Chapter 5

"Traci?" Mom asked one evening. "I'm going to Staunton to visit your ster. This would be a chance to take a look at school. Interested in going?"

I hadn't considered checking out the college. I didn't even know that was possible. Sure," I said after a few seconds of thought. "Sure. When?"

"This weekend. We'd come back on Tuesday. I'll call the school and clear it with them."

I nodded, didn't think much about it, but did get a suitcase out of the closet. We'd go up on Saturday, so I only had to pack clean clothes for Monday—we'd probably go to church—Monday, and Tuesday. Three outfits plus what I'd wear on Saturday. One outfit would be "nice", suitable for church. Fair enough, I laid out what I wanted to take, and was satisfied with that.

The trip to Staunton in the Shenandoah Valley was boring except Mom and I like the same kind of music, so that worked out. Lois looked pretty good, a little underfed, but she always worried about her weight.

Her room seemed small, a bed, a desk, a window next to a closet. She had nice view of the lawn in front of her dorm. She'd put up a couple of posters, one of a musical group that she liked, the other of Paris and the Eifel Tower.

"Are all of the rooms like this?" I asked.

"Most of them have a roommate," Lois aid.

"How did you get so lucky?"

"I volunteered. Last year I had a roommate, and she about drove me nuts."

We ate in the dining hall, I poked my nose into a couple of classrooms—they looked no different than what I expected—and the town was small and overrun with tourist types. I saw enough Gray and Blue around that there had to be a Civil War Encampment going on (there was).

"What did you think?" Mom asked as we drove back. It was late Monday afternoon, spring was out in full force, and one of those good days to be alive.

"You're assuming I'll go to school there."

"Well, yes. You did plan on college, didn't you?"

"I intend to go to college," I said.

"It's not a large school," Mom said, "but you might give it a lot of thought. The quality of education is better than at a lot of the larger schools."

She didn't say much beyond that, leaving me to think and stew.

Neither Kevin nor Cheri were home when we pulled into the driveway. I figured they were off somewhere. We were home earlier than we said. I thought they might still be shooting at Julie's or Rhonda's.

I was unpacking when the phone rang. "I'll get it," Mom called. By habit I checked the Caller I.D. The caller was the city. Puzzled, I went downstairs to where Mom looked shocked as she hung up the phone.

"Your brother and sister have been arrested," she said. "Cheri didn't say what for." She picked up her purse. "We need to find out what's going on."

I got my coat and purse. Then, as Mom went to the bathroom, I got to thinking. I called Rhonda's, and then Julie's. No answer. I got the tapes we had, every inch of footage we'd shot, and put them in a box in the back seat. They made an impressive collection. There was an incredible amount of sustained sucking and screwing on these tapes, all by underage kids. It was evidence, and I didn't want it around where it could fall into police hands.

When you hide something, don't hide it in a place connected to you. Search warrants will give the police every excuse they need to look everywhere. When Mom came out to the garage I was behind the wheel. I was old enough to drive, and I even had my license. It was also late enough there wouldn't be that much traffic. It was the perfect opportunity. I could find a place to temporarily hide the tapes.

Wouldn't you know it, Mom was too agitated to be a passenger and I had to relinquish the wheel. I didn't get a chance to hide the tapes. The police would search the car as a matter of course, the taps would be seized, and my goose would be cooked.

The Low Gas light came on after about a mile. Mom muttered something and pulled in to the convenience store. As she ran inside (the pump wouldn't take her card after dark), I put the box in a place near the back of the store, getting back to the car right about the time Mom came out.

She didn't put much gas in, just enough to get us there and back with perhaps a little left over. That was okay. My one worry now was that no one accidentally stumble across the tapes. At least, though, it wouldn't be the police.

We were allowed to see Cheri. Kevin was still being booked, even though it'd been several hours. Apparently the police didn't have much to do this evening, so they were drawing the available work out to fill the time.

"They arrested us for public nudity," Cheri said in an angry voice. "And having sex with a minor. They're calling it statutory rape."

"From your expression," Mom said, "I take it you were."

"Yes'm."

Cheri knew she was in a lot of trouble. She almost never called Mom Ma'am. She only did that when she thought she was in really bad trouble.

