Chapter 5

“Oh my god, Tom,” Angela exclaimed as she opened the door.

“Mom ... they ... tried...” he began, panting.

She saw the distress and terror in his face.

“I know ... the school just called. I heard what happened,” she told him. “Come in ... tell me ... are you hurt?”

“No, don’t ... think so ... but I ... was gonna ... die, Mom! They were gonna kill me...” he began crying.

“Tom, you’re okay now, no one’s going to hurt you. Listen, I called Dad when I heard what happened. We don’t have much time, kid. Dad thinks the school’ll call the police and they just might want to arrest you, so we need to get you safe till we can get a handle on things. Let’s get in the car. I’ll tell you while we go.”

Angela called Duncan as they went to the car. Duncan told her that he’d arrange to get a room in a hotel near his office and that she should take him there. A short time later they met Duncan outside the hotel and he took Tom to the room while Angela returned home. Duncan got the whole story from Tom while they walked to the room.

“So that’s all I can remember, Dad,” Tom said. “It all happened so fast. I felt like I was gonna die, I really did, and I just wanted to get away from them and they were trying to strip me.”

“So they tried using force to undress you?”

Tom nodded. “Yeah, one was holding me tight and with the panic, I couldn’t move and just went blank, kinda like a dream, you know, where bad things are happening and you can’t stop them, but then when one guy tried to pull off my school blazer, something snapped in my head and all I could think of was trying to get away. I don’t remember much, all I could think of was that it was like the zombies coming for me, you know, like we saw in that horror movie a few weeks ago?”

“So it was that bad, huh?” Duncan looked at Tom sympathetically.

“Ohmygod,” Tom breathed. “Like a bad dream, where you’re running but can’t get away, you know? Except it was real. God, why does stuff like this happen?” he moaned.

“Yeah, son, why? That’s the question. First, I found out from the doc who wrote the prescription that a side effect of one of your drugs can be hallucinations, paranoia, and violent aggression. The dose might have been too high, also. And even though your shrink from Germany had told us that your problem might get better, it looks like it hasn’t, or maybe just hasn’t yet. So we gotta find a way to keep you away from that nudity crap in the schools until we know how to help you make things better. Meanwhile, we need to get you out of this little situation. Hey, this is a pretty nice room. Check out that big TV. You stay put here; I’ll send Lynette to you here as soon as I can—she’ll keep you company. Will you be okay till then?”

“Yeah, Dad, thanks. I love you so much and thanks for taking care of me, even when I do bad stuff.”

“Hey sport, this wasn’t your fault. Your records Mom gave the school show that you have that phobia and it really affects you badly. Seems those meds made things much worse. I can’t believe that your school officials didn’t pay any attention to your medical records. Anyway, I love you too and you stay put, okay? Don’t use the phone either; we’ll call you if we need to. You might need to spend the night so we’ll have Lynette bring over what you need.”

Duncan left and took a cab home. When he arrived, he noticed a police car in front of the house. He went into the house.

“What’s going on? Is everything okay?” he asked the officer who came to the door when he entered.

“We’re here about your son, Thomas Armstrong,” the officer replied. “You are Mr Armstrong, the father?”

“Is Tom okay? Angela?”

“I’m here...” she answered.

“Ohmygod, what’s wrong?” he replied.

Angela came over. “I tried calling you. There was a problem at school. They say Tom did some damage there, The school called about Tom but they didn’t say where he was,” she said, winking at him.

“Oh really?” Duncan replied as a second officer came to the front door and entered the house. “Must have my phone turned off. What kind of damage?”

“According to the head teacher, he threw stuff all around the office, messed it up a lot,” she said.

The second officer spoke. “Where is your son now?”

“He’s supposed to be in school, right, Angela?” Duncan answered.

“He’s probably not anywhere near the school,” the officer replied. “He was last seen jumping out of a ground-floor window. We need to ask him some questions. The school might be laying charges against him.”

Duncan looked at him hard. “What kind of charges? Civil or criminal?”

The officer shook his head. “That depends on the investigation and what we learn from your son.”

Duncan nodded. “I see. Well, until he shows up, then, you’ll need to wait, I suppose. I’ll also need to contact my solicitor. Officer, will you be waiting here?”

“When does he normally return home?” the officer asked.

Duncan smiled grimly. “I don’t think that the circumstances are ‘normal,’ do you? Let’s see ... Angela? When is his usual time?”

