“Tell you the God’s honest truth, Pops, those Starkville Coopers … hell, something ain’t screwed on right with those folks. I can’t cotton to them. And Starkville, Mississippi? She ain’t exactly the jewel in the crown, if you get my speed.”
His father sighed. “Why can’t you speak like everyone else?”
Michael laughed. “It’s all about style, Pops. A comedian’s got to have a style all his own. Dig me?”
“You’re a card, Mike, but one of these days that style of yours is gonna get you in a mess of trouble. Life isn’t a series of one-liners and bizarre analogies.”
Then his father acquiesced to Michael’s wishes, and his parents left for Starkville by mid-afternoon, leaving behind a list of mandatory chores that leaned toward scrubbing, mopping and dusting. Michael moaned as he studied the list then turned his focus to the chaos he planned to introduce at Albion County School the next day.
He texted regularly with his fellow conspirators, who put the final touches on the special packages he’d deliver after midnight. Michael and four others, including Jamie, gathered ample cow manure, which they mixed with ground beef and molded into thin patties cut to the identical dimensions of the so-called hamburgers the state’s vendors provided its schools. They wore surgical masks and latex gloves and slipped the patties between wax paper. They placed the patties into boxes stolen from the cafeteria dumpster and stored them in a deep freezer that Arnold Wilcox’s father never used.
“They’ll never make it to the serving line,” Michael said. “That don’t matter so long as they get thrown in the oven. The odor, the panic. I reckon there’s gonna be something rotten, but not in Denmark.”
Jamie was supposed to help him deliver the goods, but Michael’s “No. 1 hombre” waffled all night. He saw Jamie fall into these funks ever since the murders. Michael tried to understand, and his tactics for perking up Jamie usually worked. Not this time. Jamie insisted he was ready to leave this hellhole. Michael tried to offer original wisecracks, but he couldn’t break his best friend’s depression. Jamie texted Michael to look at the bigger picture, to see life beyond Albion. If they hit the road together …
Michael responded with sarcasm, and Jamie texted nothing more after 1 a.m. Michael texted several follow-ups, but at some point, he laid his head on a pillow and envisioned alternative plans.
The next thing he knew, Michael woke up coughing. He flapped about like a freshly-landed trout until the object in his mouth was removed. When he realized he wasn’t drowning or dreaming, Michael took stock of his surroundings, and specifically the familiar face who towered over him pointing a suppressor-equipped pistol between the boy’s eyes.
“Here’s how it’s going to play,” Christian Bidwell said. “I’m not planning on shooting your sorry ass right now, but if you don’t go with the flow on this, no one is ever going to find your ashes. Got me, Coop?”
Michael searched his mind for outrageous possibilities. Perhaps he woke up to the wrong end of a prank. Maybe his Starkville cousins were trying to scare the hell out of him. Not likely, unless they were in the habit of recruiting the local star quarterback, power forward, pole-vaulter, and all-around Johnny All-America rolled into one.
“Bidwell. Dude. Mi casa su casa. So, what’s with the heater?”
Christian snickered. “You’re a funny guy, Coop. Think you are, anyhow.” He dropped his smile. “I’m going to lay it down once: This is not a joke. You do what I say or I’m going to shove his gun down your throat and blow the back of your head off. Crystal?”
“Crystal, dude.” Michael felt an urge to pee.
As he sat up, Michael saw another person standing in the doorway. As if on cue, the other visitor flicked the light switch. When Michael saw Agatha Bidwell, he wet the bed.
“Oh … you got to be …” He scrambled his thoughts, his brain still half-asleep. Although Michael never had to endure a Bidwell English class – he made a point of avoiding a semester of such well-known terror – he listened to ample tales of peers who wilted under her dominion.
“Look, I get what this is,” Michael stammered. “You found out. OK. I get that. But aren’t you … I mean, this is a little over the top, ain’t it?”
“Explain yourself, Mr. Cooper,” Agatha said as she approached the bed holding a pistol.
“The scheme. The prank. You found out, right? Look, I’ll turn myself in first thing. We weren’t going through with it anyway.”
“Scheme?”
“The cafeteria? Hamburger sabotage?” He saw their confusion. “You got no idea.”
Agatha rubbed her temple. “I have had fourteen of the most confounding years of my life to study teenaged children who possess a level of intellectual mediocrity that will astound and mystify historians for centuries to come. Yes? Trust me, Mr. Cooper. I have more than sufficient idea. What I don’t have, however, is James Sheridan. I want to know where he is, and you will lead me to him.” She turned to Christian. “Did I ‘cut to the chase’ sufficiently enough for you?”
“You’re getting there, Mom. Keep working on it.” He leveled the gun at Michael’s lips. “Now open wide and start talking, dumbass.”
9
S AMMIE TURNED THE lock, grabbed the handle and looked back at Jamie with a reassuring glint in her eyes. He was ten feet from the window and ready to run.
However, the tall, domineering frame of Walt Huggins bore down on him, ignoring Sammie and focusing his wrath exclusively on the teenager who had no business there. Walt grabbed him by the shoulder and jerked him. Although Jamie was 6-foot-3, he stared upward to meet this man’s fiery eyes.
“Move an inch, boy, and I’ll knock you ten ways to Sunday.”
His deep voice came across like finely-honed