"It's just a bunch of us kids after school."

"No adults?"

"No."

"All right, I'll see what I can do."

Mom asked a few more questions, but she was in her no-nonsense mode. We'd all learned that when she was being Sgt. Joe Friday, you answered "yes" or "no", and only explained when asked point-blank for an explanation.

We left the County Jail and Mom made right for a Bail Bondsman. He made a few phone calls, and then Mom produced her credit card. There were a bunch of papers to sign, but the bail bondsman made another call, and then smiled.

"You can go pick up your kids. Don't go to the front desk, they'll delay you there for an hour or so, and then you'll discover they were let out on the street, where they might have been picked up again for being out after hours."

"Sounds like something they'd do. All right, where do we go?"

"The side exit." He drew a sketch map, and by the time I made heads and tails of it, we were back there. We found a door that was very difficult to see in the dark right about where the bail bondsman id it would be, and parked across the street, waiting. The occasional police car drove by, but didn't stop to see what we were doing.

Eventually a bunch of kids came out. Defying every traffic ordinance on the books, Mom pulled right across and opened the doors.

"Everyone in," I said. It was a tight fit, but every kid that had been at Rhonda's piled in. We drove down the street about a block to the parking lot of a Hardee's, and Mom had the kids start calling their parents on their phones. Parents began showing up to collect their kids. Eventually just Kevin and Cheri were left.

When we got home the police were there with a search warrant. They were looking for the tapes. They looked in vain. While they did that, Mom questioned Kevin and Cheri closely. Was she shocked that they engaged in sex? I don't think so. They didn't say that they'd done it with each other. That might have been too much.

"What happened?" I asked Cheri when Mom was finished with her.

"Apparently we weren't careful enough," my sister said. "We were mostly naked when the door opened and two police officers walked in."

"Was anyone actually doing it?"

She shook her head. "We were in the backyard at Rhonda's. We thought we'd do some taping by the pool. They accused us of having sex, but we denied that. Being naked isn't a crime in Virginia."

"Being underage is." I thought of those tapes. I didn't say anything because there were still plenty of police around. It'd be just my luck to say something, and they'd overhear it.

"Well, Mom said she'd sort out, so I guess we'll see what happens."

Cheri nodded. "I guess so."

Mom took them to see a lawyer in Lexington, and they poured the whole thing out to her. They denied having sex, but claimed they were doing nude sunbathing on a dare. I heard tons of gossip at school, and was quizzed closely. All I would say, though, was that I hadn't had a chance to talk to anyone, and so was as much in the dark as they were.

I was breathing a lot easier, the night before, somewhere around 2:30 in the morning, I'd slipped out, walked the mile to the convenience store, and retrieved the tapes. I needed a secure place for them, and fond one. It had to be a place I could get to easily, and that had no connection to me. I had plenty of time to think as I walked there and back, and finally found just the place.

The police search did find the tapes I was using that Mr. Grant had seen the "how we make the show" tapes. Mr. Grant identified that as something the school knew about, so the tapes were returned, grudgingly.

Cheri and I walked to the store, and when we were alone on the sidewalk, did some talking. She wanted to know where the tapes were. I just told her they were in a safe place, and changed the subject. I wasn't sure why she wanted them. They'd show kids having sex, but that was it. Would that exonerate someone, or make things worse? I wasn't sure, so to be safe, I kept them hidden.

"What was jail like?" I asked her.

She shivered. "Cold. They kept us in holding cells. It isn't like on TV, ether, no iron bars or stuff. It's a concrete box with a bench. The temperature was like 65 degrees, and spent all my time shivering."

"You normally dress pretty warmly."

"They take everything. We had these cotton things, sort of like a tee-shirt, with pants to match, and slippers. They let us keep our panties, but they took everything else."

"Everything?"

"Jewelry, earrings, rings, and so on. They gave us slippers, but that was it. They searched us, too, hands everywhere." She shook her head. "We were pieces of meat, that's all."

It sounded horrible. It made sense, too. Use something like that to scare people, and m they'd cooperate or be god, or something. I said as much.

"Well, it worked. Thing is, though, we didn't do anything. There's no proof without those tapes."