Chapter 84: Return of the Mack

When Tim got home, rather than immediately go to bed, he took another shower to feel better. His hormones were running like crazy, mainly powered up by the constant sexual teasing from the ladies present at the party, so he had to spray several large spurts of future Tim Murphys down the shower drain after they collected on the tiled wall of the shower.

After abusing himself a few times in the shower, Tim returned to his bedroom and got ready to go to bed. Instead of turning in, he fired up his computer and started reading up on the phalanx formation used by the Darq squad. The strangeness of the Darq Squad’s Saturday night rebirth was how they seemed to know what they were doing. It was as if they had received training to protect their leader, giving Tommy an air of dominance over the group.

An hour later, Tim was impressed with the use of the ancient protection formation. After replaying the events in his head via his nanites, Tim decided the Darq squad looked like they understood the formation and how to use it to defend their leader or carry out an attack ordered by their leader.

The feeling of school pride was still palpable early Monday after the Rough Riders won their game against the Austin Westlake Chaparrals the previous Saturday night.

However, after the first-period football practice, the team returned to a different atmosphere that had overtaken the school. Everyone was quiet, seemingly desperate to avoid attracting attention. Initially, Tim chalked it up to the weirdness of teenage humans.

He was taking his seat in Journalism class when he heard the first indication of something out-of-bounds happening within the school after the triplets approached him.

“Tim, do you know about these guys, the Darq Squad?” Margie mumbled.

“Yeah, they’re not good. I suggest you stay away from them whenever possible.”

“No shit! It was easy to see those guys were bad news.”

“I didn’t see you or your sisters at the party Saturday night. How’d you hear about the Darq Squad?”

Margie looked at Tim like he was the dumbest person she had ever met.

“Margie, he had football first period. He doesn’t know what happened,” Marcie explained.

Tim, now worried, sat up straighter in his seat and shredded any semblance of being quiet. “What happened?”

“You and your friends can gossip later, Mr. Murphy. Right now, it’s time for the morning announcements, and then I have an assignment for everyone,” Mr. Baird announced from behind his podium at the head of the class while using his thumbs to iron out wrinkles in his shirt from his belt buckle to his sides. Almost on cue, the classroom TV turned on, and the school’s TV news program introduced itself.

Tim barely paid attention to the announcements while running different scenarios of what might have happened since Saturday night. As if she were reading his mind, Margie leaned over to Tim, and Tim closed the gap to hear. “Apparently, the Darq Squad came back to classes this morning. They are everywhere, but it’s like pod people might have replaced them. They seem to be interested in class. From what I heard, a few of them have even been attentive and participating in their class.”

“Surely, you can’t be serious!” he snapped back.

“Of course I am!” Margie paused and sat up straighter. “And don’t call me Shirley.”

“You left yourself wide open for that one, Mr. Murphy,” Mr. Baird bellowed from his desk. “Please gossip later ... announcements!” The teacher let his warning linger as he pointed to the TV screen mounted in the upper corner of the classroom.

“And finally, sports,” the senior bleach-blonde newscaster announced. Tim found himself proud of the tight and exciting retelling of Saturday night’s football win.

“Wow. That was close to professional,” Tim said a little too loudly.

The student-produced TV show was running its closing credits as Mr. Baird retook his post behind his podium with another self-ironing of the front of his button-down dress shirt. “I’ll be sure to let the class know you approve.”

There was a minor outburst of laughter, and the teacher let it go on for a few seconds before taking control of the class.

“Okay, take one and pass them onto the next person.” The teacher handed a stack of papers to the nearest student and waited until it was about halfway through making its way around the classroom. “It’s a quasi pop quiz, so I hope you didn’t celebrate the victory over the weekend too much. I took the opportunity to write up a press conference about something, and I want all of you to write a straight news story about it and then turn it in at the end of class. If you finish it way too early, Mr. Murphy, go ahead and write an editorial about the news conference. That’ll be extra credit for those of you who wish to try it.”