Angela looked at her watch. “Maybe two, two and a half hours from now.”

The second officer nodded. “Let us check with dispatch. I’ll let you know.”

They went out to their car.

Angela turned to Duncan. “I texted Lynette and called the school to release her in ... um ... in fifty minutes from now. I have some clothes packed. I’ll drop off the bag with her and send her to Tom.”

“Good. Hope the cops don’t follow you...” He broke off when there was a knock at the door.

The second officer had returned. “Dispatch wants us to leave but you have to call this number when your son returns.” He handed Duncan a card. “Be sure you do, there are legal consequences if he doesn’t contact us, you know.”

“Okay, officer,” Duncan acknowledged.

As soon as the officer left, Duncan got on the phone to his solicitor. He was still talking when Angela left to meet Lynette, who had brought Tom’s backpack with her. Soon Angela returned home, after getting a Uber car for Lynette to go downtown. She told Lynette to be dropped off a few blocks away from the hotel in case someone was looking for Tom; she had retrieved Tom’s wallet and phone from his school backpack and put it in the overnight bag Lynette was to bring to him.

Duncan greeted her when she entered the house. “Honey, I spoke to Campbell—our lawyer Campbell Morrison—several times. He just called back; he got himself free for the afternoon and said we should meet him at the school in 45 minutes. He spoke to the head teacher and told him we’re coming and that he’d better have some legal advice on hand when we get there. Apparently Campbell isn’t a great fan of this naked Program either.”

“Okay, good,” Angela nodded. “Lynette told me that the school office looks totally trashed, like a tornado went through it. There were a few people trying to clean it up and they were keeping gawkers away. They hung sheets over the windows to the hallway to block people from seeing in, but she saw it because she was called to the office. They wanted to know where Tom was.”

“Oh. Damage was that bad, huh. Well, I knew that Tom’s pretty strong ... Andrew told me Tom bench-presses 105 kilograms now and squats 150. Way, way above average,” Duncan said proudly. “Shit, those damned drugs. Say, I also spoke to the Crisis Center and they put the shrink who prescribed them on the line. I told him what happened and how Tom reacted to the drugs for the week—and what he told me in the hotel. The shrink asked how Tom was before he got exposed to the nudity shit ... um, he didn’t use that exact expression...”

Angela chuckled ruefully.

“Anyway, I told him that Tom was just about perfectly balanced, no issues of any consequence. So he told me to stop the drugs now. He said that Tom hasn’t been on them long enough to need to stop them slowly and according to the shrink, he thinks that it looks like they were doing more harm than good; Tom got the paranoia side-effect, what the shrink figured happened. He said Tom should just avoid seeing nudity. I laughed and reminded him of the Program. So he said he’d send a letter to the school telling them that they have to isolate Tom from the Program kids.”

Angela shook her head. “I spoke to the head teacher and asked the same thing. He said he couldn’t do that.”

Duncan smiled grimly. “Okay, but Campbell has a weapon against the school now, he told me. Well, let’s get Tom’s records out again in case they lost the ones you brought, right? And then it’ll be time to meet Campbell.”

A half-hour later they met Morrison in front of the school.

“Glad you could handle this one, Campbell,” Duncan said while they shook hands. “Different from real estate, no?”

Morrison nodded. “Indeed. But I’m on solid ground here. I worked as a Crown prosecutor earlier in my career. Anything changed from our last conversation?”

“One thing,” Duncan replied. “The Crisis Center shrink told me that Tom wasn’t responsible; the drugs’ side effects gave him paranoia, made him hallucinate and become very aggressive. Tom told me that he thought the teachers were some kind of zombies coming to kill him.”

“Oh my...”

“Also the shrink said that he’d send a letter to the school saying that Tom will have no problems being in school if he’s kept apart from the nudity and sexual shenanigans.”

Angela broke in. “And Lynette is terribly freaked out by everything she’s seen. She’s scared to death about what’ll happen when she gets picked. She’s putting up a brave front to support her brother, but she broke down when she was talking with me last night.”

Morrison smiled, but there was no humor in his expression. “Two things more to add to our list of demands, then. Let me ring my office briefly.”

He stepped aside with his phone, selected a contact, and spoke quickly with the person who answered. Then he looked up.

“That’s done. Let’s go in.”

The three were met at the school’s entrance and were shown to the conference room. There was one person already there; she rose and introduced herself.

“I’m Miss Richardson, the counselor. The head teacher will be right in; he’s ... um ... dealing with that ... ah ... cleanup.”

