Chapter 50

Two days later, instead of junior high school, Cindy boarded the bus for the county consolidated high school. She did so with an extra hug and a kiss on her lips.

My own drive to work was not without trepidation. I was vacillating between 'My Cindy can do ANYTHING' and 'I'm sending a cute little fourteen year old to a high school'.

Cindy's turn:

Dan says I'd be better writing down what I saw and felt and learned in my high school experience. I know Dan worries. He worries that I'll be hurt by the comments of people around me, or that I'll get bullied, or even worse, that I'll see some guy who turns me on.

Dan doesn't have to worry, at least about that 'guy' thing. There's exactly ONE guy on this planet that I ever had the thought of being with, and that's Dan.

The bullying thing? At the middle school, I'm a protected species. I helped a couple, well, several of the athletes pass math and other subjects so they could keep playing, and they made sure that I didn't get bullied or picked on. I did get the occasional comment, but I can just shrug them off. The kids that do that sort of thing, they have problems. The school people, all the teachers, Mister Jim, the principal, they have been on my side for months, even when word got around that I was married.

This high school thing, though. I met Kaitlyn the day I went to the high school to take the ACT's and we've kept in touch. We talk at least once a week. She tells me a lot of things. We talk about college, and about how she's doing in high school, and when we talked about me going there for the reviews. She said she'd talk to the principal because she's already in advanced placement classes, at least a couple of them, and I could go to classes with her, like she would be my guide.

I had my backpack, but it's been pretty light for the last couple of months since the middle school teachers seem to think that I've out-stripped the coursework. I keep notebooks and a calculator and a few odds and ends. Since I was sort of like a new student at school, they searched my backpack. Dan thinks this is pretty silly. He showed me that a cheap ballpoint pen is a pretty good weapon. After he showed me what I needed to know about that, I can put a BIC pen through a quarter inch of plywood. But I can't have scissors with points on them. Funny.

Kaitlyn was standing there waiting for me, and she took me to the school office. They gave me a high school photo ID card. Neat! Fourteen, and I have a high school ID. Kaitlyn thought it was funny, too.

"Okay, let's go to home room," Kaitlyn told me. "No class. Just a place to call roll and make announcements."

The hallway was crowded. That part isn't anything new, just different kids. But I'm a little on the short side, even in middle school, and in high school, I don't think I saw about a couple of girls my height. Kaitlyn got stopped by people a couple of times on the way to home room and she introduced me. I smiled and said 'Hi'.

Cameron. Yes, that's a girl. One of Kaitlyn's friends, but she's got a different home room assignment. They're assigned alphabetically. Except me. Kaitlyn's last name is Baker, and mine is Richards, or Smith-Richards, if I want to sound snobby, which I don't, but the school administration just told me that it was best that I hang with Kaitlyn, since she volunteered.

But back to Cameron. "You're FOURTEEN? What are you doing HERE?"

Kaitlyn told her, "Cindy's got the highest ACT score in the county this year. And if she passes the high school standard tests, she graduates with US!"

"Oh, that's just CRAZY!" Cameron said.

Kaitlyn told Cameron the short version of what was going on, then as we walked to home room, she told me, "We'll see Cameron in first hour. That's English. It's regular English. I didn't do the advanced placement class. I should have, but I didn't. We make mistakes, huh?"

Home room was rowdy. I guess it was worse because all the teacher needed to do was check attendance and read a couple of announcements. One of them was about the reviews and how to get extra help for those that needed (and wanted) it. Then the bell rang and it was back out in the chaos of the halls between classes.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Kaitlyn said, when she heard me say that. "Once you know where you're going, you just GO."

We walked into the English classroom and Kaitlyn introduced me to the teacher. I showed my letter to the teacher telling her why I was there. That was Mizz Gregory.

"We've heard a little about you, Cindy," she said. I saw her eyes looking, noticing my wedding band. "You're quite the topic, you know. Your friend Kaitlyn's no slouch. She got a twenty-eight on her ACT."

