Chapter 2

Wednesday Evening

Switching between homework and idle online chat, Kate received an email from the principal, Mr. Laffey. It gave the dates for the meetings of the Honor Code Committee along with her official appointment as one of the three student representatives. It said nothing about The Program. She wondered why the email did not come from the Assistant Principal instead.

Later that night, a separate email arrived from the nurse and it carried a huge attachment that took eight minutes to travel down the DSL pipe to Kate's computer. The attachment was a single WMV file. She opened it and saw Mrs. Duckett in profile ordering Kate to jerk Jules off. The young gentleman himself was visible at first only to the extent of his left shoulder off to the far side of the room, the rest of him cut off by the angle of that camera. The video lasted twelve minutes.

It was all there. The indignation and terror on her face when Jules started undoing her buttons. Jules' smug certainty as he slouched on the sofa, flaunting his cock and silently challenging her to get to work.

Kate was startled by her own voice coming from the computer. "I'm not your girlfriend." She cringed to see the look of contempt she had thrown at Jules. She had not meant to say it exactly that way. Nor had she intended to put one of her nipples in the boy's mouth four minutes later. It just look that way on film.

When the tape had played through, it started up again from the second camera in Cappela's office. Kate and Jules were now much closer to the microphone. You could make out everything Jules said to her as he held her down and poked his pecker between her thighs. His appreciation for the feel of her ass was clearly audible. She sounded pitiful in begging him to let her up.

The video from the third camera was the only one that captured the final sequence with Kate and Jules on the floor in front of the couch, hands hidden in each other's crotch while they rolled about. When Jules finally stiffened and spurted, you couldn't really see him, but Kate's beautifully sculpted buttocks wiggled straight at the camera.

It was obscene.

Thursday Morning

Kathleen came round to pick up Kate at her usual time.

"A new rumor," Kathleen announced. "I heard that you and Jules Santos went all the way in Cappela's office yesterday."

"Really, yesterday? When was that supposed to happen?"

"After school."

"You gave me a ride home right after school yesterday. Remember?"

"Yeah," said Kathleen, checking herself -- and suddenly feeling immensely stupid. "I told Chris Morse he was full of shit."

Chris lived one street down from Jules and the two boys had been good friends forever. Jules must have said something to him.

"Yeah," agreed Kate sarcastically. "And I heard that Mr. Laffey died last night of AIDS. How could you believe such a thing?"

"I didn't believe it, that's why I told you about it. Chris called me last night. He said you guys were forced to have sex as part of The Program."

"So did Chris call the whole school? Or just my best and closest friends? Maybe I should check in Facebook and see what all my 'good' friends have posted about me since last night."

The girls rode the rest of the way to school in silence.

"Oh," said Kate when they arrived. "My mom's picking me up after school." This was a complete and impromptu lie. "I won't need a ride."

Kate's boyfriend, Josh, lived right on Chris Morse's block. They hung out together at times. Had Chris shared "the news" with her boyfriend as well?

X>X>X>X

Second period that Thursday was orchestra.

Josh sidled over from the brass section as Kate got her cello from its case.

"I heard you've been picked for the Honor Code Committee. Congratulations."

Kate looked at him. Was he serious?

"Congratulations?"

"Yeah. It'll look great on your college applications at least."

"Who told you I was on some committee? Was it Chris Morse?"

"No. Laura Boston. She's on it too, right?"

"How the hell would I know?"

"Jeez, Kate," protested Josh, taken aback by her tone. "Come on, will you? I just said congratulations."

Josh moved back to his side of the orchestra room and took his seat next to Jules whom he studiously ignored. For the fifth or sixth time Josh checked that he had gotten all the spittle out of his trumpet. Jules sat reviewing the sheet music on the stand in front of his, naked except for the orange colored Croc's that were the only remnant of the outfit he donned that morning. Mrs. Gallen, the orchestra teacher, and the other forty-six kids in the room did their best to behave as if Jules did not exist.

X>X>X>X>

Kate determined to get a fresh start at lunch.

