Chapter 5: Unwanted Intervention

The next day, Cate and I again picked up Chalise and Kitty for school. This was particularly necessary since Chalise and her mother jointly shared her car for her mother's job as well. The girls were in a particularly good mood, considering what had occurred over the weekend and they were still anxious to talk about it.

"So, Cate, get anything good last night?" Kitty teased.

Cate blushed. "Sorry, but nothing happened between us. I was, uh, a bit indisposed, if you get my drift. Besides, I want our first time to be a little more special than my being just the next in line."

"So, how far down the line did he get last night?" Chalise asked, again in a playful mood.

"Oh, so far he's gone through Shani, Allison and Brooke. I think it will take the rest of the week to make it through everyone," Cate responded. "Alex may be amazing, but he's still only got a human dick." They all giggled at that one. I would have responded, but I liked how well everyone was getting along.

"Well, you'll have to arrange your own time in there, because we're supposed to work out our weekend trip," Kitty reminded her. "Has anyone worked out who's going and who is staying?"

"Actually," I told them, "I'd kind of like to keep it simple, just so we don't show up like an invading army or something. I figure we'll need one of you. We'll need to explain why an under aged kid wants to store his sperm, so I figure it would be good to have a girlfriend along to say that I'm planning on entering the army when I turn 18, and that we want to save my sperm just in case I don't come back. We can tell them we can't get married because of her dad, which will cover the lack of parental approval and a marriage license, but that we still want to prepare for any eventuality."

"Nice," Cate observed. "You're actually doing some advance planning on your own. That's nice to see."

"It's pretty romantic, though. That makes a great story. I can just picture myself as the fair, distressed maiden," Kitty started in on her Scarlett O'Hara imitation. After she recovered from her brief giggling fit, she continued. "I like the explanation, although I gather that means you think having two girlfriends in attendance would be difficult to explain?" When I didn't respond but simply looked at her in the rear view mirror, she got the point.

"That's just as well, it would be difficult for me to get away this weekend. My dad just learned about you yesterday, so I'm not sure he'd like the idea of my going on an extended trip where I had to stay overnight with you. I'll let Chalise go. Since she is living with her mom at your sister's apartment, she'll have an easier time arranging it. Plus, explaining a black girlfriend will add enough realism to make the whole tale believable. But just remember, I get the next trip, OK?"

I laughed and told her that it was a deal and that I'd make up for it when we got back.

"So who else is going?" Chalise asked.

Kitty sighed. "Well obviously Cate, because she's always the one to explain things. Gail will be there already, so she can serve as security for him, just to make sure he doesn't get beaten up again. Plus, it will be good to have a Seer around to commiserate with any new girls they find. I figure that is about all they can safely take. Do you plan to take Natalie or Rebecca along, just in case you meet any new Watchers?"

I was impressed that Kitty had managed to pick up on so much of my thinking. Even though she hadn't been 'in the loop' for long, she'd clearly been observing how we operated for a while.

"No, I figure we'll treat the Watchers as we always do," I replied. "Cate can explain the basic theories to them and we'll get them in touch with everyone at home, and with Patricia and the other Watchers in New Orleans. We've already got almost a car full. Anymore and we'd have trouble moving around without a van."

"Actually, the way we've 'always' treated the Watchers was to simply ignore them," Cate cut in to explain. "This will be quite a change for us. So far we haven't even recorded how many we've encountered, so we still don't know what kind of ratios we're dealing with."

"That makes sense. So how long are we talking?" Chalise asked.

"Alex worried about meeting too many women, since St. Louis is larger than New Orleans was. So he only wants to stay for part of a single day. We figured we'd drive up Friday after school, stay with Gail, visit the clinic and a central location in the city, and then head back. We wanted an extra seat or two in the car just in case we end up with an extra passenger or so. Plus you should ask your mother to write you a note saying she approves of what you are doing, and that you aren't doing this behind her back," Cate told her.

"Maybe not behind Mom's back, but definitely behind Dad's," Chalise commented.

"We just want to avoid any potential roadblocks we can," Cate said.

"There's one other thing we wanted to discuss," Kitty told us. "Chalise and I have decided that, since we're now the 'official' co-girlfriends, that you have to take us both to the Prom," she told me, having elected herself their official spokesperson.

"Isn't it already too late?" I asked. "I thought the tickets went on sale a while back?"

"No, it's coming up, but we managed to get an exemption, and even talked the teacher in charge into some extra tickets. It was a bit difficult, because officially we can't both be your girlfriends, and likewise we can't get in unless we're dating a senior, but we managed to work it all out. So you're taking us buster, like it or not!" Luckily she was smiling as she said that last part.

