Chapter 44: Intense Pressures

After the morning break we had to head to German. Jason was clearly unhappy with the prospect of seeing Miss Kirke, if that was her real name now that we had discovered her previous occupation. However, Letty convinced him that missing class would only alert her to the fact that her activities had been discovered.

My sister grabbed his arm as we walked from the courtyard. "I'll protect you," she whispered just loud enough for Jason and me to hear. "I'm sure Kelsey and Kathy will help as well. Just pay attention to us during class today."

"What if she tries to catch my eye? She usually whispers something to me as we are leaving the classroom," Jason asked.

"Oh Damn!" Millie shouted just as we reached the door to our German classroom. "Jason didn't I leave the flour in your locker? We are supposed to be baking bread in our cooking class. Can you run and grab it as soon as our class is over?"

Jason gave me a puzzled look, but Jessica spoke preventing him from saying anything. "Yes, I remember Millie went out and found some special flour. Most of the students will be trying to us all-purpose flour, but Millie found a bread flour that is supposed to be perfect for the kind of sandwich loaves we are supposed to be baking today. I remember you had space in your locker."

Jason grabbed my shoulder and leaned over. "What flour?" he whispered frantically.

I turned to look right at my friend. "You'll have to rush out right at the end of class to get it. Don't let anyone slow you down. It's a bit of a run to your locker and then to our cooking class." As I finished speaking I carefully winked my eye.

Jason's eyes lit up. "Of course. Sorry, I wasn't thinking there. We've used all-purpose flour every other time we baked."

"That was for biscuits or cookies," my sister pointed out as we found our seats and started to sit down. Miss Kirke was standing at the whiteboard and carefully writing out several words. I recognized them as the words being introduced in the next chapter of the text. I pulled my text book out and turned to the first page in the chapter.

Class seemed to drag a bit once Miss Kirke had finished writing the words. My friends and I were prepared, but several students were already falling behind. I noticed that all of them had CAP scores below five and two openly challenged Miss Kirke when she pointed out that they were failing the class.

"Why should I care?" one of the low CAP students responded. "We all heard about the aliens. They are going to come to Earth and eat everyone still here. If you want to leave you have to kiss someone's ass and I'm not going to do that."

"You might try studying," Jessica said scornfully. "If you showed that you were willing to improve you might raise your CAP score."

"It still means I'm sucking someone's cock!" the other failing student shouted back. "Maybe its some alien's, but you don't get a seven on your CAP without blowing someone."

Kathy started giggling. Millie joined in. They seemed to be having trouble taking the outburst seriously. I could see the one boy's face turning red and waved for Kathy to stop giggling. She nodded at me and then stood up.

"Is that all you think happens?" Kathy asked the boy with the red face. "Look, I'm not someone who has a great score, and even again if I tried I doubt I'd get one high enough to volunteer. I'm not someone who will stand up for others normally."

"You're doing it now," Millicent muttered.

Kathy reached out to run her fingers through Millie's hair, causing Miss Kirke to scowl. "I said normally. Anyways, the key with the whole CAP thing isn't sexual. I get a feeling its not even about the aliens dominating us. I've been dominated and they aren't doing that directly."

"No, they just order you to accept it from others," a girl sitting on the far side of the room said in a hopeless monotone.

"If you listen to scum like Walter that can happen," Kathy agreed.

Miss Kirke tried to insert herself into the conversation. "Wait! Who is Walter? And how do you know this?"

"I had a few classes with Walter last year," Kathy said scornfully. "Somehow the bastard managed to get a six point five score and since that day he's tried to use that to force girls to be his whores."

"Don't you mean lovers?" Miss Kirke asked coldly. "And we should be getting back to the vocabulary."

"Why don't we do that then?" Kathy chirped. She turned to the board and read the next verb before sitting down.

There were grumbles from several of our classmates, but as soon as Kathy finished reading the next verb, Millie jumped in and read the next line.

Class resumed after that. Miss Kirke made sure we went over more than two dozen new verbs and informed us that our homework would be to use each verb in at least two sentences. We also had to use past, present and future tense variations in our work.

I should admit that I paid very little attention to Miss Kirke's instructions and teaching that day. The extensive studying my friends and I had completed in the previous weeks meant that for us this was a review of words we were already familiar with. However, I did watch her eyes. She seemed to have a slight smirk on her face, but one that faded when she looked over at Jason.

My friend had been proper in class, answering the two times Miss Kirke called on him, but speaking only the words he was assigned and then sinking down in his desk. I had made sure to jump in right after he finished to help conceal the fact that Jason was upset. Miss Kirke had said nothing, but I saw her take a step toward Jason as the bell rang signaling the end of class.

I jumped from my chair, but Matti and Kelsey had already dashed forward. Matti had her book open to the chapter we were studying and demanded that Miss Kirke help her with something on one of the pages. I could see Kelsey standing next to the duo and watching Jason as our friend grabbed his book bag and sprinted from the classroom.

"Jason," Miss Kirke shouted. "I wanted to ask you a question."

Jason spun in the doorway. "I have to run and grab something. We'll talk later," he cried as he disappeared from view.

I picked up my own bag and then collected Kelsey's from her desk. Kathy was waiting for me by the door as I stepped out and began heading towards our cooking class. "She suspects something," Kathy said needlessly.

"Suspect and prove are two different words," I replied. "It won't be easy, but we can keep Jason away from her for the week. After homecoming and the Halloween dance, we'll be in position to help him find a better woman for him."