She picked a table with a couple of people she knew but didn't usually hang with. Happily, they were engrossed in conversation about a guy at nearby Conestoga High who had been busted for marijuana the day before. It was a juicy scandal and promised to supply ample conversation until the start of sixth period.

"The sniffer dogs found more than an ounce in his locker. They're going to send him to Gitmo," reported one the boys solemnly.

"Like shit," answered another.

"No. Really. The juvenile detention center at Graterford. They call it Gitmo now because the guys are not allowed lawyers anymore. My dad's a cop. He told me about this Supreme Court case."

"Oh, come on," said one of the girls. "They have to have lawyers." Julie Miller was a junior. Kate considered her rather sensible. Kate kept eating.

The boys argued back and forth. It seemed there had been a real Supreme Court case about the real Gitmo —- Guantanamo -- where the President said they couldn't have lawyers, and then the Supreme Court said they could have lawyers, and then some law changed and they couldn't have lawyers again. What this had to do with the facility in Delaware County was entirely unclear.

The conversation slowed and then came to a halt when Jules sauntered over to the table. His lunch tray was empty. He had already finished eating and the kids breathed a sigh of relief that he was not going to sit down with them. Still, he stood so close to the table that he could easily pee right into Kate's Arizona Iced Tea bottle, his dick hanging at just the right angle.

"Hey, Kate."

Kate looked up at Jules as if he were a ghost, which, in a certain way he was, at least for these two weeks. The other four kids also fixed their eyes on Jules as he spoke.

"Mr. Laffey said you did such a good job that he'll let you suck me off next time. I told him that was fine with me. See ya, sweetie."

Five pairs of eyes followed Jules' hairless butt as he crossed the cafeteria and deposited his tray. Then four pairs of eyes settled on Kate as she burst into tears.

Friday Morning

Hank Mahoney showed up at Mr. Laffey's office just before classes started. Kate stayed home "with a bad cold."

The two men knew each other fairly well. Hank had served two terms as a township commissioner. He was not on the school board, but much of the Montgomery Township School District business had to pass through the township. Hank had made an appointment after speaking with his daughter the previous night; but the appointment was just a formality. He would have come in anyway and he would have been received anyway.

Jim Laffey listened to the whole story before commenting.

"OK, Hank. I hear you. Kate's going through hell with this, and we're going to help her out. No question about that. That's our first priority. No question."

Laffey folded his hands in the middle of his desk. The desktop was completely clear except for two framed photographs. One of Laffey and his wife. One of Laffey and his two grown children.

"But let me make sure I understand the facts of the situation so far. I mean, what do we really know? We know that Kate has taken part in one of the sex education activities. We know that Kate has NOT been enrolled in The Program. And we know she HAS been given a place on the Honor Code committee -- which is an honor in itself and she deserves it. The rest of this stuff... My God, if I had a nickel for every rumor that the kids tell in this building, I wouldn't have to go the Township asking you guys to raise my budget every year."

Hank was only the slightest bit mollified by this speech, but he kept his anger in check. This was the time to be lawyerly and precise, and Hank Mahoney knew how to play the role.

"Jim, I appreciate that you want to put Kate first in all this. As her father, I appreciate it. But we're not talking about rumors here. We're talking about highly inappropriate sexual activity enforced by the school with no due process and in a completely arbitrary manner. I'm not talking about the things the other kids are saying. Just the things we know for a fact."

Laffey spread his hands and spoke expansively.

"You know we have to deal with these things all the time. Even without The Program. Some kid thinks he's smart and he pats a girl on the bottom in the hall. We have to deal with that. We have to make judgments."

Hank cut him off.

"No, this is not a pat on the bottom. This is coerced activity of a sexual nature under color of law. These are sex acts that would constitute criminal felonies under any reading of the Pennsylvania statutes."

"No, no," Laffey interrupted sharply. "I have to stop you there. You and I do not know what went on in that room on Tuesday afternoon. We do NOT know. As a matter of student privacy neither Mr. Cappela not Mrs. Duckett is going to say a word about that to anyone other than Kate and the other student."

"Jules Santos."

"I can't confirm the name of the other student."

