Duke had gone with Dad and my grandma to be interviewed after she’d turned in the signatures and had them initially verified. I’d tipped off Jeff Delahey as to what we were up to, and he’d told his paper. They’d sent a photographer and a reporter to do a quick story. It wasn’t every day that a dog ran for office.
“Isn’t it racist to suggest that she can cook rice better than I can?” I asked as I put the last of the groceries on the counter.
When you try to be funny, not all your jokes work. Some unpleasant memories should never be thought of again. I pushed that one into a box and labeled it ‘Stupid Things to NEVER Say Again!’
The unfortunate truth was she did cook rice better than I did.
◊◊◊ Thursday October 20
When we picked up Brook, she was in a good mood.
“’Sup,” I said, trying to be gangster.
“He’s your boyfriend,” Cassidy said from the front seat.
“Guess what?” Brook said, ignoring me.
“Riverside has the flu, and they have to forfeit?” I guessed.
“It’s even better,” Brook said, then paused for dramatic effect. “Destiny went to State to a frat party.”
Brook shoved her phone in my face, and I burst out laughing. There was a series of pictures of Destiny passed out. They’d gotten out the magic markers and had drawn all over her face. Across her forehead, it said, ‘Slut!’ On her left cheek, someone had drawn a male member pointed at her mouth, and on the other cheek, it said, ‘I (heart sign) Dick!’
“Who gave this to you?” I asked.
I saw her glance towards the front seat, and I put two and two together. Don, Cassidy’s boyfriend and Destiny’s brother, must have taken the pictures and shared them with her.
“You can’t show these to anyone,” I said, making a leap of logic.
“Why not? The bitch deserves it,” Brook reasoned.
“Because you’ll be starting World War III at the Crown household. If my brother shared pictures of me with his girlfriend, and she, in turn, shared them with my worst enemy? See where I’m going with this?” I asked.
“But … this is just too good not to use,” Brook whined.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t use it. I want you to think it through. Just be absolutely sure that you find a way to not lose us Don. She’ll kill him if she figures out that he gave those pictures to anyone,” I said to Brook, and then looked at Cassidy. “And you, Young Lady, know better.”
If she planned to be in the personal protection business, her reputation had to be like that of a priest in a confessional. If she shared gossip, or in this case, embarrassing photos, she would be out of a job. I knew that was one of the first lessons Fritz had taught her.
“But I didn’t find out about this while I was working!” Cassidy deflected.
I looked at her sternly.
“You can’t use them. You have to delete the pictures,” Cassidy told Brook.
“No!”
If she’d done the foot stomp just a little better, she would have nailed an impression of my three-year-old niece.
◊◊◊
I sometimes wonder what drives the teenage girl’s mind. My girlfriend decided that if she couldn’t show anyone the pictures, she would let Destiny know that she’d seen the state Destiny was in last night. Destiny was obviously not feeling well from too much drink last night. That didn’t stop her from finding her brother and whaling on him. As you can imagine, he didn’t react well to that.
For the rest of us, all that was missing was popcorn so we could munch on some snacks while we enjoyed the show. Brook stood with her mouth open as Mr. Palm came out and dragged our entertainment to the office.
“Happy?” I asked her.
To Brook’s credit, she shook her head ‘no’ and rushed off to be alone. I probably should have chased after her, but I was decidedly not happy seeing one of our key receivers dragged off to be suspended for three days. There was no way he would be allowed to play this Friday.
To compound the issue, he was also our backup tight end, and his size helped wherever he lined up. Much of this week’s game plan was to run the ball, and we needed his size for blocking. Many of my teammates came to the same realization.
“Did that just happen?” Ty asked.
He was the focus of this week’s running game, and losing Don wasn’t something he wanted to see.
“Yep. I’m afraid your job just got harder,” I observed.
“We’ll pick up the slack,” Johan assured Ty.
The bell rang to break up our pity party.
◊◊◊
Sometimes, Dare makes me want to hate him. I now understood why Alan, Jeff, Tami, and I used to irritate our classmates in grade and middle school. We got a pop quiz back, and he’d missed one of the questions. I thought he was going to cry. Of course, I reverted to ten-year-old David and showed him I’d gotten them all right.
He showed me his paper, and instead of selecting one of the multiple-choice answers, he’d written in a number. I got my tablet out and used the calculator to figure it out. Sure enough, he was right. Ms. Lowden had rounded the solution.
“You had to pick the best answer,” I tried.
He pointed at the paper to indicate that his answer was the best solution.
“You trying to get detention again?” Ms. Lowden asked from the front of the room.
“Dare is just pointing out that you have the wrong answer on the quiz.”
“Is he now?” she asked and then looked at Dare, who had tried to scrunch down in his seat far enough to disappear.
I could tell Ms. Lowden was about to make him come up to the board and prove his answer. I got out of my seat and walked up front.
“He showed me,” I explained.
Thankfully, Ms. Lowden realized that it would be traumatic for Dare if she forced him to come up front. She mouthed ‘thank you’ and allowed me to show the work.
“I agree that Dare has the correct answer. The problem is that when it comes to testing, you need to select the best answer offered when you take a multiple-choice test. In the future, it’s okay to show your work and what you think the answer is,” said Ms. Lowden as a compromise.
“Know,” I interrupted.
Her expression told me I was close to getting my second detention.
“‘Know’ what the answer is. But I want you to mark your answer sheet with the closest one. If you don’t, you won’t get credit,” she confirmed.
Dare looked unhappy.
“I’ll talk to him,” I offered, and Ms. Lowden nodded to send me back to my desk so she could teach.
◊◊◊
Lunch was pleasant. Not.
Dare was still pouting about missing a question, and Brook decided not to sit with me. I suspect she thought I would remind her that I told her so. The talk centered on what had set Destiny off and whether Don really couldn’t win in a fight against any girl. Cassidy was all smiles about the last one. I was sure that her boyfriend would be told in detail what a wimp we all thought he was.
I’m not for punching a girl. Where I draw the line is when they come after you like Destiny had her brother. I would, at the very least, have tried to wrap her up to minimize the damage she was dealing out.
“Where’s Brook?” Tracy asked. “Did she finally wise up and break up with you?”
The peanut gallery thought that was funny. I thought I’d better find out how much trouble I was in. I pulled out my phone and used the ‘Find Me’ app Fritz had installed on all our phones. With its help, I found Brook outside under my favorite thinking tree.
“I thought you might be hungry,” I said, handing her one of the to-go lunch bags the lunch ladies made mostly for teachers.
“Thanks.”
“Mind if I join you?”
She didn’t answer, so I sat down next to her.