Chapter 4

The next morning I awoke found my mother upset in the kitchen.

"What's going on, Mom?"

"Dad is going out of town. He's being deployed for the next year," she said. I could tell that she had been emotional about it, but was just tired now. "I spent most of last night talking to him."

"Cool! Like MASH the TV show? Is he going to live in a tent? Do you know where he's going?"

My response caught Mom by surprise again. I could tell she didn't think it was going to be "Cool". "They don't know where they're going or what the conditions are going to be. They just know that they won't be able to call home, write, or anything."

"What?" Now I'm surprised. "Why wouldn't they be able to call or write? Even in the WW I they could write."

"I don't know. They won't tell us anything."

"Is the whole hospital going?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

"Ummm ... no, only selected people are needed. Your dad is just one of the few selected."

"Wow ... that is weird," I stated the obvious.

"Yes ... but there's nothing we can do about it. Hurry off to school so you don't miss the bus."

This is new. My dad has had some of the longest and strangest working hours I've ever heard of. He's been gone for a week at a time before, but not like this. He's never been "deployed" and there's never been any talk about him being incommunicado for a year. I wasn't close to being late for the bus, but I figured my mom was tired of talking about it, so I left her in peace.

When I arrived at the bus stop the guys were already there and talking about me.

"So what' the story?" I asked as I walked up.

Joe shrugged. "Word is that you were harassing her on the bus Monday and that you changed your schedule just so you could have a class with her. There there's the "stalking" incident Monday night that we were just talking about. You said you were just running, but it seems like a lot of coincidences to me. You have to admit, it's weird that you're taking a typing class."

"Yes, I'm taking typing. There were very few electives available when we registered. I signed up for the class the week before school started. I didn't meet Kelly until Monday morning, so I did not switch classes to be near Kelly. We sit on opposite side of the room and never talk to each other. I don't' know how that can be considered harassment. Am I harassing the other 20 girls in the room with my presence as well?"

"Man, every time you open your mouth it's another excuse." Joe said.

"What excuses? I didn't do anything! Damn it! The most forward thing I did was introduce myself. If that's harassment then the whole world is screwed."

"So you say!"

"If I did anything why isn't she complaining to the office?"

"Maybe she doesn't want to get you into trouble."

"Oh, right, I'd much rather get my ass kicked by her boyfriend. That's sarcasm in case you missed it!" I replied.

"You better back off or you're going to get your ass kicked by me!" Joe replied.

I then realized that I was letting my mouth run away again. "Sorry Joe..." I backed up a little. "I'm just getting ticked about this situation and there doesn't seem to be any way out of it. I shouldn't be yelling at you about it. We cool?" I held out my hand.

Joe left me waiting for a minute, then shook my hand. "We're cool. That doesn't fix your problem though."

"Any chance you can talk to Krieg?"

"No, and it wouldn't help anyway. He doesn't know me from Adam. I'm just a try out for the JV team, we never even see those guys," was the unfortunate reply.

When Amy got on the bus today she slipped right past Kelly and leaned up against me again. She immediately started talking about school and the different things that were going on. I ask how the band was shaping up and we talked about how our days were yesterday. While she was talking she kept squirming against me as if she needed some more room. I tried to move over further, but I was up against the side of the bus, so that's all the room there was. She also kept looking back at me. I thought I might have something wrong with my hair or something, but she didn't say anything about it if I did. When she stood up to get off the bus she seemed to be waiting for me to say something, but I have no idea what.

I met up with Greg on the way to home room and we discussed my conversation with Joe. He thought we were about to throw down and was glad I calmed down. "Hope you got that out of your system."

"Yeah, that was a little closer then I'd like. I have to watch my temper or I'll be adding new problems when I haven't solved the old ones yet. I don't need that."

"See ya in Math!" Greg said in parting.

The morning progressed as usual, without the extracurricular flying events and mud slide of yesterday. Miss Prim still didn't like that I was in her class, but she seemed to treat it as inevitable now and just ignored me. Math started to get more interesting, Mr Miles had a different teaching style than I was used to. He would actually write proofs on the board, something I hadn't seen before.

Soon it was lunch, and I met up with Greg and Robert as usual. We made our way through the line and to what was becoming our normal table. As we sat down another unexpected presence appeared.