Mr. Baird took a moment to look around and saw the majority of students already reading the quiz sheet. “No questions? Good. On we go!”

He looked around the class and, seeing no one paying attention to him, he stuck his thumbs behind his belt buckle and dragged them opposite to his sides, ironing his shirt around his waist. Then, the teacher started walking out of the class, stopping before opening the classroom door. “Oh yeah, one last thing. Eyes on your own paper, and please, no talking to anyone else about the assignment. Honor system, please, you hooligans!”

After a round of polite laughter, Mr. Baird returned to his office across the hall.

Tim began typing almost immediately. He read the entire sheet before it was finished going around the classroom. Within ten minutes and a few revisions, Tim connected to the class network and printed out the story. The printer firing up surprised everyone. However, everyone in the room knew who was printing.

“Fuck, Mayhem! At least make it seem like it took you a second to write the fucking thing,” another member of the football team joked, receiving another round of laughs.

Tim didn’t even acknowledge the joke and started in on his editorial with the information given. This one took a few minutes longer, but he still finished it earlier than everyone else. A few other fast writers were also printing out their initial straight news stories.

Luckily for Tim, Margie was one of the fast writers and completed the assignment well within the allotted class time. “So, you were talking about what happened this morning...” Tim left his question wide open for an answer.

Margie looked at her sisters, but they were still working on their assignments. “Well, they returned. When they are still wearing the Spurs gear, I understand they didn’t really care about school. Now, it looks like they are determined to do well in class. I’ve heard they are even participating during class. Mind you, this is the first day, but I heard they weren’t like that before. Were they?” she asked. Tim shook his head ‘no’ and sat back in his chair.

Twenty minutes later, others began finishing their assignments, and most didn’t go after the extra credit assignment. Unsurprisingly, discussions revved up, and the re-emergence of the Darq Squad was the number one topic. “Was anyone else at the party?” Tim asked those who had finished. He recognized a couple of classmates who were there but had to admit to himself that he was pretty busy for a lot of the party.

“Which one?” a girl retorted.

“What?” Tim was confused. “There was more than one party?”

“Oh, sure. I think the swim club and a bunch of the track team held a party, and the Darq squad showed up at that one. From the sound of it, you guys went to the band party. Trust me, you didn’t miss anything. I think we went to the wrong party and called it an evening soon after the Darq Squad left. They did the same thing at this party as they did at yours, but it seems like they stuck around yours a little bit longer. None of them were dancing but were friendly,” Marcia volunteered from the other side of the table. Her sisters quickly agreed.

“I talked to Tommy when he showed up at the party,” Tim noted, as if talking to the head of the biggest gang in the school was a regular thing.

“You didn’t!” Margie hissed.

“Yes, I did. You weren’t there.” All three sisters looked at him like he had just said the stupidest thing they had ever heard.

“What did you two talk about?” she queried.

“He asked about the game and what I think about our next victims,” Tim said proudly. “So I told him we were going to beat them, too.”

The triplets just looked at Tim with a mysterious warning glare, but they kept their thoughts to themselves ... until Marcia didn’t. “Be careful messing with him. He’s trouble with a capital T.”

“I know. I promise.”

Algebra was a breeze as well. No one wanted to gossip, and Tim considered that just fine. He just did all the assignments for the week, so he didn’t have to worry about that class until next week.

English got interesting.

Tim always mentally prepped himself before going to English class. It never felt right to have unfinished personal matters with his English teacher and one-time paramour, Julianne Holmes. He left their possible budding relationship before it could get established, but he did have sex with her once, and it was glorious. However, the idea of dating his teacher never sat right with Tim, so he did the most teenage thing he could do. He just ignored it and hoped it would go away. So far, that worked, and she never brought it up, either.

After turning the corner before his English class, he noticed two huge guys dressed in black Spurs jerseys standing outside the door. He looked at them as he entered, and they paid attention to him as he entered.

