Chapter 27: Extracurricular

December 4, 1981

We changed around 3pm for the trip up to Klein Forest High School. It’s half an hour or a bit more, so we’d be in about the same position sleep-wise as last weekend.

We had some missing people and some lineup shifts. Sue and Amit were dropping Extemp, for at least this week and maybe for a couple tournaments, to concentrate on CX. Zoe and Adam took the tournament off. Callie and Kenzie were taking a tournament off LD. Lizzie and Janet were back and all fired up, though.

By now, tournament Fridays were old hat, and nothing happened here to change that. My rounds seemed to go fine. So did Cammie’s. And Angie’s, and Gene’s. And pretty much everyone’s, I think.

We made it out the door by 10pm, which isn’t bad at all, and by 11pm I was pulling up to a house a few doors down from Jasmine’s for a bit of making out. Which was very enjoyable. By 11:30 I was in my own bed. I’d rather have been in Jasmine’s, but then, we did need to compete the next day.

December 5, 1981

We grabbed kolaches on the way again. They were a favorite, and we bought enough extra to share with unfortunate souls whose drivers didn’t bother to feed them properly.

Morning rounds were, again, pretty much as expected, which was confirming my feeling that I needed to shake things up in the spring or I’d be in the wrong place when we hit State and there was a real challenge. Not that we were unbeatable — not hardly. But we neither felt like we were unlikely to break, nor did we need to break. Down that path lies complacency.

Cammie read off the results just after postings.

“Extemp: Me, Steve, Doug, Anne, Megan, Gene, Kenzie, Callie, Emmy, Larry.”

“LD: Doug, Brad.”

“CX: Lizzie and Janet, Steve and me, Angie and Gene, Emmy and May.”

We all cheered. Some of the people that’d broken (who usually didn’t) could really use a qual.

Jasmine broke in Humorous Interp; she’d switched to focusing on that since qualifying in Dramatic. Five or so of the Drama kids also broke.

I felt like I phoned it in for quarters in Extemp. Oh well. On the other hand, Cammie and I were pretty much on for our CX round. Semis breaks bore that out.

“Extemp: Me, Doug, Anne, Megan, Kenzie, Emmy.”

“LD: Doug, Brad.”

“CX: Angie and Gene. And Steve and me vs. Emmy and May.”

Janet and Lizzie looked at each other. “What the heck!” “We were robbed!” They quickly checked the schedule. “OK, Angie, Gene. Clobber those two!”

“We’ll do our best,” Angie said. “Anything to watch out for?”

Janet shook her head. “It seemed pretty clean to me.”

Lizzie bit her lip. “I think their second guy played a little on sexism. I’m sensitive to it, but I don’t know. Subtle stuff. We had a guy judge. It might have worked.”

Everyone converged on Angie and Gene after semis. “How’d it go?” Janet asked.

“I thought it went OK,” Angie said. “They’re good, but we’re better. And obviously you’re better. I don’t know if it was sexism, but you’re right, that second guy is good at little digs. A quote here is ‘cute’ or ‘little’ or the like. Not people, he was professional to a fault with us. But he got in lots of pointed little digs at our sources.”

Lizzie nodded. “I think that’s what I picked up on. The ‘cutes’ and ‘littles’. It just felt like something demeaning was going on.”

Finals breaks took a bit long. Something must have gone wrong. Cammie finally read them off.

“Extemp: Doug, Anne, Kenzie, Emmy.”

“LD. Holy cow! Doug and Brad! Congrats!”

“CX: Emmy and May. Congrats again!”

Angie and Gene and Lizzie and Janet were all shaking their heads. “Emmy, May, clobber them, please.”

“We’re on it!”

Jasmine was in finals in her event. Two other Drama kids were still going.

We pretty much all opted to watch the CX final. If it was sexist, the final panel of three women might head that off. If it was something else, at least Emmy and May were ready. And they were ready; they got right in there. But I noticed Emmy, in the first CX, nailed a few ‘cute’ and ‘little’ comments of her own. Their other guy looked annoyed, which told me he was doing it on purpose.

The tournament director, Klein Forest’s coach, came out around 10:00 with the final results. I’d lost all track of time and had no idea how it’d gotten this late. Maybe having two hours for dinner accounted for part of it.

I cheered when Jasmine was announced 4^th, and qualifying in HI. That gave her both of her events at State.

“In Extemp: In fourth, qualifying, Emmy Green, Memorial. In third, PQ’d, Anthony Myers, Bellaire. In second, PQ’d, Sue Dillon, Northbrook. And in first, qualifying, Kenzie Greene, Memorial.”

We cheered for both of them.

“In LD, both qualifying, Brad Delton beat Doug Deberry, both of Memorial, 2-1.”

“In CX, both qualifying, Green/Tran of Memorial wins over Mason/Bell of Bellaire, 3-0.”

“Congratulations to all our winners, coaches, and thank you to everyone who participated.”

We gave one last round of cheers. Emmy and May got quite a few hugs. And Jasmine got a big hug and kiss from me.

