessly at Miss Wojinsky.

“I printed that from the school’s Program database; the app selects students randomly,” she explained.

Barello came out of her office. “Jude, you have the backup list?”

“Yeah, the one supposed to be for week two. In my office.”

“Please get it and read it when the period starts,” Barello told him.

When the next period began, he began to announce the names; he got five names read before Barello stopped him, her face turning bright red with anger.

“Stop, stop. You’re reading the names of teachers, stop,” she shouted.

Confused, he looked at her and at the list. Its format clearly matched the Program database’s participant printout.

Barello went to the secretary’s desk. “Claire, does that database allow reprinting of names?”

“Sure. I have three sets generated, for three Program weeks. I can reprint a past selection.”

“Could you print weeks 2 and 3, please?” Barello asked.

She did and Barello looked at the Week 2 list. All teachers’ names. She looked at Week 3 and it had the names of past graduates. She showed the list to Wojinsky.

“How could that happen, Claire?” she asked. “We sent the list of our current students to the national Program Office last year just before they shut down the agency. They sent the database back together with the participant selection app.”

“I just used the app exactly as it came, Patricia,” she told her. “To access that database, it needs two keys, the password and a one-time token that the Program office computer emails to the registered school after I enter the password. No one can make changes without having those credentials. I accessed the database just once; that was when you told me to print the lists for the first few weeks. I gave those three lists to Mr Laguerre.”

“Hmmm. And his lists are the same as what you just printed. I saw the trial list you printed out in the fall when we first got the database from national; it had all current student names. So how did they get changed—and how did teachers’ names get added?” Barello asked, frustrated.

Everyone looked at each other and shrugged.

“Well, can you run the app and get a brand-new list?” Barello asked.

“Okay. Be a minute. I need to log in and request an access token—oh, what if their computer is no longer—okay, no problem. Here’s the token.”

She entered it and selected the option for a randomized list of eight names, two students per grade.

“Oops, there’s an error message ... what? It says ‘No Data’?”

Barello looked over her shoulder. “Can you display the names, like in an on-screen list?”

Wojinsky pushed some keys and a blank screen appeared.

“There aren’t any names now in there now. They were there a few weeks ago. I don’t understand...”

“Can you enter names manually?”

“Only by typing them in one by one and each name takes four screens to go through. See, first I need to enter my password, select ‘New entry.’ Then on the second window, the student’s grade. Third screen, the student number. The final one, the last name, first, and middle. They didn’t set this up to be done manually since they wanted to keep the lists as tamper-proof as possible. With 847 kids, manual entry would take days? Weeks?”

“Okay, let’s send the student list to the Program Office computer. That’s how we got the database to begin with, right?”

“Okay.”

She found the student list that they had sent out the prior October to the national Office of Social Awareness and several minutes later, a message arrived:

“Host or domain name not found.

Name service error for name=listgen.osa.gov type=text/encrypted; char-set=null: Host not found.”

Wojinsky looked at Barello. “They must have shut that machine down or something.”

Barello thought for a moment. “How did you get the token then?”

She tapped some keys, then, “That used a different address. Something at Login.gov. Probably that one works for all the agencies.”