“Ah, hey, Mayhem! What’s up?” Tommy was standing before Miss Holmes’ desk while she did some paperwork.

“Hey, Tommy, what brings you here?” Tim asked, obviously confused.

“Oh yeah, I got this class when I re-enrolled for classes. Awesome! We got the same class,” Tommy mockingly leaned over and held his hand over his mouth like he was going to tell a secret. “Now I know I got someone to cheat off of.”

Tim politely chuckled, and Tommy looked at his new teacher. “Sorry, I’m only kidding. Well, mostly.”

“Take a seat. Both of you,” the English teacher asserted with her subtle smile.

“Yo. This seat is empty. You can take this one,” Tim pointed out as Tommy approached the second-to-last seat in the row.

Many more classmates were doing imitations of fish out of water when they saw who was sitting in their class. They quickly made their way to their seats and tried to ignore the elephant in the room.

“Hey, before class starts, what’s with the guys at the door?”

“Oh, that’s just Jerry and Terry. They watch my back.” Tommy didn’t say anything else, and Tim decided it was as good an answer as any.

The bell rang, and Miss Holmes stood up behind her podium. “Okay, everyone. I hope you finished your reading last night. Tommy, you are excused from the quiz since you’ll need time to catch up.” As Tommy raised his hand, she acknowledged him, “Yes, Tommy?”

“What book is the quiz about?”

“To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“If it’s okay with you, I’d like to try to take the quiz. I’ve read the book, but it has been a while. If I do terribly, can I take you up on the offer to skip it?”

Several light snickers were heard throughout the class. Miss Holmes smiled, nodded yes, and handed back an extra test for the row to pass.

A few minutes later, Tim stood to return the test to Miss Holmes’ desk. Not long after, several others did the same, with Tommy falling about in the middle of those who finished.

While Tommy was turning in his quiz, Tim informed his nanites to keep several eyes on him and watch for anything out of the ordinary from the gang leader. He used a pseudo-typing trick on his thigh to ask them for their thoughts on a possible endgame for having his gang rejoin the school.

“We cannot yet form an opinion on Tommy’s motives. However, we will continue working on this problem. If we come up with any conclusions, we will inform you, “ appeared across the bottom of Tim’s line of sight.

“Thank you,” Tim typed on his thigh.

“We do have one thing to bring up,” appeared across the eyesight and quickly disappeared. “We believe it might be prudent to begin hand-to-hand combat training.”

“You’re right.” Tim took a moment while Tommy returned to his seat.

“I’m actually surprised I still remembered the book so well,” Tommy posited as he sat back at his school desk. “I think I did pretty well with that.”

Tim couldn’t help but think Tommy’s smile seemed sincere. “Yeah, she’s a good teacher. If you keep up with the reading and basically understand what is going on, you’ll do just fine in this class.”

Tommy nodded in understanding as he pulled out a notebook to prepare to take notes for the next part of the class. The rest of the class passed with nothing of note.

“I’ll catch you later, man,” Tommy offered with a head nod while leaving for lunch with the bell. Tim was having a little trouble believing the change in character from the Tommy he had dealt with in the past to the Tommy who had just spent a regular hour discussing “To Kill A Mockingbird” with a class of high school students.

Luckily, Tim had safely swallowed a bite of hamburger before Johnnie Boynes smacked him on the shoulder to get his attention. “Dude. What is this I hear about you becoming friends with Tommy?” he asked. This revelation brought the attention of their friends sitting around the cafeteria table.

“I walked into my fourth-period English class, and he was waiting for Miss Holmes to finish her paperwork to add him to the class rolls. The only desk still available was next to me. He seemed all cool. He even took the quick test Miss Holmes gave everybody. He said he’d read the book before and wanted to go ahead and take the test.”

The guys at the table gave perturbed grunts and shook their heads in opposition to what they were hearing. When Tim remembered the joke told to the teacher, and a smile crept onto his face. Johnnie noticed. “What? What’s so funny?”

