Gleeks Ahoy Chapter 42

42 Over the Moon

I know that for Cora, Sunday had to be insane.  Later, she told me she spent that whole day talking to the Real Gleeks people about what had to be done before she did the audition show that summer, and she was so wrung out she needed her Aunt Sandy to remember half of it for her.  I can’t blame her—she’d just blown everyone away, and she had to be exhausted!  I’m the same way after winning a championship game; you just feel exhausted after all the effort you expend to win.  And just think—she still had Rent the next week!

For me, Sunday was different.  Mrs. Rundren finally got me home after dinner that night—she made up for it by buying me some Taco Bell after we left the police barracks—so Mom and Dad were too tired to kill me.  Not that Lissy and Jerkface passed up a chance to tease me about getting expelled and having to go to St. Swithin’s Academy.  And I’m not even Catholic!  The whole Sunday was spent with the cops again, going over everything I knew, especially including the note I’d found.  They had interrogated Boggs and Hendrickson to find out who the other two accomplices were.  They both gave the name of the other man—Jeff Haney I think—but neither one would give up the name of the woman.  Especially Boggs, according to Detective O’Malley; “he shut up like a clam,” was how she put it.  She even offered him all sorts of deals to get him to tell us the name of the woman, but he wouldn’t.  Real weird.    But you know something?  I was having the greatest time!  Helping with my story, helping sift clues, theorizing about who the woman was—it was so cool!  I was exhausted by the time I got home, just in time for a nice long bath and going to bed early enough to get enough sleep for this meeting I had with Mrs. Rundren and Mr. Ferraro early Monday.  And yeah, about that…
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Everything was surreal when I got to school early that morning.  Despite having just won the GleeFest, I got the message from Mrs. Rundren that every member of the detective club had to meet with her at eight o’clock sharp Monday.  I knew we had to be in trouble for working on the mystery, but somehow it didn’t really upset me that much.  I had so much on my mind about Real Gleeks and Rent that it was hard to concentrate on anything else!  

Everyone I saw that morning as Aunt Sandy drove me to school congratulated me for winning GleeFest, and I even got a few hugs.  That was strange after all the years of simply being tolerated or ignored!  People always recognized that I was a good singer or artist, but they never really respected me as a person; I was too gay for that.  But now that I was going to be on TV doing Real Gleeks, suddenly everyone wanted to be my friend!  Lucky for me that Aunt Sandy was there to remind me to be a good sport about it, otherwise I might have done something I would have regretted.  At least if I was going to be expelled, it was a lovely day for it; sunny, bright, balmy warm, so balmy I let myself wear shorts for the first time all year!  Not terribly short ones, of course, because of school rules—and, more important, Aunt Sandy rules—but light and comfortable, but with a nice pink blouse-top, because I was still wearing my heels to keep myself ready to play Mimi.  As I went into Mrs. Rundren’s meeting room, I saw I was the best-dressed of the bunch; everyone else was in jeans and tees of different colors and types, I think because they all expected to get expelled too.  It seemed unfair for us to be expelled after we’d helped save Darius Allen High from being blown up, but we knew what we’d been told about working on mysteries and gone ahead and done it anyway, so I told myself it wasn’t too unfair.  Everyone was there except for Serenity, and I suspected that she got a little something extra nasty from Mrs. Rundren for having gotten in contact with Lexie Archer and Tanner Hendrickson.

“No good deed goes unpunished,” Leslie said when she saw me and waved me to the seat she’d saved for me beside her.  Leslie had her hair done all but completely blonde again, except for one pink stripe over her left ear, and she was the only one besides me who wasn’t dressed simply in jeans and a shirt.  She was all in black: a long-sleeved top, very tight, with little neon-colored skulls appliquéd all over it, which delightfully accentuated her beautiful Marilyn Monroe shape; a black-velvet miniskirt and black silk hose; and perhaps her most startling choice, her Ashley Mancino maryjanes with the handcuff-shaped buckles.  She had taken mourning black and made it her own quiet gesture of defiance, and her next words made the purpose of her choices clear.  “If I’m going to have to wear a stupid New Life School uniform after today, I’m going out in style!  We saved this place, and now they’re going to expel us!”  That seemed to be absolutely the case as Mrs. Rundren, in a summery top and conservative gray skirt, swept through the door and took her place, standing at the end of the table, drawing in an assertive breath and casting a cool, calm glance around at all of us seated at the table.

