Do you remember when I told you about the kids who messed with Claire? (And when I said that, I meant that they kept her isolated in a spot behind the cafeteria and beat up any person who went near her. Seventeen students and a student aide paid the price for trying to rescue Claire from those kids over two years ago. That was, until Clayton and his friends recruited me to save Claire while they distracted her jailers, who were later arrested by the police.)
Well, from what I heard from the rumor mill, most of those kids were pulled out of Lochland Middle School. Of course they could have gone to Clatskanie, but there was a remedial school for those who were kicked out of Lochland Middle School but couldn't go to Clatskanie. Redwing Christian Academy was one of the best schools in the state of South Carolina, but one of the toughest schools, with its restrictions on what its students could or couldn't do. I could only pity those kids who had to go there due to them being jerks to poor Claire.
Speaking of which, Claire tells me that those same three students we saw while we were reading over Declan's files were apprehended when they were seen leaving Lochland Middle School; their names were Micheal Kidd, Luke McPherson, and Danny Peck. They had been students at Lochland Middle School when Declan had pushed Christina to her death and wasn't punished for that deed. In anger (and because Christina was Luke's stepsister), the boys and the rest of their class conspired to block Declan from being promoted to the ninth grade with them, hoping to keep him in middle school until they graduated from Lochland High School.
(Well, that's not to say Declan took classes at the high school under a false name. I bet someone at the school grew suspicious of his disguise and ratted him out, alerting the trio to his presence. And the Discriminator reported it and made that article so shocking that kids are terrified of leaving their homes, lest Declan would snatch them away and hurt them.)
I said to Claire, "So much for our plan."
"Not exactly," said Claire as she reached for her bag, which the file for him was in. (Remember when she took the file from the room of records? She was smart enough to make a copy of it and put the original back before anyone noticed.) "Remember, I could still write a letter to the city newspaper, claiming that he had been the one to kill Christina and molested those other children. His family probably paid the teachers and police to look the other way while allowing their son to make the lives of his fellow classmates a living hell."
"And that's the last thing I need," I said. "Let's get to it."
OK, after several hours of writing the letter to the newspaper (Claire uses a typewriter because her foster parents despise anything remotely "modern"), we managed to get a decent-looking copy of the letter mailed off before anyone noticed that something was amiss. Of course, something was amiss. Some kid who messed with other people was never punished for their actions. That was simply unacceptable, and everyone in Charleston was going to know that.
But that didn't mean the McPherson/Brewer family was going to get off lightly. Far from it. Bob Brewer was going to answer why he allowed his oldest daughter within 15 feet of Lochland Middle School when she was disabled and why he didn't send her to the special ed room where she belonged. And that goes for the other parents of Declan's victims.
Well, what I'm worried about now is how this discovery was going to affect the rest of my time at Lochland Middle School, as if the rest of my time there wasn't already compromised.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK5lJvYZYrl
Well, I should have known Joanna Norwood would find out about my activities.
Last night, she came to my room while everyone was asleep. She wasn't alone, as her brothers Toby and Orlando were with her. Here's how the conversation went:
Joanna: I've heard you've been stirring up trouble, Jedidiah Hamilton.
Jed: How did you know?
Joanna: You think I wouldn't find out about what you were doing, or did you?
Toby: Who is that guy?
Orlando: It's that guy she was hanging out with earlier. You know how she is, always picking up guys and girls left and right.
Joanna: (to Orlando) You do the same thing too, Orlando, so don't play that game with me. (to Toby) You should know who he is, Toby. Haven't you spent enough time with the twins?
Toby: Of course I do, Jo. You always force me to talk to Adrian and Dorian. Why can't you make Adam do it?
Joanna: Because Adam's busy dealing with Shireen and her business. Of course, he's trying to get her to sue her siblings for everything they have because of what happened to her when she was eight years old.
Jed: What's going on here?
Joanna: My brothers are being such losers, that's what's going on. They're so pathetic, I have to twist their ears in order to get them to do what I want them to do.
Toby: Yeah right.
Orlando: We're not losers.
Joanna: Oh pish posh, you two! If it were up to Jacques, you two would be in your room watching silly videos on MySpace and playing The Sims all day.
Orlando: Oh no, not him! Anyone but him!
Jed: Why not?
Toby: Because he'll make you listen to his bad French poetry all day!
Jed: Is his poetry really that bad?
Joanna: Yes it is, Jed. Whatever you do, don't let Jacques make you listen to his poetry. It's horrible and an insult to the French culture. Anyway, I want to know.
Jed: Know what?
Orlando: What?
Joanna: What exactly are you and Claire Evans up to?
Jed: Not much, except for the part where we learned that one of the students at our school is a murderer who got away with his crimes.
Joanna: I see. And why didn't you tell me about this person?
Jed: Why not? You're an important person who can't be bothered to deal with the woes of a bunch of middle school students.
Joanna: (laughs) Don't be a fool, Jedidiah. You know not what you are doing.
Jed: Claire and I were going to expose Declan Caesar to the town as a murderer and his family as enablers. (stares at Joanna) How did you know?
Toby: Because I work at the city's newspaper. When I saw your letter, I had to spring into action. Joanna, of course, found out about it and she had to confront you.
Jed: But we need to stop Declan.
Joanna: Oh we will...(whispers to her brothers)...as soon as we find him.
Orlando: And when we do...
Joanna: (whispers to Orlando) Not so loud! You don't want anyone else to hear what we've planned for the boy, or don't you?
Orlando: (whispers to Joanna) What about the boy's family? What about his neighbors? We can't go around killing everyone who sees us!
Joanna: (whispers to Orlando) You're right. We can't. But we must do something about Declan Caesar immediately or else another generator of disabled seventh graders will suffer, possibly die. We can't let his crimes against disabled people go unpunished.
Toby: Well, I hate to say "wait until Adam gets back from his trip to Boston", but he's so wrapped up in the Reyne case that he's not going anywhere. Plus, he wants Elijah to meet his grandmother before she dies.
Orlando: Why does Adam have to be the sentimental one?
Joanna: That's not the point of this conversation!
Toby: Then what are we talking about?
Well, I hate to cut the conversation short, but I must say this: after reading my and Claire's letter to the city newspaper, Toby decided to make it look like a confession from Declan himself (which would make him look even more guilty). But he decided that the McPherson/Brewer, Whitaker, Pope, Morgan, Snyder, and Petersen families had suffered enough and refused to allow the letter scolding them for putting their children in the mainstream classes to be published. "We can't punish people for having disabled children," he said when I asked.
"Why not?" I said.
"Because people used to do that in the old days," said Orlando. "They used to send all their undesired people into the woods to be devoured by vampires..."
"Stop scaring him off," Joanna snapped at Orlando. She then said to me, "Don't mind him; he's an idiot who doesn't know when to shut up."
"I heard that!" Orlando yelled.
Well, I guess this concludes this entry. But little did I know that the minute I exposed my school's secret shame to the community, things would continue to spiral out of control...
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