I looked at Kaitlyn. I remember the day we took the tests. She was worried. Apparently she shouldn't be worried.

"I hope people are saying good things about me," I told Mizz Gregory.

"Frankly," Mizz Gregory said, "Your test score is remarkable. We've also seen your husband's name in the news, too."

"Oh," I said. "That. Could've been really bad." I rubbed my shoulder, remembering.

"We're glad to have you, Cindy. Kaitlyn will get one of the other students to swap desks so you can sit with her."

"Thank you, Miss Gregory," I said.

Kaitlyn got a guy to move and let me have his desk. He didn't mind. It meant he got to sit closer to a buddy of his. I wish I could say that I learned something in the class. I can't. Mizz Gregory went over things that I learned already. Really! I learned that stuff. But kids four years older than I were having problems and she was answering questions. I paid attention, just hoping that there was something coming, but that never happened.

When the bell rang for class change, Mizz Gregory stopped me and Kaitlyn as we were headed out the door. "Kaitlyn," she said, "I know I wasted an hour of YOUR time. Cindy, what about you?"

"I know you have to do this for the other students," I said, "but really, I know all this stuff. Mizz Mason has sent some of my papers to Auburn. They talked to me about a double major." I guess Mizz Gregory didn't know about my Auburn plans. Her eyebrow rose.

"Auburn? Double major?" she asked.

It was old news to Kaitlyn. "Yes, ma'am. I'm starting in the fall in electrical engineering. I have a scholarship, assuming I pass these exit tests."

Mizz Gregory smiled. "Oh, you'll pass, no doubt. Kaitlyn, you better get to your next class."

That was math. Actually, Kaitlyn's math class this year was advanced placement calculus, and I would have LOVED to take that class. She emailed me some of her homework and I went over it with Dan. He took me though basic principles, but compared to middle school and what I was told was high school level algebra, calculus would have been a challenge, something to stretch out with. I told her that.

I told Dan that, too. He laughed. "Sweetness," he said, "we just spent two hours going over this stuff and you're already getting comfortable with it. I'm just amazed."

Even in the advanced classes, they went through reviews. When that teacher, Mister Abott, heard that I was going into engineering, he wished me luck. "But luck's not what's gonna do it for you, Miss Cindy," he said. "Work's gonna do it."

By the time lunchtime came, when Kaitlyn took me to the cafeteria, we had a crowd, and I had to answer a million questions. Some of them were about why I was at the high school when I was fourteen. I explained, trying not to sound like I was bragging or like I thought I was better than anybody.

Several girls asked about me being married. "Are you pregnant?"

I stretched my arms out. I weigh a hundred and five pounds and Dan and I walk several times a week or ride bicycles and we used to swim every day. I'm not fat. "I've been married since November," I said. "Do I LOOK pregnant?"

"Then why're you married?"

I smiled, thinking of Dan. "For the best possible reason. I love my husband and he loves me." You should've heard the commotion when I explained that Dan was forty-one.

And some of 'em knew about the shootings. "I really don't like to think about it," I said. "My husband taught me to shoot, to be responsible for my own defense. I did. And so did he. We have scars to prove it."

The conversation took my mind off the cafeteria food. Just like at middle school.

The afternoon didn't get any better. Different subjects, but still the same depth of knowledge. I felt bad for the kids that actually NEEDED these reviews.

Between fifth and sixth hour we were walking past Mister Abott's class. "Kaitlyn," I asked, "D'ya think Mister Abott would like us to help him with some of those kids who're having trouble?"

"You mean, TEACH?" she looked a little shocked. She knew that I did that in middle school, but this was high school. Then she smiled. "Sure. We can ask."

He smiled when we asked, but he said, "I really can't do that, ladies. I'm afraid that if some kid failed the tests and then said that students did his reviews, we'd have trouble."

"I guess I understand," I said. I knew better than argue.

"We tried," Kaitlyn said.

The school day finally ended and Kaitlyn and I went to wait for our buses. "SO, are you coming back?" Kaitlyn asked me.