“After the warning Mr. Ferraro and I gave you about working on mysteries, this entire club ignored us and worked on this case from the weekend at GleeFest.”  She let her expression take on even more severity—but was there something not quite right about the glimmer of her eye?—“And because of that defiance, we’re meeting here in the meeting room instead of having our dead bodies pulled out of a smoking crater along with about a thousand others.  Your refusal to follow directions saved this school and hundreds of lives.”  Now she was working very hard to maintain the severity of her expression!  “Therefore, after consulting with Mr. Ferraro, we have concluded there is only one course of action we can take.”  She was almost smiling!  “And that is to reinstate the detective club.  As of this moment, the Darius Allen High School Detective Club is officially back in business.”  We all started breathing again as Mrs. Rundren finally allowed herself a roguish smile, with even a few sighing laughs as relief that we weren’t being expelled finally struck us.  All except for one of us.

“What about Serenity?”  It was Joey who demanded that of Mrs. R, of course; after all, she was his girlfriend and best friend, and he was gallant enough in his way to put his concern for ‘Ren over his own fate.  That’s what love does to people!  “Why isn’t she here?  Did you expel her?  What did she do that was any worse than the rest of us?  She doesn’t deserve to have you”—

“Calm yourself, Mr. Housely!” Mrs. R said, then gestured at the door.  And that suppressed twinkle in her eye had returned as she did so—

And I’m not sure about anyone else, but I wasn’t surprised to see ‘Ren herself step into the room with a big, relieved smile on her face.  Her nerves about her fate had expressed themselves in what Abbie calls “a Mary day,” with an absolute vengeance!  She was wearing a brand-new sky blue minidress, short-sleeved and clingy over her lean figure, obviously a Deb outfit bought with her employee discount.  Sheer hose and a pretty pair of matching-blue slings which set her long legs off nicely!  It wasn’t hard, seeing ‘Ren dressed as she was, to understand the attraction Leslie—and Lexie—has for her!  “I’ve had a long discussion with Miss Mabrey,” Mrs. R said.  “Her suspension has been expunged from her record, she is allowed back on her teams—although that probably won’t matter much to her until this fall—and, just like the rest of you, Mrs. Birdsong expects her Camp Evergreen application by the end of the week.”  Now all of us were smiling, including Joey, beside whom ‘Ren quickly sat and took his hand.  “And of course she is back with the detective club.  Which is fortunate, because the club has some business to transact.”  This left us puzzled, but the arrival of Mrs. P after ‘Ren made it clear that Mrs. R wasn’t done with us.  I don’t know if it was the lighter clothing of spring, or whether I haven’t noticed lately, but Mrs. P looked very much more pregnant in her cute powder-pink maternity dress than I remembered seeing her!  “First of all, due to certain circumstances, the club needs another advisor.”

This startled ‘Ren.  “What for?” she asked, her voice immediately indignant.  “Mrs. Pillsberry does great!  None of this was her fault!  What did ever do to get the club taken away from”—

“Miss Mabrey, jumping to conclusions is beneath your talent!  If you had listened closely, you would have heard me say that the club needs another adviser, not a new one.  Mrs. Pillsberry has done well with the club, but isn’t it apparent that she’s not in the ideal condition?  In fact—am I right, Mrs. Pillsberry?—you may be going on bed rest as soon as Rent is done.”

“I wish I could see the year out with you, kids,” Mrs. P said with a small blush on her cheek.  “But no pregnancy is easy for me.  Abbie and Cora, you two know better than anyone how hard it is for me.”  Which was very true; she miscarried at least twice before she got Gabby.  That made what Mrs. R said make more sense.  “So I’ll need some help until next year starts at least.”

“So dude, who’s the other advisor?” Tommy said.  He refers to everyone as “dude,” but it still struck Mrs. R obviously as strange.