Tim put his half-eaten hamburger on his paper plate and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Miss Holmes offered to let him off the test, but he asked to try and take it but then asked if he screwed up too much, could she go ahead and forget he took the test,” Tim relayed. “I thought it was funny.”

The guys around the table grunted and shook their heads, agreeing that it was funny. They went back to eating, and so did Johnnie.

Lunch ended with everyone discussing the upcoming game with Galena Park North Shore on Saturday afternoon. The team would leave after school on Friday to go to Waco, Texas. The game itself would be played on the home field of Baylor University, McLane Stadium. Both teams would arrive in town on Friday afternoon, and each would be allowed one hour of practice time on the main field.

Most of the players were more interested in the overnight stay in Waco. The rest of the student body was trying to figure out ways to get to the game, either by arrangements paid for by the school or by carpooling with anyone with a car who was going to drive. Most of those were putting together small parties to help decorate their vehicles for the ride up to Waco from San Antonio.

“Hey, Doc Johnson, what’s up?” Raymond Murphy answered his phone while walking to his car to go home from work.

“Hey, do you have a few minutes tonight for a quick meeting?”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, no. Nothing is wrong. One of the other members of the Booster Club had a good idea, and we should probably do it. Can you come over to my house for a few minutes?”

“Um, let me call you back in a couple of minutes. Gotta ask the boss.”

“No problem,” Dr. Johnson answered with a small laugh as he hung up.

A few moments later, Juanita answered the house phone. “Murphy residence.”

“Hey, honey, I just got out of work, and I got a call from Doctor Johnson. Apparently, someone in the Booster Club had some kind of idea for this weekend’s game. He asked me to come over to his house for a few minutes. I think he’s hitting me up for a donation for something. I dunno what.”

“And you’re calling me because?” Juanita answered in a sing-song style, which made her husband smile.

“Would you like to come with me, or should I go and get it over with as soon as possible?

“It’s like you can read my mind. I’ll keep your food warm until you get here, and you can let us all know what’s going on.”

“Sounds good. I’ll try to get away as soon as I can. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Juanita hung up with a smile as she always seemed to do whenever she talked to her man.

“Who was that?” The precocious fourth grader Carmen asked as she bounded into the kitchen from her bedroom. “Is dinner ready yet? I’m starving.”

“Yes, dinner is ready. Go get your brother. He got here a couple of minutes ago, and your father called to say he was going to be a little bit late.”

Tim entered the room while sliding on a plain white t-shirt. “What’s keeping Dad late?”

“Something about the Booster Club at your school. We can eat now, and he can get his out of the stove.”

Both brother and sister laughed. Juanita had long-standing rules: if you missed dinner, you had to get it out and serve yourself. That also meant you had to wash your dishes. No self-respecting teenager or soon-to-be teenager wanted to get caught doing their dishes.

“We could always wait for him to get home.” Juanita’s sing-song voice was back.

Tim and Carmen looked at each other. “I’ll set the table,” Tim announced.

“Me, too!” Carmen chimed in.

Juanita smiled as she turned to begin bringing pots and pans to the table.

“Hey, Raymond, come on in. With you here, we got ourselves a quorum. We can bring an official meeting to order,” Dr. Johnson said, shaking Raymond’s hand and pulling him into the house. Raymond and Juanita both had spent some time in the Johnson home previously since the Advisory Committee meetings of the Booster Club would meet there every other week. The whole club would use a room at the school, sometimes the cafeteria and often the auditorium.

“Please, everyone, let’s take a seat and get this started so you can go home and outta mine!” The laughter was polite while everyone sat around the large dining table the Johnson’s used to host these official meetings.

“Okay, Kevin, what’s got a bee in your bonnet?” challenged Jim Streeter with a deep Texas accent. His son, Mark Streeter, was a junior defensive lineman who got promoted to a backup role with the varsity when the first grading period finished. With so many blowout games for the year, Mark Streeter saw significant playing time while the coaches rested the starters. He stood a good chance of being in a starting position for the next year, his senior season.