"Actually I think it's considered an 'Upper Classman's Ball' instead of a 'Senior's Prom' this year," I told them, "so technically Chalise could be my official date, while Kitty can simply go stag and meet us there."

"No dice bud, we both want to be your official dates. We also both want you to abuse us and do naughty things to us afterwards," Chalise told me with a leer.

"Well, I'll certainly try my best, but you realize poor little me will be much too tired and weak to keep up with a couple of wild things like the two of you," I said, trying to pull off a Hattie McDaniel accent in the role of Mammy. I'm not sure they got it, though. Sometimes my tastes run a bit esoteric.

By that time we'd arrived at school. Cate asked to be dropped off to the side. When I asked why she simply told me she'd tell me all about it soon, so I simply assumed it was some 'woman's issue' thing like maybe Mom was having her put on the pill or something, so I didn't press.

After that I parked in the students' parking lot and we got our stuff together and headed into school. As we were crossing the parking lot, we ran into a waiting Tony. He quickly approached us and I had a sinking feeling, noting how he timed it to make sure we couldn't return to our car for anything to defend ourselves with, and we were too far away from the school for any administrative intervention. The only school officials nearby were either bus drivers or Mrs. Pearlson, who was directing student traffic. She would have to call someone else to intervene as she couldn't abandon her post. Tony didn't look pleased.

As we neared each other he suddenly shifted into a semi-classic martial arts move, beginning to advance on me. I waved the girls back and started to move forward on my own, hoping to shield the girls when they both congregated in front of me, effectively ignoring me.

"Hey, what's up?" I tried to argue with them, trying to move them aside.

"Forget it buster," Kitty told me, Chalise adding "Your girls would kill us if you got injured on our watch. They may have to listen to you, but they tell both of us what we're supposed to do." I had my doubts about that, considering how my girls were always setting up rules around the house, but this was not the time to be discussing it.

"What's the matter you little faggot," Tony hissed at me with a sneer on his face, "hiding your pussy whipped ass behind your girlfriends?" I could tell he was trying to goad me, but I also had a problem with letting them defend me from danger. I again tried to move past them and they firmly pressed back, instead moving closer to Tony himself. At least Cate was far enough away she couldn't interfere with me and get hurt in the process, but I knew I'd have my hands full trying to defend myself and keep both Kitty and Chalise out of harm's way.

Tony had apparently had enough and decided to show off his fancy footwork to try to intimidate us. He did a couple of quick kicks into the air before jumping towards Chalice, throwing his foot at her face.

However, they seemed to have guessed it was a likely bluff, because they both rushed him while he was still getting started. He quickly flinched, trying to deflect his perfectly timed kick now ruined by the suddenly changing distance to his target. He ended up landing on his ass when he overcompensated. The girls stood over him, watching him like an errant little kid causing his older siblings trouble again, further exacerbating the situation. I noticed, once again, that students began to quickly flock to the source of trouble, just as they had been surrounding me so often of late.

With a quick well practiced move, Tony swept Chalise's feet from under her while likewise knocking Kitty on her own ass with an arm sweep before he did one of those back bending, standy-up jump moves to face me with another sneer. I saw that neither girl was injured, just taken out of the action temporarily. I was preparing myself as he again began to move towards me, putting off thoughts of helping the girls until the immediate situation with Tony was past, when I suddenly found my way blocked by another couple of bodies blocking my path. Looking up I saw Mia Amendez, Amanda Hodges and another girl I didn't even know, all ready to stand off against a relatively well trained assailant in order to defend me.

Mia and Amanda were two of the girls that had recently joined our table, but I had no idea why the other girl would take an interest in defending me. Heck, I couldn't figure out why any of them would risk themselves by interfering in my business.

"Come on guys, this is MY fight here," I argued sharply. "I don't want you getting injured trying to protect me."

"We all stand together," Mia insisted. "We're not going to let you be injured again. I'm not sure why, but Chalise and Kitty both insist you aren't supposed to get into a fight, so we support them in this. Even if you won't tell us your personal secrets, we've all figured out that there's something ... significant about you. And we're all sure that whatever it is, it'll lead you to some great things." I wondered just when this little arrangement had been struck between them, but I didn't have much time to consider it.

"Thanks," Kitty stated as she and Chalise both climbed to their feet, coming around a confused Tony to surround my two sides as well.

"This won't do you any good you motherfucking ass wipe," he spit at me. "I'm going to kill you the first chance I get you alone," he warned me.

"Get the fuck out of here you loser," Amanda stated, making a quick rush at him. When he started to go into some crazy crane position she just grabbed his lead foot and gave it a strong heft and he went flying through the air to land with a heavy "Oomph" on his back on the hard surface of the asphalt parking lot. Several people cheered and he glanced around at the hostile crowd suddenly surrounding him.