“Well, ‘dude,’” she said, looking not at Tommy but at ‘Ren, “one of us knows who the perfect candidate is.  Someone who knows who Nancy Drew’s first best friend was.”  That was Helen Corning—doesn’t everyone know that?  But ‘Ren was about to start laughing!  “As in, me.  Miss Mabrey can be my reference for how well I fit the job title!”  Which ‘Ren did—she told us a thrilling story of how Mrs. R escaped Dick Boggs and rescued ‘Ren herself!  A hidden nail file is very Nancy Drew!  “So, am I an acceptable second adviser?”  We all agreed she was!  “Good, because we have some other business to take care of,” she said, immediately turning businesslike.  “First of all, we have two people who, although they weren’t official members, helped this club crack the Dick Boggs case.”  She gestured at the door again, and in stepped Lexie Archer and Devan Jensen.  Lexie edged close to ‘Ren and Joey, and Devan sat herself comfortably down beside Hastings.  “You know Lexie and Devan, and you know what they did for us.  I think they should be admitted as full members.  Any objections?”

“Bloody hell no!” Hastings cried out—“sorry,” he added at Mrs. R’s disapproving glance about his language slip.  “But no one objects, do they?”  None of us did!  They both risked so much for the club!

“Good,” Mrs. R said even more seriously, “because we have one more piece of business.  Very important business which Miss Mabrey brings.  Do you have our copy, Serenity?”  Serenity nodded soberly—

And produced a slip of paper which everyone in the meeting room recognized instantly—another stalker note!  I think my heart stopped for a few seconds!  “Where did this come from?” I asked, and I know my voice was choked with fear.  I remembered very well what had happened to me because of those notes!  “When?”

‘Ren laid the note in the middle of the table.  “After the GleeFest.  I didn’t get done with the cops in time to come back and congratulate you, you’d left already.  I found this on Mrs. Pillsberry’s door.  This is a copy.  It’s got to be the woman.”  She glanced up at Mrs. R as if about to share a deadly secret.  “There’s something weird about her.  When the cops caught Boggs and Hendrickson, Boggs gave up Jeff Haney right away, but he wouldn’t admit to anything about the woman.  She must be somebody important to him.  If we figure that out, we might be able to stop her.”

“Well, then, what do we already know about her?” Mrs. R asked.  Not only had she re-started the detective club and made herself an advisor, she was jumping right into a new mystery!  We’d all misjudged her so terribly!  “I’m sure you kids have done some research.”

Abbie and ‘Ren sort of took over at this point, going over everything we’d found out over the winter about the mysterious woman.  “Well, I already knew about the vendetta against Mrs. Pillsberry,” Mrs. R said when Abbie and ‘Ren finished.  “That fire in her college apartment is something new.  But is there any proof that this woman set that fire, and that it was about hurting Mrs. Pillsberry?”

“Not proof so much,” ‘Ren said, somewhat sheepishly, “but it’s strange that this woman hates Mrs. Pillsberry so much and this fire happened right where she lived.”  Her eyes brightened.  “And Abbie’s sister Tricia told her about the fire being changed from arson to accidental, and how the records disappeared from online when she tried to access them.  Dick Boggs was awfully influential, maybe influential enough to make all that happen.  Not to mention all those stupid charges against you, Mrs. Pillsberry.  I’d bet he was the one who started that whole thing!”

“I think it was the woman herself,” I said.  “Mr. Boggs was protecting her, so she used his protection to make those accusations.  It fits in with her vendetta.”

“Then we know where to start, kids,” Mrs. R said firmly.  “We don’t know much about this woman except that she’s carrying on a vendetta against Mrs. Pillsberry and is being protected by Boggs.  The rest is theory.  We need to find as much solid information as we can about her.  Who she is would be a good start.  And considering that both Hendrickson and Haney worked as traveling nighttime maintenance staff for the county schools, she might have a connection to Boggs that way.”

“Wait a minute!” I said.  “Nighttime maintenance staff?  Isn’t that just being a janitor?”