Meg called us around after the furor had died down. “Listen, everyone. You have all beaten my wildest expectations, so thank you all. I love you all so much! Now, look. I want you to enjoy tomorrow. Yes, you may need to badger parents and others to judge, and yes, I imagine many of you need to devote some time to studying. But, enjoy yourselves. You deserve it.

“Now. On Monday, I expect to be making a special announcement. I can’t make it now; I need permission from Principal Riggs first. However, I’ll hint and say that, because we have so many qualified, we have the opportunity to take advantage of that in a way I wasn’t predicting at the start of the year. You might want to prep your parents for an opportunity that’ll take you a bit farther afield and cost more than the average tournament. Just understand — no promises. Yet.”

We all cheered again.

In the car we started buzzing about it. Jasmine chimed in. “Whatever it is, it’s not just y’all. Steffie said we were doing something optional in partnership with Debate.”

I did have a unique perspective on it, so I gave my guess. “Everyone, I think it’s an out-of-state tournament.”

“No!” “Really!” “Where?”

“I have no idea where. I know the program does them sometimes. And, nineteen of the twenty-two people that compete have qualified. We don’t need a qualifying weekend. An out-of-state tournament would feel like a reward, and it’s something we can only do because we’re not all clawing to get qualified.”

“Oh, that does make sense!”

“I hope it’s somewhere cool,” Cammie said.

Jasmine laughed. “It’s the middle of winter. It’s cool most places!”

“Hrmph! You know what I meant!”

“I am predicting snow. Snow with skirts. Definitely cool!”

“Ugh! Noooo!”

I got everyone else dropped off. As usual, I left Jasmine for last, figuring it wouldn’t be a problem to run a few minutes late. Right. Just as I was pulling into her neighborhood, blue and red lights lit up the night behind me. I was certain I wasn’t doing anything illegal. Police in our neighborhood were known to hassle teenagers, though. Perhaps justified in many cases, but not in this one.

I pulled aside, got out my license and insurance, and waited. Sure enough, two minutes later the officer came over. “License and insurance, please, son?” I looked up. He was definitely eying me. I don’t think he was expecting a suit. His flashlight hit Jasmine, and that seemed to reassure him that he just had some kid on a date out past curfew.

He bit his lip as soon as he saw my ID, shook his head, and walked back to his car. I was wondering what was going on. I glanced at the clock; we were technically not breaking curfew yet, but by the time he was done, we would be. Extracurriculars were a viable excuse, though, but that would take time to sort out unless he accepted the card I had from Meg, which had no legal standing.

He was gone an unusually long time. When he came back, he shined the light on me again. “Son, I’m not sure where, but your name caught my attention. I know I must have stopped you before, but there’s no record of it. In any case, you’re out after curfew and that’s a ticket, and I can’t let you continue driving.”

That last part was junk, and we both knew it. But it’d be hard for me to hassle him on it, and we both knew that, too. “Officer, I’m driving back from an extracurricular activity and that’s an exception to curfew. I have a card from my teacher.” I offered it. “It’s got her name and phone number. Of course, she won’t be home now. You could call the principal, but it is awfully late.”

He looked at it. “These are easy to produce. I’ll need to call your teacher. If you weren’t so damn familiar, I’d let you slide on it until I can call, but under the circumstances...”

It hit me. I stared at him. It was hard to read, in the dark, but his flashlight wavered just enough. “Officer Marks! I knew I recognized you!”

His frown deepened. There are not that many benign reasons for teenagers to meet police in our neighborhood. “And from where do you recognize me, son?”

I smiled. I wasn’t really pleased at what I’d have to say in front of Jasmine, but it was inevitable. I could ask to get out and talk to him privately, but that would be weird, and I did have Candice’s permission. “Sir, we met in the front yard of the Matthews residence last January. You took a statement from my father and me after we’d pointed you to a note in Candice Matthews’ bedroom.”

He blinked. “Wait! You are right, son! That is where I know you from! I’m sorry. Goodness, I meet so few teenagers that I like, and here I met a genuine hero and treat him like a hooligan!” He looked at Meg’s card. “I’d still like to borrow this, so that I can put on file that you are in an extracurricular and should be considered trustworthy if you are acting in an otherwise law-abiding manner and it’s just past curfew. It’ll be at the desk any time after Monday.”

I smiled. “Thank you, Officer. Would you mind also noting that my sister, Angie Marshall, is in the same extracurricular and keeping the same driving hours?”

“I can do that. If you’d have your Ms. Ames call me — ask for me directly — I can have them note anyone else so that it’ll come up if an officer runs a search.”

“That would be wonderful. Thank you!”

“You are welcome, son. Now, you drive safely!”

“You have a good rest of your evening, Officer.”

Jasmine was looking at me with curiosity all over her face. No surprise there. “A statement at the Matthews’ house? Genuine hero? A note in Candice’s bedroom? You have to know I am dying of curiosity!”

“It’s not my story to tell, but I’ll try to speed up the timetable for us getting together with Candice. She said she’d try to explain. It’s just too personal for me to go into it without her full knowledge.”

“Which is so frustrating!” she said, smiling in spite of her annoyance. “But then that’s something I can hardly fault you for; like I said, if you won’t tell me something, you won’t tell anyone else anything about me.”