"Not tomorrow. Dan and I are getting our little trailer back. I wanna be there for that. It's my first really happy home," I said. "But I'll be back here Monday. I hope I wasn't too much of a pain."

Kaitlyn shook her head. "You weren't a pain. I had fun. This would've been soooo boring without you here."

The bus dropped me off at the RV park. "There! I made it though the first day of my high school experience," I told Mizz Helen.

She laughed. "Fourteen!"

I was telling her all the things that went on when I saw Dan's truck pull in. I didn't wait for him to walk in. I ran out and hugged him.

"Wow, punkin," he said. "Was your day bad?"

"No, baby," I said. "I wouldn't say 'bad'. 'Interesting' is a better word." I hauled him down and kissed him, right there in the middle of the park. We went in and talked with Helen.

And back to Dan:

"I talked with the trailer people today," I told Helen. "They said we should see them here around eleven."

Cindy squealed. "We're going to have our home back!" then she thought about her outburst. "Oh, Mizz Helen, we appreciate so much you offering your place. But this was my FIRST happy home that I can remember. I hope you understand." She smiled. Cindy smiling was a disarming thing.

Helen returned the smile. "Baby, I completely understand. You and Dan fought for it and bled for it. It's yours."

"It was MY first happy place," Cindy reiterated. "All the time that we lived at this place, me and Mom, this office was kind of a refuge for me, Mizz Helen, but the first night I slept at our little trailer was the first night in a long time that I slept all night without worrying."

Little lights went off in my head, just like the lightning on the night she mentioned, the first night we'd slept together, when she ended up, thirteen and naked, in my bed. The night it became OUR bed. And I was an unindicted criminal. In love. Trying to be completely honorable. But in the eyes of the law, a child molester of the most blatant sort.

Helen read the shadow on my face. So did Cindy. Cindy rescued me. "Oh, I know that what we did back then was soooo illegal, Dan. But I loved you. Needed you. And you loved me, even as scared of it as you were." She slid up next to me, placing her arm around my waist, marking me as her property.

Helen said, "Well don't look at me. I wouldn't've said anything. You sure didn't look like the abusive type. Besides, it's not like you didn't get chased."

My little redheaded doll was smiling. "I did, you know ... chase you."

"Oh, no, you didn't chase me, baby," I laughed. "If you'd've chased me, I'd've run for the county line."

"There's more than one way to do a chase," Cindy said.

I loved the story.

Helen smiled. "She'd come in here after you first moved in and she met you by the pool, and she'd ask me about you and what I thought, and how it was between me and Herb, because he was so much older than me. And you'd drive up and she'd start smiling." Helen's eyes sparkled. "I hoped for good things for 'er, Dan. That's all. I just wanted her to have a safe and stable home." She reached and stroked the side of Cindy's face. "Looks like she's got that."

"Had to defend it, too," Cindy popped up. "My home. MY guy."

"And scars to prove it," I said. "Come on, punkin. Let's find out what we can do this evening to stay out of trouble."

"You two be good!" Helen laughed.

"Tell Charlie we said 'Hi',"I answered.

My little cutie got in the truck from my side, buckling in, and we were off on the short drive to Helen's house.

"We need to start packing up some things, baby," I said.

"Uh-huh,"Cindy retorted. "If there's ANY way we can make it work, I want to spend tomorrow night in OUR home."

I regarded the face of this angel next to me. "My plan, too, sweetheart. So how was school? Your high school experience?"

I got an earful. Cindy's well past the point where she's the least bit bashful about telling me her observations and thoughts. In the beginning, I had to encourage her to just trot them out to talk about. Over the past few months, a couple of things have happened. First, she no longer doubted her intelligence. Second, I was her friend, and discussion was, between us, give and take, question and answer and proposition and rebuttal.

She was particularly put out by the school's refusal to let her and Kaitlyn assist in math reviews. "That's an awfully weak reason, don't you think?" she told me.

"Yes I do, little one," I answered. "But you have to understand how paranoid some people are. These days it's just too easy for somebody to get a lawyer to put the squeeze on somebody for the flimsiest premise."