"But he's parading around the school naked this very minute. You can't pretend you don't know who it was."

"Hank, I'm not pretending anything. I just can't make a statement."

The two men looked at each other. Laffey was standing on policy. He would never learn details of sex education lessons for a specific student unless a formal complaint was lodged. He would face the same situation if a student had AIDS or was diagnosed as a homicidal schizophrenic. As long as it was a medical issue, it was private under the law and school regulations.

Hank tried another tack.

"Think about what you're saying for a minute. What if Mrs. Duckett hands one of the kids a gun. That's student A. She says 'Here. Go into Mr. Cappela's office and shoot student B in the head.' Then, the police and the ambulance come and there's blood all over the carpet and they haul away the dead body. And the police come to you and they say, 'Mr. Laffey, you're the principal. Do you know what happened in there?' And what do you do? You shrug your shoulders? Not my department."

"Hank, Hank. It's not going to help to invent absurd examples. We're being entirely responsible about this. If there were an allegation of a crime -- and that's still an if -- the school would look to the case notes taken by Mr. Cappela and Mrs. Duckett, and we'd review the videos of the session. Three simultaneous digital cameras with the images piped directly to the Montgomery Township Police Department. All time stamped and certified with a watertight chain of custody."

Videos? Hank Mahoney maintained a poker face, but he couldn't believe his luck. He would nail the school with their own evidence.

"And what if I make a formal complaint and I demand to see the videos, or demand that you produce the videos as evidence."

"You could," said Laffey in the most conciliatory tone. "Of course, you could. You're the lawyer, not me. I'm the educator. So let me be the educator for a minute."

Laffey got up from his desk and gazed out the window of his office. A landscaping crew, mostly short stocky Mexicans who might or might not be illegal immigrants, were busy tending the lawns adjacent to the school building itself.

"As an educator," he continued. "I know there was a sex education lesson taking place. It's been preserved on video, but there is a reason it was private. Maybe two students were unrolling a condom onto a banana. Maybe they were unrolling a condom onto a live model, so to speak. Maybe there was... well, you get the picture. It could have been a lot of things."

He turned and looked at Hank Mahoney whose mind was racing to reconstruct a video to match what Kate had described to him. Hank was rapidly turning white.

"So," Laffey concluded. "We go down to the police and we get this video and it becomes evidence in a court proceeding, shown in open court. Now, if there really was a crime committed, of course, you have to show the evidence. But, if this was just a sex education lesson, and... I don't know. You would have to speak to Kate. Does she want to go down to the county courthouse in Media and show this video of her unrolling a condom down a banana, or whatever she says the lesson was that day?"

Laffey shrugged his shoulders dramatically, his hands extended palms up.

"I'd rather find some way to help Kate out, myself. She's on the Honor Committee now. She'll make a great contribution to the community. It runs in the family, obviously. She wants help on recommendations and college applications. We're staffed up to do all this for her. Or she can spend all of senior year trying to make a banana and a condom into a Supreme Court case. I just don't know how that's going to help her. Do you, Hank? As her father?"

Saturday Morning

Hank Mahoney accepted Laffey's suggestion that the school swing into high gear to help Kate. And so, in an exceptional move, Kate met one of the high school guidance counselors over the weekend. They met outdoors, in a small park a couple of blocks from the main downtown intersection of Montgomery. After Kate's experience with the video cameras in Mr. Cappela's office, she found the spot much less threatening.

Donna Reese, a guidance counselor, was new to Montgomery High that year and unusually young for the job. She came straight from her undergraduate work with a highly coveted degree in "Homeland Security Counseling." In fact, she was one of the few people in the entire country who had genuine academic training about The Program, how it should work and how it should be administered to support the Global War on Terror. She and her fellow graduates found themselves in high demand as The Program spread like kudzu over the American high school landscape.

Still, Miss Reese's main job was counseling students on course selection, college research and college applications. Hank Mahoney considered it a positive move for Kate and Donna to get together.

Miss Reese was already seated on one of the benches in the park, near an ornamental fountain, when Kate arrived. They moved to a square concrete table, covered with a never used chessboard, so they could talk face to face.

