Chapter 17: The Mouse Bites

Evening study worked out far better than anyone could have predicted. Principal Bashar stopped by at least once each week - sometimes afternoon, sometimes evenings. Two of the math teachers set up weekly review sessions, and several other teachers dropped by to coach on test taking and to drill.

More rules and customs developed...

Kitchen rules - If you’re staying to dinner, give at least an hour’s notice and bring something for the pot. Emergencies okay, but not too many. Help in the kitchen, before and after. Wow! Many of the young men and women were wonderful cooks, and easy side dishes like stewed okra and tomatoes over rice abounded. Pies, cakes, or cobblers - almost every day.

Melba frequently cooked, but after an evening meal or on weekends, she never needed to wash a dish or a pot. The woman was pampered. Fascinated by her waxing pregnancy, teens of both genders kept the house clean - without a single comment on the sleeping arrangements. She had several volunteers to accompany her to her Lamaze classes, but she responded that her allocated slots were already filled.

Explicit permission was required if you were to touch someone. “Can I squeeze by?” “There’s no room on the sofa, so can I sit on y’all’s lap?” Blanket permission was okay, as long as it was specific, “Tom, you can scratch my back anytime y’all have a mindta.” An amazing level of politeness ruled.

Things stepped up a notch when Eva Mae arrived one Friday, weeping. “Daddy hasn’t been home for three nights, and I’m afraid to stay home alone. Mostly, I’m afraid to stay even when he is home...”

“You can sleep in the guest bedroom,” Bob told her, “But you havta call Sheriff Peterson and tell him where you’ll be. We don’t want your daddy callin’ and reportin’ you missin’.”

“Fat chance,” Eva Mae responded, but she complied.

That night, Susan loaned Eva Mae a ‘Lost Boys’ tee and tucked her into the guest bedroom. Sometime after midnight, Bob sorta wakened to a naked body worming up on top of him. A head snuggled under his chin. When he lifted his head to look, a woeful voice whispered. “I didn’t want to wake y’all to ask permission, but I’m so scared and lonely.”

“Bob won’t mind a nekkid lady lying on him,” Susan answered for him as she patted Eva Mae’s back. From his other side, “Just get some sleep, Honey; we can talk about this in the morning when everybody’s rested. Good thing it’s already Saturday.” Early in the morning, Bob woke to movement. He cheated and watched through slitted eyes as a small, very round, and very cute butt made its way across the room and through the door. He heard the toilet flush, and shortly, he smelled coffee.

Never one to miss a trick, Melba tugged Bob’s face around and kissed him. “She’s gonna be really scared and embarrassed. Go fix it! Wake me ‘n’ your other wife when breakfast is done. He drained his bladder, brushed his teeth, and headed for the kitchen where he found tee shirt clad Eva Mae sitting at the table, head on arms, weeping. Taking her nude presence through the night as consent to touch this morning, Bob lifted her, spun her sideways, and sat with her in his lap. “Tell me!” he told her quietly.

“I was scared and lonely, and I didn’t know y’all slept nekkid. And I touched you without permission. And, and I felt your thing. And I liked it...” She stopped, looked up at him, and told him bluntly, “AND I don’t think I love you, at least not that way. I’m ashamed, and I’m so sorry.”

“You shouldn’t be ashamed or sorry.” He hugged her tighter and kissed the top of her head. “Y’all didn’t know, and then you got permission. Listen, Sweetie, I liked it too, and you can sleep with me anytime you need.”

“But what’ll I tell Tom? What’ll he think? I was nekkid, NEKKID!”

“Just tell him, don’t embellish and don’t apologize.” Bob told her, “He probably won’t like that he wasn’t the one you turned to, but I promise that he’ll be glad y’all had someone. Now, buck up and let’s get breakfast goin’.”

As it happened, Tom wasn’t a problem, but when Eva Mae confided in her friend Priscilla, tears flowed. “I’m sorry for your need, happy they were here for y’all, but oh Lordy I wish it had been me.”

The ‘rules’ in effect were working well, but now a new requirement was added. The revised list of rules was sent home for parental signature. Anyone wishing to spend the night had to have a least one parent’s permission or notify the sheriff’s department. Priscilla’s copy of the new list was the first signed and returned.

Principal Bashar’s new cell phone rules also proved effective. During the rollout she had everyone pull out their phones and add four speed dial numbers: school security, her own, the sheriff’s office, and one to text photos and recordings of incidents. “You can use these numbers twenty-four-seven,” she told them. Then she warned, “These cell phone rules changed only for safety reasons. There’ll be no calling or texting during classes, no cheating, no sexting, and no bullying. Y’all and your parents will be required to sign agreement to the rules, including granting permission to access your phone if we determine a need.” She smiled, “I have faith in y’all, but if there’s a slip, whatever phone is used will live in my desk for a while.”