“The county has three maintenance crews who go around to the schools and do things like routine maintenance and extra cleanup.  One for the high schools, one for the middle schools, and one for the elementary schools.  The work is a bit much for the regular janitorial staff, and having only the three crews saves the county money.”  We were all looking at her a bit strangely.  “See?  I did my research too, kids!  I might be new to the club, but I know my way around a mystery!  Now, it’s time for you kids to get back to class, but you know your assignment.  Let’s figure out the Mystery Woman!”
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I think my heart nearly fell out of me when ‘Ren showed us the new stalker note!  Things can change so quickly; that morning I was happy and calm even though I faced expulsion for working on the mystery.  I was over the moon because we’d won GleeFest and I was going to be in Real Gleeks, but as soon as I saw that note I was terrified!  Leslie seemed to understand that, and all morning she assured me that everything would be all right and that we’d catch the crazy woman.  I felt on edge all morning until lunch, so much so that not even getting to sit together at our traditional detective club table felt very good.  Leslie was holding my hand—under the table, because PDAs are still discouraged at the school—and ‘Ren and Joey were there, no doubt also holding hands beneath the table.  Cousin Allie and her boyfriend Trent Barker were there, and Hastings and Devan—yes, holding hands too, even while Hastings’ eyes were scanning the cafeteria looking at other girls—and for the first time, Lexie Archer, who moved over from the softball players.  We were free to work on mysteries now, and we took advantage of that.  In fact, it was Jaden Ross, waiting for his girlfriend Abbie to show up, who was thinking out loud about the crazy woman Dick Boggs was protecting.  “Okay, she has it in for Mrs. Pillsberry and Dick Boggs is protecting her.  What do we get from that?”

“Don’t forget that she’s about Mrs. Pillsberry’s age, too,” Hastings said.  “What we know about the fire suggests that.”  Hastings is funny when he’s channeling Sherlock Holmes!

“We really don’t know that much about her, do we?” Leslie said, squeezing my hand like she was reassuring me again that everything would be okay.  “She was short, brown hair, kind of pale.  Definitely about the same age as Mrs. Pillsberry.  Kind of a narrow face, sharp, if you know what I mean.”

“Kinda mad-looking,” Lexie said with a nod of agreement to Leslie.  They’d both seen the woman without any disguises, so we listened to them both.  “But when she talked about ‘the boss,’ she kinda smiled a little.  Sort of like…”

“Like he’s important to her.”  Leslie sighed and nodded thoughtfully.  “There’s some kind of relationship going on there.”

“Girlfriend, wife, or some kind of relative,” Hastings said.  “You don’t get all soft about an employer, so you?”

“I love my work,” ‘Ren said with a snicker, “but not that much!  So yeah, some kind of relationship.  But girlfriend?  Seriously?  You’ve seen this guy—he’s like almost sixty!  If the woman’s about Mrs. Pillsberry’s age”—

“It’s possible,” I said.  “Look at Mrs. P herself!  Mr. P’s not much younger than Mr. Boggs, and he and Mrs. P got married.”

Cousin Allie made a distasteful face for a moment. “Which is really sick if you think about it!  They’re like twenty or thirty years apart!”  Her face settled into a sort of gossipy thoughtfulness.  “But you know, Dick Boggs is supposed to be sort of like that.  His wife’s dead, you know, died a while ago, but everybody in town knew he catted around on her.”  “Catted around” is a Wilton Run saying for people who cheated.  “You know this, Cora Lee!  He was supposed to be some big sports star down the Run.  They all still talk about how the football team won the 1970 state championship, and he was supposed to be the big hero.  All the girls were supposed to be crazy about him.  Mom’s said about how her cousin Betty went out with him, at least until he started in with one of the cheerleaders.  He was supposed to have gone out with half the girls on the Run!  I don’t see it myself, but that’s what they say.  So yeah, she could be a girlfriend.”

“Which might explain something!” Abbie said as she arrived at our table with her tray.  “I found out that those maintenance crews are only six people, two to each one.  She wasn’t a member of one, just Hendrickson and Haney.  Kind of racist if you ask me!”

“Sexist,” ‘Ren said.

“Sexist, whatever!  But if she was Boggs’ girlfriend, that might explain how he got them to let her get into the school with them.  That’s what we have to figure out.”  She looked over at me with a really strange smile on her face.  “And I was talking to Dave, Cora Lee.  He’s handling ticket sales for Rent, you know.  He told me to ask you if you’ve heard of the name Jason Geldstein.”

“The producer of Gleeks,” I said.  It is, after all, on the credits every episode.  “What about him?”  And Abbie’s smile grew really huge!

“Just that he ordered three tickets for opening night of Rent.  Front row center, seats 23, 24, and 25.”  And for the second time that morning, my heart felt like it was falling out of me!  The producer of Gleeks was coming to watch me!