“Blaire!” I hear being called out over a distance locker slam. Looking down the hall I see Valery doing a light jog up to me with her bag barely hanging onto her shoulder. She gets up to me at my locker and throws her bag down into the bottom of it before leaning against the metal and letting out a long breath.
“Why are you rushing, I said I’d be waiting right here after classes got out” I say lightheartedly as I watch her catching her breath, her curled burgundy hair falling over her shoulders rises and falls with her chest.
Putting both hands on her hips, she exclaimed “What? I’m just so excited to see you after we didn’t have any classes together all afternoon!”
I give her a knowing smile and cross my arms, waiting for her to say something else. She notices me looking and tries to feign attention towards the hem of her tank top instead of meeting my eyes until I make a small “Ahem” noise.
“Okay fine… I have some big news! But that doesn’t mean I’m not actually excited to see you.” She says with a bit of guilt in her voice before laughing and giving me a squeezing hug around the top of my arms so I can’t move. She steps back after that and goes back to leaning against the wall of lockers.
“So I was in class with Mr. Oliver right, last period, he’s going on about something from the 1940’s or whatever I wasn’t really paying attention but then I started looking at his bag near his desk! It’s his usual bulky messenger bag thing that he carries that looks like it has way too much in it–” I see Valery twisting and playing with one of her rings as she rambles on and on about her story.
“Val, hello? Get to the point, how is Mr. Oliver big news?” I say cutting her off before she could tell me any more details about his bag.
“This is the point! His bag looked like it was dusted with something white on the front, and when I asked him about it after class he just dodged the question and moved his bag off his chair to sit down, and he put it away out of view. It was suspicious!” She exclaimed as if this was undeniable proof of something huge, but I just didn’t see it.
“…Okay? I don’t get it, why is that bad? Maybe he just got it dirty or something before school and he was embarrassed.” I tried to reason with her.
“Well no it’s just that–” Valery cut herself off to lean to the right and look behind me down the hall, squinting her eyes.
“What?” Is the only word I get out before she grabs my hand and leads me in a jog in that direction.
We got down to the end of the hall when she stopped short at the edge of the wall and caused me to bump into her back by accident. I let out a small, “oof” as it happens and step back off her as I hear her give me a shush without turning around.
“What are we running for again?” I say from behind her shoulder while leaning forward a little to try and look at what she is looking at around the wall to the left.
She shushes me again, “I saw him walking this way– there he is!” she says quietly but gains some more volume at the very end of her sentence.
I roll my eyes behind her where she can’t see me, “This is so like her, chasing after a teacher when we could be leaving on time cause of a dirty bag!” I think to myself and let a small laugh slip out. She turns around and gives me a serious eyeing, as if I’m the one being ridiculous.
Clunk.
The sound of one of the heavy classroom doors closing echoes down the hall towards us. Valery pokes her head out completely and starts to move down the hall in the direction he was going, and I follow behind her.
“Did you even see which class he went into? What are we doing?” I whisper from behind her as we sneak up the hall towards the class doors.
“No I didn’t see him go in, why would he even be going this way when the parking lot exit is on the other side of the school! You check the left side I’ll check the right.” She whispers back at me before going up against the right wall and leaving me in the middle of the hall.
I laugh again because of how absurd this probably looks to whichever security guard can see us on the cameras, but she can’t hear me this time because now we are split on either side of the hallway. I check the first door on the left that I come across, it’s one of the science labs and all the overhead lights are off so only the sun coming in from one side is lighting up the metal on the sinks and the glass on the cabinets. It looks very eerie and I wish I could get in behind the locked door and take a few picture of it because it won’t be much longer before the afternoon sun won’t be coming in through the window at the right angle to make it look this good.
“Blaire, over here!” I hear her call gently after me from a little ways down the hall, dragging me out of my imagination.
I make my way over to where she is, taking care not be too loud so she won’t be upset at me for putting our impromptu investigation in jeopardy.
“I hear noise coming from in the home EC classroom, I can kind of see from this angle to where the big front tables are but I don’t see him… I’m afraid to look dead on through the window ‘cause he might be right there!” She says quietly, looking over at the small classroom door window from the side.
“Well we gotta look if you want to find out if he’s in there. Or I mean… We can just go back, get our bags, maybe go to my house and watch day-time TV or something.” I suggest hopefully so that maybe we can stop sneaking around like this.
“This isn’t the time to be thinking about Judge Judy!” She whispers back to me in a clearly fake exasperated tone.
I fan myself with my hand and say, “She’s just so sassy to all the defendants!” then do an over the top swooning motion.
Valery does a snort laugh as she covers her mouth with her hands, “You’re gonna blow our cover!” she squeaks out between laughs.
We suddenly hush as a loud clatter comes from right behind the door, and we both back up a little in response. She is still covering her mouth from the laughing before and what looks like surprise or fear now when I decide that this is all a little too much.
“I’ll just look through the window myself, that way Val will be satisfied. Even if Mr. Oliver sees me it won’t be a big deal, I’ll just say I heard the loud noise and walked over, I’m sure this is not actually a big deal at all.” I think to myself as I get closer to the door and prepare to look straight into the small window and find out what’s going on. As I get closer, she grabs my arm and gives me a look that says “Wait!” but it’s too late, nothing can stop me now.
“Oh my god.” I deadpan, now in front of the window.
“What? What is he doing?” She whispers urgently next to me but doesn’t get any closer.
“I can’t believe this.” I say, beginning to smile.
“Ugh, Move! Let me see!” She grunts and pushes me a little to get in front of the window and look too.
Before us is Mr. Oliver just like Valery thought, in his plain white button up and brown khaki pants with his hands deep in a metal bowl and flour up to his elbows. He has a mixer going just off to his right, and a few measuring cups with liquid ingredients all around him on the counters. It looks like he is making an absolute mess of the kitchen station of the home EC room, but he’s having a great time. I look over at my best friend and see that she’s already looking at me. We both burst out laughing and move away from the window before he can see us.
“Well looks like we found out his big secret!” I say with a snicker, as we start walking back to my locker to get our bags.
“Who knew boring old Mr. Oliver would be into baking! See, this whole thing was totally worth it!” Val says back to me matter-of-factly, we smile at each other and I am starting to believe she is right.
We get back to my locker and I open it back up so we can both grab our stuff and start to head out. I start laughing again as we near the exit and say, “He was frighteningly good at it!” To which she just gives me a laugh and a playful shove in return.
Sarina Vail 