It wasn’t all peaches and cream. There were a few who simply didn’t process Principal Bashar’s message and continued to bully and extort. For the first several weeks there were visits from the sheriff’s department to haul away serious offenders. Perhaps a bigger deterrent was the multiple lawsuits filed against parents for failing to control their bullying children. Frequently, Uncle Peter offered pro bono representation to the victims. Where notes from the school had little effect on some parents, a threat to the wallet proved a stronger incentive - for most anyway.

Bob White’s lunch table was always full, with regulars and casuals filling in seats whenever they vacated.

On any given evening, their home contained from eight to twelve additional students, and among them there were visits from unattached boys and girls whose primary interest was hooking up with the unattached of the opposite gender. Dating someone from the study group wasn’t discouraged, but persistent, unwanted advances resulted in ejection and banning. Some came for one reason, and stayed when they found how helpful a study group could be.

Priscilla and Eva Mae stepped up and held the fort while Susan and Bob attended twice-a-week Lamaze childbirth classes with Melba. Now that was a process, not the classes, they were simple. But obtaining permission for one or both to be present during Melba’s labor, that was a battle.

They were having Sunday lunch with Judge and Bettie Rule. At first, he invited them from a sense of duty to watch and see how effective his protection orders and follow up strategies were working. He and Bettie soon developed a genuine interest in and liking for the three. After a huge lunch of fried chicken, potato salad, and collards, followed by a choice of apple or pecan pie, they were taking advantage of the beautiful fall day. Judge Rule was sitting in the double swing with Bettie, and the trio of guests each had an Adirondack chair.

Taking a sip of his sweet tea, the judge spoke his mind. “I find that I like y’all young’uns, pardon me, you young ladies and gentleman. That’s what y’all certainly are.” He paused for another sip and plowed on, “Now I’m sure Uncle Pete is giving you some excellent advice, but I want to give you some thoughts from a judge’s point of view. I won’t be sitting on Melba’s divorce or Bob’s emancipation, so there’s no conflict of interest there. Just remember, I’m not asking questions, not giving advice, just sharing my thoughts out loud. Clear?”

Three vigorous nods.

“I’ve known Odell off and on most of his life, and I’d have never guessed he’d turn into such a mess,” Judge Rule began. “If he’s on drugs, that might account for it. If so, your baby would be best off if Odell never entered her life - had no claim. Now if Odell relinquished all parental rights as part of the divorce ... How do you think he’d feel about paying child support for eighteen or more years?”

He looked intently at Melba before continuing, “I must say I was wrong about Odell, but I’ve known his folks a very long time. Until all this mess began, they were very excited about having their first grandbaby. Once the divorce is final, if you let them know on the Q T that they were welcome to see Cassandra Anne, I’ll bet they wouldn’t let you or their grandchild go wanting. Just thinkin’...”

He thought out loud for a while longer, then he and Bettie accepted their polite thanks and let them escape.

In the middle of one October Saturday afternoon, Cassandra Anne Faulkner made known her desire to arrive.

At the Quayle home, Priscilla and Eva Mae sat in the dark, Meatloaf between them. They were anxiously awaiting a call to announce the baby’s arrival. The pair had spent the better part of the afternoon cleaning the house and arranging, then rearranging again, Cassandra Anne’s room.

They were talking softly, when an unknown SUV pulled up the drive with its lights off and stopped just beyond the glow of the porch light. Meatloaf stopped purring. The vehicle sat for a while as if waiting for a reaction from within the house. Then it pulled forward, turned around, drove back, and parked cattycornered, blocking the drive. Alarmed, Eva Mae urgently told Priscilla, “Call 911. Tell them to hurry.”

Eva Mae ran to the master bedroom and reached far under the king bed for the AR-15 that Bob had placed there, thinking his lighter rifle would be easier to use. She removed the blanket wrapping it, thumbed the combination on the trigger lock, then went to a dresser and opened the top drawer. There the young woman located the three loaded magazines and seated one. She pocketed the remaining two, and while hurrying back to the family room, she chambered a round.

As she entered the room, she heard Priscilla telling the dispatcher, “Two of them creeping up the drive towards the front of the house - maybe fifty feet away. Oh my God! Looks like they have Molotov Cocktails. Eva Mae is back with the rifle. Hurry! Please.”

As she looked out the window, Eva Mae saw the flicker of a butane lighter dimly illuminating two men wearing ski masks. They were facing each other, one holding out two bottles and the other about to light the rags in the bottles’ necks. Two more bottles stood at their feet. As the first rag caught, Eva Mae fired through the window and waited an instant for the shattered glass to clear and fired twice more. Even in her fear, she remembered the details of Bob’s story about Susan’s rescue.