“Yes, of course,” Duncan replied and introduced the others.

That’s when Taylor entered with two others. He indicated that everyone sit and began introductions.

“I’m Dr Taylor, head teacher. You’ve met Miss Richardson. This is Mrs Waverly, she’ll be recording the meeting. And Mr Jose Garcia, the solicitor for the school. No one was available from the LEA on such short notice...”

The door opened and a woman entered.

“Ah, and this is Mrs Roxanne Gordon, the chair of the school’s governors.”

Duncan introduced his wife and solicitor, and then opened.

“I asked for this meeting because I want to know what your plans are in connection with my son Tom.”

Taylor made a throat-clearing sound, the kind of sound some people use to attempt to assert authority.

“Your son Thomas Armstrong wreaked serious damage on school property, injured two people, and greatly frightened my office staff. We intend to lay assault charges and assess property damages to your family; the preliminary estimate is greater than 10,000 pounds in property damages and lost productivity. We will begin steps for Mr Armstrong’s expulsion from school, as well.”

“Thank you. I’m going to let my solicitor continue the discussion. Mr Morrison, if you will?”

Morrison nodded. “Dr Taylor, I understand that, except for the first week where you had Program volunteer pupils, that selection for participants was to be random, as the national policy states. Yet it seems quite unique that Mr Thomas Armstrong was singled out by a different kind of notification of his selection; that implies that his choosing was not random, doesn’t it?”

Taylor shook his head. “The school reserves the right to select participants other than random choice.”

“So you acknowledge that he was deliberately picked, then. Apart from not disclosing that fact in your Program policies, why was a young man who was here in the school a grand total of a little more than three days deliberately chosen, over leaving the selection to random choice?”

Taylor glanced at Richardson. “We had a meeting—that is, Miss Richardson, Mr Grey from the LEA, and Mrs Dodson, our Program coordinator. The teachers had noticed, erm ... unusual behavior on Tom Armstrong’s part. Mrs Armstrong, in a phone conversation, had asked me to help her son with dealing with his problem. In that meeting we decided the best help would be if he participated in the Program.”

Duncan and Angela snorted with derision.

“I see ... and of course you have a record of that meeting?”

Taylor looked at Richardson who shook her head. “We didn’t record it or take minutes. I don’t recall seeing anyone taking notes, either.”

“Really? You break your own protocol on pupil selection without documenting your decision and rationale?”

Garcia spoke. “This isn’t a legal proceeding, counselor. Your questions sound like a cross-examination.”

“I won’t deny that they are examination questions, Mr Garcia. My clients were just threatened with some major, heavy-duty sanctions. Let’s just say that we’re fact-finding now. Less expensive than doing it by deposition or in a courtroom proceeding. Okay, I won’t pursue the lack of minutes for an unusual selection process, Dr Taylor. But what was the basis of your decision to provide this so-called help to Tom?”

“Miss Richardson? I recall you suggested the ‘controlled environment’ for the lad’s disrobing,” Taylor said.

She blushed. “We were discussing how young Mr Armstrong had certain problems when he saw the naked participants during the first Program week—other issues too, like participating in class and how he wouldn’t use the locker room for P.E. Someone thought that the psych treatment called ‘exposure therapy’ would help Tom, so we discussed how to include him in the Program.”

Morrison nodded. “Thank you. And enlighten me, what credentials do any of the participants in that meeting possess to practice psychiatry or psychology? You were devising a kind of psychological treatment plan for Tom, weren’t you?”

He got blank stares.

“Your silence answers the question. You have no such credentials.”

Garcia spoke up. “I don’t see why the school officials need to be shrinks to assign a pupil to the Program. They have the right to do that under the law that authorized the Program.”

“Obviously that’s true, sir,” Morrison replied. “But only if the boy had been selected randomly. He was deliberately chosen for what was clearly stated to be a psychological purpose: to subject him to the psychiatric treatment called ‘exposure therapy,’ which is a medical treatment. Now I need to ask about your familiarity with Mr Armstrong’s medical and psychological school records, which you received when my clients registered him in school here two weeks ago on the Friday. The Armstrongs have shown me a date-stamped receipt for them from your office.”

“I don’t recall seeing anything...” Taylor began thoughtfully.

“So when you became aware of the difficulties Tom was having, and after speaking to his mother, you never checked his file for any prior records which would shed light on his condition.”