LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter Nine

      Cooper was halfway to the stage, running like a madman, when Harley landed on a sea of hands of students who held her up. Everyone was shrieking in delight. Once down, Harley crossed her arms over her chest as the students passed her across the top of the crowd, while Marissa, face to the ceiling, her hands already folded across her chest, was pushed backward off the stage by a guy in a Grim Reaper outfit onto the now freed and waiting hands below.

      “Déjà-fucking-vu,” Robbie Padilla said under his breath to Cooper, his gaze on the Michael Myers masked figure who had threatened and then pushed Harley, when Vice Principal Wellesley’s booming voice over the loudspeaker caught everyone’s attention: “Stop what you’re doing right now!”

      The lights came up in a flood and the boys were caught before they could scramble around enough to hide their masks. There were others in “killer” masks on the stage as well. Jason from Friday the 13th in his hockey mask. Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Dracula. Varying and assorted zombies, and even Chucky, the vicious “doll” from the series with his name. Senior boys, mostly, Cooper thought, recognizing some of them. Apparently, they’d decided to make Autumn Daze a Halloween party all on their own.

      “Call the police!” one of the parents yelled, and others echoed that sentiment. It took close to twenty minutes for the crowd to realize that Cooper, who was already there, was the police. Wellesley and several other chaperones took the miscreants into a back room, where the vice principal could be heard giving them the lecture of a lifetime.

      The scare effectively ended the mixer. While Cooper became in charge of crowd control, the DJ was asked to pack up his gear and, when he was convinced that he would be paid in full, did so. By that time there was still an hour or so to go before some of the kids’ parents were due to pick them up. Cooper’s offer to stay on the premises rather than call all the parents was gratefully accepted by the harried chaperones and staff. Some students were picked up, mostly from the younger classes, and left, but almost all the upperclassmen stayed on.

      As soon as they were safely on their feet, Cooper had immediately checked with Harley and Marissa, both of whom shrugged off his concern. Marissa, in fact, appeared to be on cloud nine. She was all a-bubble about having been singled out by the seniors, though from what Cooper had seen, it was Harley who’d been the chosen “victim.” Had it been an honor? Marissa was definitely treating it as such, and Harley was being a pretty good sport about it, especially considering it was her first day. But maybe she’d been in on the prank? Still, there were twin spots of color high on her cheeks and her eyes were wide.

      “They picked you because you’re new!” Marissa crowed. “I was so scared! Those guys can be harsh . . . well, the girls for sure.”

      “They didn’t mean it as a bad thing,” Harley finally spoke up.

      “Scary, though, huh? If the kids hadn’t caught you, I would have grabbed Troy by the hair before I let him push me off!”

      “Troy Stillwell?” Cooper asked.

      “Yeah. He’s a senior.”

      “I know who he is.” Cooper was short. “That was dangerous,” he added.

      “Yeah, but the administration is so overprotective. They had to do something.” Marissa frowned. “Maybe they’ll be expelled,” she said in dawning horror.

      “They’d have to expel half the senior class,” Cooper remarked, looking around at the remaining kids standing beneath the glaring overhead lights. They stood in defiant groups, shooting angry glances toward the adults, especially the ones who were the most righteously offended, Caroline being one of them, who swore the boys in the masks should all be arrested.

      “They’re little short of terrorists!” he heard her declare from across the room. Her daughter looked like a freshman. She was caught in her mother’s arms. Two other mothers were hovering nearby, gripping their own daughters tightly. All three girls’ expressions were long-suffering as the moms chattered over their heads in collective outrage.

      “You sure you’re all right?” Cooper asked Harley again. “I can call your mother.”

      “Don’t call her. Don’t tell her, okay? I don’t want her to know.”

      Marissa shot a quick look at Harley and said, in a non sequitur, “Maybe he likes you.”

      Harley didn’t respond to that.

      Cooper said, “Your mom’s going to find out about what happened, and—”

      “Just don’t tell her tonight. Please?” Harley cut him off.

      Cooper had no wish to tell Jamie about what had transpired, especially regarding the Michael Myers mask. In Race Stillwell’s account to the police after Emma’s attack, he’d copped to the fact that he’d worn that mask, and that detail had made it into the paper. Jamie would likely remember.

      “I don’t want my mom to know about the Halloween mask,” Harley said, which pretty well explained that she knew about it, too.

      It deeply embarrassed Cooper that he’d been part of the group who’d played those tricks on Emma. Robbie Padilla came up at the end of their conversation with his son, Marcus, in tow, one of Marissa and Harley’s classmates. He gave Cooper a look that said he was feeling much the same way. Marcus had been named for Mark Norquist, their horndog friend, who’d died serving in the army in Afghanistan.

      “What a way to start the school year, huh?” Robbie said when Harley, Marissa, and Marcus had wandered back to the punch bowl.

      “Yeah.”

      “I keep thinking about that night. You?”

      Cooper nodded slowly.

      “And that new girl is Emma’s . . . niece?”

      “Jamie’s daughter. Yes.”

      “Right.” Robbie nodded. “I remember Jamie.”

      “I saw her today.”

      “Yeah?”

      “She looks a lot like Emma.”

      Robbie exhaled heavily. “What a way to start the school year,” he repeated.

      * * *

      “Well, thank you, all. It was great fun,” Jamie said, grabbing her purse and getting up. She’d barely touched her second glass of wine, and when the women had protested, she’d said, “I’ve got driving in my future. Can’t drink anymore.”

      “You can’t leave yet.” This was from Bette, who’d decided not only to include Jamie, but to make her her new best friend. Bette, however, was half-sloshed.

      “I’ve

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