Both men were hunched over the bottles while trying to light them. Though neither man was hit, one bullet shattered both bottles and the flaming liquid and vapor engulfed them. After the bullet struck, both men institutively gasped with surprise, inhaling lungs full of flaming vapor. They were covered in flames, not just from gasoline - that would have been bad enough - but the arsonists had mixed in Ivory Snow* to make homemade napalm. They were dead. Still moving dead, but dead.

*Authors’ Note: Ivory Snow is real flaked soap, not detergent. This concoction is dangerous as Hell - the making and the use.

Priscilla raised her voice on her phone, “The men are burning up. Send an ambulance. Oh Hell, nobody could survive that; send a hearse.” Then in a shaky aside to Eva Mae, “Keep down and keep watch, Honey. There may be more of the bastards out there.”

They watched the flames’ flickering light reflected from the trees surrounding the clearing and occasionally saw an unidentifiable appendage move within the fire. Over the sound of the flames and the moans of the crispy critters barely writhing in the drive, they heard sirens approaching. Luckily, the SUV prevented the deputies from entering the yard, because the second pair of bottles exploded in the inferno. Between the heat, the stench, and the horror, the two young women barely made it to a toilet or sink before emptying their stomachs.

Paint blistered on the SUV, and some of the trim of the more distant red brick house began to brown. One of the deputies grabbed the fire extinguisher from the patrol car while the second ran around the fire to the side of the house looking for a hose. The first deputy began a futile attempt to get close enough to extinguish the fireball that had been two humans, and the second deputy, mindful of the two women still inside, sprayed water on the front of the house.

A fire truck arrived, followed by an ambulance, followed by two additional patrol cars. All were stuck in the drive or on the road, blocked by the SUV and the first patrol car. The trees on both sides of the drive prevented further progress, and despite carrying extra yardage, the pumper’s hoses were barely long enough to reach from the nearest hydrant to a useful range. The fire department took over spraying the house and the nearest foliage and battled the raging source of heat. The firefighters weren’t enamored with arsonists, but gave a good effort - considering it good practice against future need.

The deputy wielding the garden hose, shut off the water, carefully coiled and hung the loops back on the holder, then knocked on the back door of the house, calling, “You ladies okay in there? This is Deputy Buddy Rollins checking on y’all. You can keep that weapon ‘til you see me, but for God’s sake don’t shoot!”

Eva Mae stood back and to the side while Priscilla, now armed with a .45, unlocked the door and stepped to the other side. Eva Mae hesitated, wiped her runny nose on her pulled up tee, and called back, “Okay Buddy, I know ya, but keep that gun holstered until I see you. Door’s unlocked. Y’all come on in - slow like.”

When the door opened and she saw that it was really the Buddy who she knew, she carefully ejected her rifle’s magazine and placed it on the kitchen counter. She cleared the chambered round, caught it in the air and set it and her weapon alongside the magazine. She calmly removed the two spare magazines from her pockets and set them down. Then, and only then, she pitched a four-alarm hissyfit.

Buddy and Priscilla watched in awe as the half-pint woman stomped, ranted, cursed and pranced around the kitchen kicking any inanimate object she saw. “Those evil bastards!” were the mildest terms used. Gone were the semi-polite ‘ladylike’ southern substitutions. Acid laden nouns, adjectives, and verbs - learned from her drunken daddy - hurled across the room. Then, as though a brake had engaged, she stopped, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and told them, “There, I feel better now.”

Eva Mae walked to Priscilla, who was still holding her pistol, and Priscilla put her arms around her friend and told her, “Eva Mae, you were magnificent - before, during, and after. You saved us.”

And from Deputy Rollins, “Ain’t nobody in the fuckin’ world ever gonna believe what I just saw!” He crossed to the pair and held out his gloved hand for the .45, cleared it, then laid it beside Eva Mae’s weapon. “The AR is evidence, probably the .45, too,” he told them. “We’ll havta take them in, but my personal AR is out in the car, and if ya want, I can leave it with y’all. Clearly, it’ll be in good hands. I doubt y’all will need it, but it ain’t gonna be me that leaves you with nothin’ for protection.”

Priscilla and Eva Mae studiously avoided mentioning the contents of the gun safe.

Sheriff Peterson arrived, knocked and entered into the kitchen. He looked at the scene, noted the weapons, and told them, “I called y’all’s folks to let them know you are okay - tried to anyways. I briefed yours, Priscilla, but Eva Mae, your daddy wasn’t home.”

“He mostly isn’t anymore, Sheriff,” she told him. “That’s one reason I’m always havin’ ta bother y’all’s office to let you know I’m here.”

“I also called Uncle Pete, he’s both y’all’s attorney of record, and he’s on the way over. I expect y’all both will be stayin’ with him tonight - the Quayles, too if little Cassandra Anne arrives any time before dawn.” He smiled, “I checked a while back and Susan told me Melba wasn’t very far dilated. Anyways, grab your overnight bags. It’ll probably be a day or two before I can let anyone back in - crime scene and all that. Better pack up something for Bob and Susan, too.”