Well, it's St. Patrick's Day, and guess who's forced to wear green?
This guy.
Anyway, since I'm part Irish on my mom's side of the family (she has red hair and green eyes), I have to celebrate St. Patrick's Day (which is a primarily Irish holiday). Plus, I have to wear green clothes, which is now against the school's new dress code. (Last year, some kid called Arnold Nolan threatened to sue the school after every student in the school pinched him for not wearing green; the student council voted to ban St. Patrick's Day.) Mom doesn't care that I can't wear green to school; she forced me to wear a loud green sweater. I wonder if she's out of touch with the real world or something like that, as she often forces me to go against the grain. But I can't always fight against my base nature, which is to defy her when she asks me to do something for her.
But this time, I don't have a choice.
As soon as I get to school, I immediately took off that ugly green sweater and put on the school-sanctioned clothes I was given upon my return. Jem ended up putting her green sweater in the lost and found bin (which was later returned to her). With that done, I then went to classes, acting like nothing had happened.
But little did we know that nothing lasts forever, as Abigail Calderon spread a rumor about Declan Caesar. The rumor was that Declan had apparently run away from home over the weekend and hasn't been seen since. Of course most of us laughed, knowing that there was no way that wannabe loser could survive on the streets of Charleston, but when Donald Hood told us that it had been a week since Declan's disappearance, that's when the fur started flying, so to speak.
In fact, Declan was on everyone's minds, nobody bothered to notice Milton's return to the school. In fact, he was practically nonexistent now, as if he wasn't nonexistent before he was pulled out of school. Milton said to me, "I don't know why everyone's so obsessed with Declan Caesar. It's not like he ever did anything significant."
"Except be the oldest kid in our school," said Priscilla Gardner.
"And look at what good it did him," said Matthew Roberts. "He's a loser. A deadbeat. I hope he never comes back here."
As everyone else echoed Matthew's sentiments regarding Declan, Claire said to me, "This is not a good thing, Jed. Declan has gone missing and we need to know where he is. If we don't get over ourselves and find him, bad things could happen."
"What bad things?" I snapped at her.
"He could die," said Claire. "And if he dies, we'll feel responsible for his death, as if we killed him ourselves."
"I see," I said, stopping her from going into one of her rants. "We need to start here and work our way forward. Do you know him?"
"Surprisingly, no," said Claire as I gasped in horror. "I never interacted with him and he certainly didn't want to be seen with "Crazy Claire". So I can't help you there."
"If not, then maybe we could check his school records," I said. "It shouldn't be too hard for us to find." Milton chimed in, saying, "Maybe. But is it really a good idea for us to go around poking through other people's stuff?"
"Do we look like the type of people who go around breaking school rules?" Claire snapped at him.
"Nope," said Milton.
"Good," said Claire. "Now let's get to work. With everyone on edge due to the poisoning and Declan's disappearance, no one will care that we're not in class."
If only she was so sure of herself.
At lunchtime, Milton, Claire, and I snuck into the school records room feeling like criminals. As we went through file cabinets looking for Declan Caesar, Milton told us about how bad conditions at Clatskanie were. Such as no one was allowed to wear their favorite clothes, only the ugliest clothes that money shouldn't be able to buy. The kids never paid attention in class and the teachers didn't seem to care. I'm sure that several Declans were running around in that place.
Sure enough, we stumbled upon my school files. As we read them, Claire said to me, "Why are you here?"
"Why do you ask?" I said.
"Because it says here that last year, you passed an entry exam to get into the Charles City Junior High School," said Claire. "What happened?"
I frowned, knowing that if I went to Charles City Junior High School, Jem would never forgive me. It was already bad enough that she was trying to make me do what she was doing or doing what I was doing, but dad wanted to separate us. Mom decided I was better off at her old school and I needed to establish my own identity away from Jem. I then said, "Well, I felt rather intimidated by the sight of all those kids there, the kids that would rather read a book than play video games. It didn't help that Jem threatened to make sure my life was a nightmare if I left Lochland Middle School and went to Charles City. I was also unsure about leaving my friends and going to a school where no one knew me. So, there you have it."
"Well, my guardians have tried to get me into a higher-ranking school, but those schools don't like disabled children, nor will they accept children who don't live with their biological parents," said Claire.
"As you know, I'm stuck in this low-performing piece of crap school, and it's only going to get worse when I get to high school." She said to Milton, "What's your story?"
"You already know that I have issues with my sister and nobody gives a crap about me," said Milton. "Well, that sucks for you," said Claire. "How could you live like that?"
Milton was about to respond when we heard a group of students walking past the room where we were. I couldn't see who they were, but I could hear them talking. The conversation went like this:
Student 1: We had better be careful; the authorities are circling in close.
Student 3: We're being careful all right. It's just that we're about to graduate from Lochland High School within a few months...
Student 2: And what does that have to do with anything?
Student 1: We really need to step it up. If we graduate, Declan Caesar will be forced to graduate right along with us. We all know what he did to Christina Brewer four years ago.
Student 2: He knew he killed that little girl; the adults were fools to think that it was "just an accident".
Student 3: We all knew it wasn't; Christina died because she was disabled, and Declan wanted to get rid of her because she was disabled. That's why we forced him out of our class.
Student 2: Now he's about to graduate from high school with us, even if we forced him to remain in Lochland High. That's why he had to disappear.
Student 1: Yes, he had to disappear. Nobody seems to care that he killed Christina when he pushed her down in Mrs. Murphy's classroom and she hit her head on the corner of that hard-as-bricks table and died. But everyone believed him when he said he didn't do it. But we know the truth, don't we?
Student 2: Yes, and the sooner we reveal the truth to the public, the better. Declan will have nowhere to run or hide. He'll be facing justice for what happened to Christina soon.
I don't believe it. Declan Caesar was accused of killing Christina Brewer in an incident at this school four years ago and no one knew about it? And I was about to feel sorry for that guy too! (I'm glad I didn't waste my time obsessing over if I should talk to him or not; it would have been beyond social suicide if I did.)
"A murderer?" said Milton. "You're telling me that the whole time we've been here, we had a murderer in our midst?"
"I know," said Claire. "For the first time in my life, I'm feeling nervous. Like what if I was one of his murder victims?"
"Or me?" said Milton.
"Check it out, guys," I said as I pulled out Declan's file out of the cabinet. (It took me several minutes to do so, as his file was bigger than everyone else's files put together.) Claire and Milton stared at me as I said, "Did you know that Declan not only killed Christina Brewer, but he raped Connie Whitaker and knocked up Tara Pope? Not to mention that he probably messed with Jared Morgan and Tommy Snider as well as Becky Petersen?"
"That guy is out of control!" said Milton. "I'm glad I never met him."
"Me neither," said Claire, "and I know everyone in the school."
Just then, the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. We all rushed back to the classroom, with me beginning to lose my appetite for the corned beef, cabbages, and potatoes that mom was probably cooking for tonight's dinner. (I'll probably eat the food anyway just to distract myself from what I had discovered.) I don't know why nobody here bothered to notice that we had a murderer prowling the school grounds, looking for disabled kids to kill. Like didn't anyone care about how kids seemed to quickly duck behind benches and trashcans whenever he walked by? Or how several students would come to school only if he's not here? Were the teachers and principal that blind to the monster that lurked in the shadows?
Who knows?
One thing I know for sure is that I'm not getting a good night's sleep anytime soon.
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