"I'll get you, just you watch out," he warned again as he scrambled awkwardly to his feet and disappeared back into the crowd to the catcalls from the crowd. I didn't think his public humiliation would help me any.

"Look guys," I argued as I bent down to check on Kitty and Chalise, seeing if they had sustained any injuries, "I appreciate the support, but I can fight my own—"

"Nothing doing, Alex," Kitty informed me, emphasizing each word. "We've been warned to watch out for you. You're much too important to be left to your own heroisms. You mean too much to too many people to let you hurt yourself."

"Besides, you'll do better without those awful black eyes blocking your vision of us cuties," argued Mia, batting her heavily mascaraed eyelashes at me.

We quickly gathered ourselves together, and I made sure to brush all the dirt off my two lovely defenders' asses before we made our way into school, along with the slowly dispersing crowd of onlookers. It turns out the other defender I didn't know, one Nancy Thorn, was a friend of Mia's. One of her few remaining non-Goth friends, that is. She said they'd been old friends but had fallen off lately. She thanked me for helping bring Mia back to reality, as she'd begun to fear the results of Mia's new Emo inclinations. When I asked why she'd chosen to defend me when I was perfectly able to get punched all on my own, she just laughed.

"You've become such a source of entertainment around the school; I just couldn't let you mess that up by being a tough guy." I just shook my head at that kind of logic and let it pass undefended. I at least had the presence of mind to thank her for her assistance.

"Well, does anyone have any idea what set him off, at least?" I asked everyone. It seemed apparent that he'd been brooding about this, probably getting more and more steamed during the course of the weekend, but so far I didn't have a clue what his issue was. And I was so busy trying to dissuade the girls from defending me that I hadn't had the opportunity to confront him about it.

The first period class had just sat down when the intercom buzzed, asking for my presence in the Principal's Office. Everyone immediately informed me how much trouble I was in, and I was briefly paranoid about the school's 'no fighting' rules when I stopped to remember I'd never actually gotten near Tony. In fact, no one had done anything aside from my girlfriends getting dumped on their asses. I figured I was in the clear.

The teacher asked if I needed an escort to the office, but I deferred. She'd apparently heard the talk about my confrontation from the buzz in the halls and in her room, before she'd finally tried to quiet the classroom. I told her I was glad for the consideration, but I could manage a simple walk down the hall on my own. Again everyone offered their own two cents worth as I exited the classroom, and she again had to expend all her energies into quieting everyone down.

When I entered the Principal's outer office I was directed into his office without preamble by Mrs. White. There I found him sitting with Natalie, Anh and my mother, all looking quite distressed. 'I told you all not to panic, ' I mentally dressed Anh down. She lowered her eyes even more than she normally did, but she remained firm in her seat. Natalie seemed to pick up on my mood, but she looked at me somewhat defiantly.

"We're here because your sister called us about the trouble you got in," Natalie announced.

"I still don't know why you're here," my principal told her. "Neither of you two have any business here."

"We're interested in the welfare of our friend, and we're not going to let you railroad either him or us," Natalie told him defiantly.

The Principal, Andrew Phillips, just turned and looked at me. "Well?" he asked.

"There wasn't any trouble," I argued. "Nothing happened; no one hurt anyone, nothing got damaged, it was a complete nonevent."

"There, you see? Nothing to be concerned about," answered the slimy Principal. He was a nice enough guy, clearly more concerned with appearances than in making any real efforts, but I still felt he was slimy because he was obviously more concerned with sweeping everything under the carpet than in dealing with it himself.

"Just because he wasn't injured this time, doesn't mean that nothing happened," my mother harshly responded. "We want to know how my son can be openly attacked on school property and you do nothing about it." Mr. Phillips just returned to me.

"Did anyone attack you ... what is it, Alexander or something?" I wasn't quite sure which question he wanted me to answer but I did my best.

"No, sir, no one bothered me. Nothing was said and no one was injured." I was determined this wasn't going to be blown up into something it wasn't.

"Very well then, you can go now," he curtly dismissed me and I slipped out amidst a chorus of arguments from inside, and sharp looks by the women in the office. I figured this was just adding fuel to the fire. If Tony had just slugged me it would all be over and he would have felt victorious. Now the whole school would be challenging him over why he let a couple of little girls beat him down, and he'd feel honor bound to beat the living crap out of me. I'd have to figure a way out of all of this.

'End it NOW!' I mentally challenged Anh. 'Brooke, Shani, Allison, if you have anything to say on my fight this morning, I want you to stop now. I'm trying to bury this nonsense, so I don't need anyone digging up trouble, ' I warned them all.