"Mind if I join you?" Amy announced.

"Certainly!" I blurted out. "Amy, this is Greg and Robert. Guys, the lovely junior that's gracing us with her presence is known as Amy, but you too can just call her "Goddess"" I smiled.

Amy giggled! Wow! "Hi guys, you can call me Amy. I only use "Goddess" for formal occasions."

The three of us did our best to entertain Amy with our antics until it was time to return to class. I told Amy I'd see her tomorrow and she smiled back at me as she walked away.

Robert left with "Damn she's hot!"

"Dude! Where have you been hiding her?" Greg started as we headed to gym.

I laughed. "I don't think she's serious. I think she was just slumming with us, I told you she's a junior."

"I don't know man, the way she was looking at you ... It didn't look like nothing to me."

There was a notice in the locker room for us to head directly to the weight room as soon as we got changed. When we got there Coach J wasn't there. Instead one of the female coaches was there, Coach Franks. She announced to the class that today was the same as yesterday so get started. That sounded good to me so Greg and I headed to the free weight room.

"Just where do you two think you're going?" Coach Franks challenged.

"We're working with free weights, Coach Franks. Coach J approved it," I said crossing my fingers.

She didn't look like she was going for it, but one of our classmates spoke up and said we were in there yesterday. She just nodded and that was good enough for us.

Today we spotted each other with the bench press. Greg was laterally weak when he tried to lift. I explained that was one of the problems with the weight machines. You don't have to balance the weight, just push. Free weights are more like the real world. Olympic lifts don't have much to do with moving objects in the real world, but the muscle groups are mostly the same.

After we finished with the bench press I wanted to work on some skills, but I didn't see anything lighter than the 45lb barbells. Once you've learned the movement a barbell is fine, but when you want to show someone a lift in slow motion you want something very light. After telling her what I wanted, Coach F showed me where some lighter warm up bars were. She seemed to approve of my choice, and watched as I slowly lead Greg through some power cleans.

The rest of the day quickly passed and soon we were on our way home. I noticed Kelly and Krieg staring me down again as I got on the bus, but there were teachers all around the bus area to prevent horse play. Once the bus started moving I started thinking about my father again. This change in his work had to mean something. I hoped to be able to corner him before he left.

As we left the bus stop I made sure I had Robert's and Greg's phone numbers. "You got that proof stuff he was showing on the board, right? Because I looked, and it's not in the book."

"Sort of. There shouldn't be anything like that on the homework," Robert replied. Greg looked a little scared at the prospect, but didn't say anything.

"Just as long as I ain't the only one that hasn't seen that shit before," I shook my head walking away. I get the one teacher with an independent syllabus. Actually I'm glad I did. I was expecting a boring year of reviews, but instead this teacher might challenge me. Besides ... I like math.

Mom was in the kitchen and she still didn't look happy.

"So when's dad leaving?" I wanted to find a good time to drill him on this. It might be a good time to reveal that they weren't fooling me with their stories.

Mom looked surprised. "They left last night. I thought I told you."

"What? He's already gone? He didn't get to say goodbye. Did he even come home and pack?" So much for cornering him.

"No, said they would issue whatever he needed. They all loaded up on a plane and left." Her voice was quiet. It seemed that this separation took something out of her, and it had only just begun.

"Maybe he should quit," I offered. "He could go back to his last job or something."

Mom was only half listening to me. "It's something to consider."

"Mom, are you okay?"

"Oh, I'll get over it. It was just something of a shock. I wasn't expecting this."

It didn't seem like a good time to push her, but I was very concerned. She looked like she needed someone to talk to, but she didn't have a friend network here. I'm not sure she ever had a real friend network, with all of our moving around. She seemed to just focus on Dad.

I went up to my room and did my homework. Fortunately our math assignment didn't have anything unexpected. I spent a little time calling Greg and Robert, but we didn't really have much to say.

The doorbell rang a little later. I looked out the window to see Dad's car, and got excited for a brief moment. Then I realized that someone was just bringing it home for him. Two men with military haircuts, but no uniforms, got into another car and left after giving my mother the keys. I could see she was crying as she pulled the car into the garage.