The short story you've been reading over the past few weeks has been based largely on my experiences in high school (I will attest that I was never taken to a magical place and/or interacted with wizards and rooties). There were quite a few downsides to my high school experience, but the good memories, those are the ones that shine bright. Memories of the teacher that passed away are most certainly among the bright.
My grandma passed away while I was a student in his class; I had been very close with my grandma, I still wear her ring every single day and I know that she will forever be in my heart, but these are the things you think of/ do after time has passed. Shock was what set in first. It didn't seem real. The strongest person that I knew and loved was gone.
I was back in class the next day after my grandma passed. There are only three memories that I have from that Friday - and one of them involved this teacher, Dan. We had been given an assignment, I have no idea what, but he pulled me aside, gave me a hug and said, "Whatever you need, you know we're all here for you." That was a big deal; yes, the other two memories are of two other teachers doing the same for me; my first teacher that day (We had seven periods in a day), I was the second kid in the class and he beeliined for me to do the exact same thing for me. Only a few of my peers really knew what happened - it's not exactly an easy subject to breech. I imagine that my mom probably callled ahead to let the teachers know that I was likely to be a bit off in class. Having those teachers, strong, great mentors and role models really helped me thruogh those very difficult times.
I am so grateful that I was able to be a student of Dan's - not only was he a good man, he was a great teacher. As you may gather from my postings, my academics in high school weren't particularly focused. I did have some AMAZING teachers in high school, but quite a few were not. Dan was an excellent teacher. He taught us about the world and he made us all feel important, smart, like we mattered. And for teens, that's a pretty powerful message that sticks.
Thank you, Dan, for all you did for me and for all that you did for all of the students who attended that high school on the hill. You will be missed, but heaven has gained a great new member. May the surf be great where you are, Dan, and may the wind be ever at your back.
~*~*~
And now, on to part 9 of The Place Between
The experience of sitting through the rest of the speech from Eddie and Angela was comparable to torture for Cassie. She tried to reassure herself that these people really were just jerks from the district with out an independent thought rattling around their empty heads, but she knew she would feel a lot better getting this information down to the Place Between as soon as possible. Trouble was, she still had a full day of school to sit through. She couldn't imagine how much more torture she could endure.
"I can't believe they took our fricken notebooks!" Mike cursed as they left biology. Needless to say Mike and Chelsea were fuming with frustration.
"We gotta go find Mr Pryer," Chelsea insisted. "He'll get our notebooks back by beating the living crap out of those idiots!"
Cassie truly sympathized with her friends, but her mind was racing. She was trying to remember the earlier part in the fall when they did a small segment on chemestry, but her notes from that part of class were back at home and chemestry was not her shining subject by any means. "WAIT!" Cassie shouted out, startling quite a few students around her as they passed through the halls to their next classes. "No, none of you, go on with your normal lives," Cassie dismissed the other students then cut off Mike. Looking him dead in the eyes, she asked, "Didn't you do a project on that biologist earlier this year?"
Mike starred and processed the request of his friend a minute before answering meekly, "Rachel Carson?"
"Yeah! That one," Cassie pointed excitedly at Mike. Both Chelsea and Mike stared at their friend like she had lost a screw. "Did you do any research on pesticides with that?"
"Yeah, a ton," Mike said with a shrug. He was internally very excited that Cass even remembered this presentation he did several months ago, but he didn't want to look too excited. "Why?"
Thinking on that reason herself, Cassie came up with, "Once I get my thoughts together, I'll let you know. Can you hang out after school?"
"Cassie, what's this about?" Chelsea asked, hoping to not be late to their next class.
"Those people were more than just your standard creeps," Cassie said to her two best friends. "They're up to something that could be really bad. I don''t know what yet, and I know this sounds nuts, but I'm going to need your guys' help to prove it."
The bell rang, alerting the students that there was but one bell remaining before their next class. Mike and Chelsea began to hasten away toward their classes on the opposite side from the hall. The concern that they held for Cassie's strange twist in behavior was unsettling, yet in their casual way, the two teens decided that whatever crusade Cassie would pursue would likely be worth while.
"Yeah, alright. See you at lunch, Cass," Mike said, heading off with Chelsea to Calculous, leaving Cassie on her own before her art class.