'What's this about a fight?' Brooke anxiously asked me.

'It's nothing, Brooke. We'll talk about it later. I just don't want anyone causing a ruckus for me here at school, ' I told her.

'I'll try to calm your mother down, but she's pretty upset. I can calm her down, but I'm not sure I can do it with Mr. Phillips here, ' Anh informed me.

'Just try to calm things down. Damn, why didn't you ask before storming in here?' I asked her.

'Sorry, I've got to go, ' she told me and I didn't object, because I wanted her focused on getting everyone out of his office.

With that I returned to my classroom. All the kids looked at me curiously, hoping for a clue about what happened, but I didn't reveal anything, simply sitting down and listening to the lecture.

The issue came up again during third period when I was again called to the Principal's Office. I cringed when I heard it, wondering what the girls were up to that they'd have to call me back to Mr. Phillips' Office. When I got there I was again issued directly in, only briefly noticing how nervous all the office workers were. Entering his office I found an attractive mature woman sitting in front of his desk looking very professional and confident, but comfortable in relaxed business attire.

"Alexander Jennings, this is Detective Michelle McCallister, she's with the local Eldorado Police force," he introduced us both. So that's what's up, I thought to myself, somehow the girls got the police involved. And after I'd told them to back off. Man, I was going to have a serious talk with everyone when I got home. They all talked about listening to my lead, but once the shit hits the fan everyone goes their own way. However, I was too upset and too busy trying to calm myself so I could respond to speak to them just then.

Trying to shake my anger at the girls, I glanced at the policewoman before me. The lack of a uniform threw me. How this non-event rates a senior investigator I had no idea. How it rated any police involvement I had no idea either.

As I said, she was an attractive older woman. I'd guess she was around her late thirties, although she still looked good. She had jet black hair with dark eyes and wore a dark suit, making her look pretty severe. But her eyes belied her dour demeanor. They held a humor and intellect that intrigued me, but I could tell she could turn that off and be as serious as she needed to be. I didn't plan on getting her angry at me if I could avoid it.

"Nice to meet you, Ma'am," I said, trying to establish direct eye contact and extending my hand, "but I don't know how I can be of any assistance to you." Before she could say anything my idiot principal started up.

"Alex, can you tell the detective what happened to you this morning," he said, leaning back, intertwining his fingers before him and staring hard at me.

"Sure. Nothing happened," I responded, not even bothering to waste my time returning the principal's glare, still maintaining eye contact with the Detective instead. "I was coming into school when there was a minor incident, I couldn't even see who was involved so I don't know anything about it," I said, putting the lessons I'd learned about lying yesterday to good use.

"There, you see," Principal Phillips gloated, smiling broadly and clearly pleased to be done with the trouble, though his eyes still reflected his unease at being here. "There's nothing for anyone to be concerned with." However the detective wasn't to be deterred quite so easily, as she stared at the Principle. I could see her eyes switch over from that humorous look into one much darker.

"Are you so blind that you just accept the word of a bullied victim, clearly too intimidated to speak up for himself?" she asked pointedly, giving Principle Andrews a much harder glare than his. "Have you even spoken to any of the other students? From what I've heard, this is becoming an endemic problem. Alex here is reported to have been the subject of repeated threats. I hear your school is divided between Alex and his few defenders, against the rest of the school, lead by the popular students all trying to intimidate him. Did you know one of your student's older brothers—one of your valued football stars by the way—just recently attacked him in his home and sent him to the hospital?"

Principal Phillips looked astonished. "I had no idea of any of this, why hasn't any of this been brought to my attention?" he asked, glancing at me as if I was the problem here.

"Maybe because you choose to ignore what's happening in your own building," the detective stressed, leaning forward and placing her hand on the middle of his desk, challenging the cocooning protection he hid behind. "You don't even know his name," she said, indicating me with a sweep of her arm which forced Andrews to glance at me, "and from what I hear you've been in meetings about him all morning," she continued, forcing him to quickly look back at her as she stormed over him, his composure melting further by the second. "Do you know how much attention cases of bullying in high schools have been generating lately; do you really want to be the focus of a police investigation in the matter?"

"No, no, of course not," he hurried to respond, his hands now fretting nervously as his eyes flickered, as if looking for a way out. "We'll investigate this and deal with it immediately," he argued, swallowing hard. "Now, Alex, can you tell us more of what happened?" he asked, turning to me, despite all my previous protestations, suddenly sounding as if he cared about me at all.

"I've got nothing to tell," I bluffed, leaning back now that he was on the defensive. "There wasn't anyone involved."