"I'm glad you could come," enthused Miss Reese as soon as Kate sat down. "It's terrific. Being Saturday and all. Terrific to see your commitment to academics. The one thing I have to say to you is that I'm on your side, Kate. Whatever it takes for applications, getting recommendations together, checking in with the college admission offices... whatever you think you need I'm going to help you with."

"You're very kind. Thanks. I really need some support after this last week."

Miss Reese brushed her glossy black hair back over one ear and studied Kate attentively.

"Tough week, huh?"

"The worst. I don't know how this all happened. Maybe just a bunch of colossal misunderstandings, but I feel pretty beat up. Persecuted really. It's hard to focus on college applications when I don't even know what crazy things are going to happen at school everyday."

"Do you want to talk about it or should we just get straight into things and talk about colleges? Sorry I didn't bring your transcript. I know you made Distinguished Honors every semester. How are your SAT's?"

Kate did want to talk about the ordeal with The Program over the last week, but her SAT scores were too good not to mention.

"Math 770, Verbal 760 and Writing 800. I still have to take the AP's though."

Miss Reese knew that Kate was signed up for four Advanced Placement courses in addition to playing in the orchestra and playing as one of the co-captains in girls lacrosse.

"And what are you looking for in college?"

"Columbia, Harvard, Smith, maybe Stanford. My mom went to Stanford. It's really beautiful and just all around a strong school."

"Tell me your logic," prompted Miss Reese.

Kate explained how she really wanted to make a difference in the world, maybe go to law school like her father, or the sciences like her mother. Maybe both since there were so many issues of science policy and bioethics. Everything from global warming to stem cell research needed both policy and a sound scientific basis.

Despite her limited experience, Donna Reese had a knack for guiding a conversation. She drew out Kate's interests, but also introduced a few new ideas. Other colleges that "fostered strong values." Places Kate had barely heard of, and if she had heard anything about them at all they seemed to be bastions of fundamentalism.

Kate's skepticism was apparent.

"Do they even have a science program at the these places?"

"Kate, you can get into any college you want. I know that's not the issue. I'm just trying to give you another perspective. Like Patrick Henry University down in Virginia. It has a law school. Lots of the graduates go into government at the state and federal level. People who want to advance American values. People like you. Well, they may not all be as academically talented as you are, but close enough."

Kate found it hard not to dismiss these colleges out of hand. Why would anyone go there if they could get into the Ivy's? On reputation alone there was no comparison.

"Well," she said. "I've got one of those fat books that describes 350 different colleges. Maybe I can do a little research. It's early. But I am working on the essays for the common applications and Columbia."

"Columbia?" Miss Reese shook her head gravely. "I know you mentioned them before. That was the first one you said. I wonder if that's the right environment for you."

Kate was taken aback. She needed faculty recommendations and they had to be enthusiastic.

"What do you mean?"

"Kate, you know the world is changing. These schools like Columbia are radical operations. The country is not going back to the days of hippies and love beads. You might say that the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard is becoming an oxymoron. Theses places with co-ed dorms and massive Islamic studies programs are not going to turn out America's next generation of leaders. Patrick Henry and Regent University are the 'schools of government'."

"So what if they have co-ed dorms?" Kate just didn't follow the argument. "Jeez, I keep hearing about this like it was Sodom and Gomorrah."

"It's something to think about, Kate." Miss Reese dropped her tone by at least an octave. She was supremely serious. "Different places might be good for different people. You, with your profile on the MMPA-S, I would be worried about you in a co-ed dorm."

The MMPA-S? The acronym rolled off Miss Reese's tongue like USA or NCAA. That was the test Kate had been forced to take on Monday. It was that test that seemed to have thrown her into Hell over the last week.

Kate thought for a few seconds.

"Miss Reese, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure thing."

"You studied psychological tests like that one, right? You have a degree in counseling?"

"Yes, I did study them."

"And you've seen my test results?" This was not really a question. Miss Reese had already said as much with her comment. "The ones from Monday with Mrs. Duckett?"