Chelsea ran off towards the opposite side of campus where her classroom was located. As her boots pounded the ground, she tried with all of her might to think on ways that she could be wrong. The last thing that Cassandra wanted to do was to set offf any panic alarms where there need not be any, but if there was a betrayer in the midst, she wanted them exposed. "But who could it be?" Cassie thought as she ran through the door of her art class. Her art teacher was one of those teachers who was quirky and easily distracted, so it was most common for students to get away with things in class that other teachers would ping instantly - being late was one of the top five missed offenses. "Does this have to do with those kids and that ouija board they left? Are they investigating because the camera caught those stupid teens smoking in the barn? There's no way those two morons were higher ups or legit spies - they were far too dumb and obvious." Gooing to her locker to remove her art supplies for lab, Cassie tried to devise a plot where she could bring Chelsea and Mike into her ring of knowledge without breaking any rules for not telling any body. She knew she needed help and most importantly, she knew that the space between would soon also be in desperate need.
~*~*~
The endless circles that Cassie mechanically drew in her concept notebook were little towards assuaging her mind from worry. When finally lunch did come around, Cassie was in no mood to stand in lines waiting for food.
"Cassie, is everything alright?" Chelsea asked her long time friend, worried by the scattered looking expression on her face.
"Yeah," Cassie answered, though neither of her friends were convinced. "I just really need your help, guys, to figure out what those two are really up to." Mike and Chelsea were not about to say no to their friend, especially after the way those creeps treated them.
The three of them went to their favorite corner of the lunch court behind the lunch cart with the impossibly long line behind it. Mike pulled out his laptop, a thin tablet like device that booted up quickly, and listened to Cassie explain:
"Those two were far beyond your average types of creeps; the sodium based pesticide that they are using, or planning to use, whatever, that's what we need to try to figure out." Cassie spoke in a whisper to her friends so that the lunch cart ladies standing closest to them would not overhear. "Mike, I know you probably put the most work in to that science project, so by chance, do you have a list or something of all pesticides and their, I don't know, ingredients?" Cassie really wasn't sure what she was looking for, but if she remembered anything from Mike's project, it was that there were some seriously nasty chemicals used in the past that harmed both animals and people.
"All?" Mike asked, the idea was quite intimidating as the list was never ending.
"At least those that were used in the last one-hundred years or so?" Cassie tried to make it sound as if she knew or had any idea about what she was talking about, but she was truly in the dark.
"Alright," I 'll see what I have.
While Mike looked up the files on his computer, Chelsea quietly asked Cass, "Do you think they're like, going to use something bad or try to mess up that creepy place somehow?"
Shrugging, Cassie thought hard a moment before the answer came suddenly to her without drawing too much attention to the things about that old ranch she knew. "Look, no one has ever known anything about that place - not even our parents. Why would it now be considered a 'historical landmark'?" She looked hard into CChelsea's eyes, hoping to press upon her how serious she was. "My dad is obsessed with local history, you know that. Even he doesn't know anything about that place. Who the hell are these people now from the 'district' to tell us otherwise. And, a moth? Do you honestly think that if there was a super bad moth flying around that we wouldnt have heard it from the local apple orchards? Kelly MPhinn talks about ever effing detail of her life and her folks have run one of the best orchards here in the mountains forever! Don't you think she would have told everyone if moths were posing a risk to her family's trees?"
The last point in particular ran exceptionally true. It was nearly impossible to get Kelly to shut up.
No matter what theory Cassie had within her, there was a point to connecting the dots with a girl who had no shame for sharing every secret imaginable.
"Alright, Cass," Chelsea said with a nod. "Let's get these guys."
Mike snapped to tell Cass and Chelsea that he hasd something. "OK, I've got my page on the list of banned pesticides in the U.S. Anything specific you want me to look for?"
With a deep breath and a sound feeling that her two best friends had her back, Cassie strongly said, "Sodium. Find me the top ffiive pesticides that had sodium as one of their main components."
With a nod of his long banged head, Mike was on the search.
~*~*~
Wha, oh, what devilish, dangerous plot stands against the Place Between???? Find out next week!
Your humble author,
S. Faxon
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