‘What’ll we do to her?’ Abilene asked, sitting down on her bed between Finley and Vivian. ‘It’s gotta be something good.’
‘Get her drunk,’ Finley suggested. ‘Strip her naked and leave her tied to a tree in the quad.’
‘That’d be great,’ Cora said.
Helen beamed.
‘I don’t think she’s worth a prison term,’ Vivian said.
‘Yeah,’ Abilene agreed. ‘We’ve gotta come up with something realistic.’
‘If it doesn’t at least include kidnapping, assault and battery, it’s too good for her,’ Cora said.
Finley nodded. ‘She oughta be gang-banged by a slobbering crowd of escapees from an insane asylum.’
‘And that’d be too good for her,’ Cora said.
‘Yeah,’ Abilene said. ‘And it’d be cruel to the lunatics.’
‘Besides,’ Helen pointed out, ‘she might enjoy it.’
‘Let’s get real, gals,’ Vivian said. ‘Come on. There must be something we can do that’ll really nail her.’
Abilene nodded. ‘Nothing we could go to jail for. Just something that’ll piss her off so bad she’ll go ape- shit.’
‘We can’t do that,’ Vivian said after they’d finally hit upon a plan.
‘I will,’ Abilene assured her.
‘I dare you.’
‘I dare you.’
‘Double dare you,’ Finley added.
‘Double dares go first,’ Vivian said.
‘You bet.’
The five of them dared and double-dared for a while. Nobody backed out.
‘Then it’s settled,’ Cora finally said. ‘Tomorrow we go for it.’
On the ground floor of the administration building that housed Meredith Hardin’s office was the campus bookstore, which closed each weekday afternoon at five.
***
At ten minutes before five on Wednesday, the day after Barbara fled from the campus and her friends plotted conspiracy in Abilene’s room, Finley led the bookstore clerk away from the counter to help her locate a textbook. Abilene and Helen rushed behind the counter, ducked into the stockroom, and hid themselves in the maze of file cabinets, shelves and stacked boxes.
A few minutes later, the clerk entered just long enough to turn off the stockroom’s lights.
When she was gone, Helen nudged Abilene with her elbow and chuckled softly.
They waited in the darkness. After a while, Abilene removed her flashlight from the sack of food she’d brought along. She crept to the door and eased it open. She glanced around the silent, deserted bookstore. Then she reached down to the outside knob. She tried to twist it. The clerk had left it locked.
She shut the door and went back to Helen. ‘Just like I thought,’ she whispered. ‘They keep it locked. I bet the custodians don’t have a key, either. Not for the stockroom. Maybe not even for the bookstore.’
‘So we’re safe, right?’
‘I think so.’
‘Can we turn on the lights?’
‘That’d be pushing it.’
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, they drank root beer by flashlight. They ate cheeseburgers and french fries. When they were done, they turned off their flashlights. They talked softly and waited.
Waited for ten o’clock.
According to Finley, who spent a lot of time wandering the campus at night, the custodial staff usually finished cleaning the administration building and left it before ten.
At ten, Abilene and Helen would leave the stockroom, sneak out of the bookstore, and open an outside door to let the other girls in.
At five after eight, however, Helen whispered, ‘I’ve gotta go.’
‘What?’
‘All that root beer.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘I’m gonna explode.’
‘Go in your cup.’
‘Abbyyyyyy.’
‘I mean it.’
‘I can’t. I need a toilet.’
‘Oh, man. The custodians are probably in the building.’
‘Please.’
‘Okay. There’s probably a john in the hallway. But be careful. If anybody spots you
‘You’re coming with me, aren’t you?’
Abilene hadn’t planned on it. Though she’d consumed as much root beer as Helen, she’d intended to either hold on until ten o’clock or use a cup.
‘I don’t want to go alone.’ The pleading tone of her voice reminded Abilene of Helen’s experience in the shower room at the start of the school year: the lights going off, the hand touching her.
‘All right, I’ll go with you. We’ll take our flashlights.’ Abilene led the way. She inched open the door. The bookstore was dark except for a faint glow of lights coming in through the windows along one wall. Stepping out, she turned on her flashlight. As she walked around the counter, she heard the stockroom door bump shut. ‘Crap.’
‘What?’
‘Did you unlock it?’
‘Huh? Oh, no.’
‘There goes our hideout.’ She thought about the A & W bags and cups. No big deal. ‘You didn’t leave anything, did you? Other than the stuff from the A ’n Dub?’
‘No. Did you?’
‘Nope. Thank God.’
‘They’ll know we were in there.’
‘They’ll know someone was. No way to figure out who, though.’
‘Can you get fingerprints off that stuff?’
‘You can. But we aren’t gonna murder anybody. I’m sure the cops wouldn’t go to the trouble.’
‘Sure hope not.’
Following the bright beam of her flashlight, Abilene went to the door of the bookstore. Then she shut off the light. She turned the knob and eased the door toward her.
The hallway was dark.
‘Fantastic!’ she whispered. Leaning into the hall, she looked both ways. The only lights came from the green glow of Exit signs at each end. She stepped out. ‘Don’t let it lock.’
‘Got it.’ Helen came into the hallway behind her. ‘Maybe the janitors have already left.’
‘They might be upstairs, I guess. But you’d think they’d light up the whole building if they were here.’
‘Maybe they have Wednesdays off.’
‘Or they haven’t arrived yet. Come on. Let’s make it quick.’ She and Helen hurried through the hallway, checking the doors with their flashlights. Near the center, they came to a door marked LADIES. Abilene pushed it open, and they entered the dark restroom. Helen rushed into the first stall, Abilene into the next.
As she shone her light on the toilet, a groan came from Helen. ‘What?’
