My dad asked my mom to go to their room for a minute. I knew he was going to tell her all about the officers" visit. We had decided not to tell the boys about my stalker just yet. Jacob was a little high-strung and we didn"t want to scare either of them.
I went in my room and checked the closet, looked under my bed and made sure my curtain was shut. I put my pajamas on and got in bed. I was more than a little scared. The next day was going to be a big day, going down to the station and all. I was scared to be fingerprinted, I knew it wouldn"t hurt, but still I didn"t like it I didn"t have any strange phone calls or messages on my phone. I fell asleep with some anxiety.
The next day, my father told me to come straight home from school. Like I would forget where we were going and it was all I could think about all day at school.
When I got to school, my locker was rose-free and note-free. But when I opened it, water came pouring out of it, all of my books and notebooks were soaked.
Tears welled up in my eyes. I really didn"t know what to do.
Chanda was standing there beside me.
"Oh my," she said. "How did that happen? Was the roof leaking into the locker? Did a pipe burst?"
"I think it was a prank from my stalker."
She started taking out all the textbooks, one at a time and then my notebooks. She made a pile of books on the bricks in front of the lockers.
"I am going to go get some paper towels and see how damaged these are," she said.
I nodded my head, holding back tears.
She came back with a whole roll of the tan paper towels from our girls" bathroom and she started blotting the books.
Afterward, she dried my locker. I just sat there like a dummy, not knowing what to do.
"Well, it looks like all your notebooks are ruined and the books, too," she said.
"What am I going to do? I need those notebooks for finals and I will have to pay for the books," I said.
"Let"s take the whole mess up to the office and see what they will do," she said.
We gathered up the sloppy mess and walked to the office. I kept wondering if someone was watching me.
We walked in, dripping, to the office.
"What in the world?" Alice, the school secretary asked.
"Whitney opened her locker and this is what she found," Chanda said.
"Let me find a box or something to put it all in. You are dripping all over the floor," Alice said.
We stood there dripping while Alice found a cardboard box. We put the whole mess in the box.
"I think we better call the princ.i.p.al out for this one," Alice said.
She walked to the princ.i.p.al"s door and knocked, he asked her to come in and she went in and shut the door. A few minutes later, Mr. Hoffstetter, the princ.i.p.al, came out with Alice following him. When I saw him, I got tears in my eyes again. He was such a grandfatherly figure and he had always been nice to me.
"Now, Whitney, what"s this I hear about vandalism to your locker?" he said to me.
"I opened my locker and water poured out. This is the mess we were left with." I pointed to the books and notebooks.
I explained to the princ.i.p.al about the stalker and how we already had contacted the police.
"Do you have a backpack?" he asked me.
"Yes," I said, nodding.
"Is it here with you today?" he asked.
"No, I usually only use it to bring my heavy books to school and back when we have a big test or something," I said.
"I want you to bring your backpack tomorrow and not use your locker anymore. We will issue you new books tomorrow. I know they will be heavy, but I think this is best," he said.
I almost groaned, I didn"t want to have to carry those books around with me all day, it was such a pain.
"Another thing. We will not charge you for these wet ones," he said smiling.
"Thank you so much," I said.
"Chanda, do you think Whitney could copy your notes when she gets some new notebooks?" the princ.i.p.al asked her.
"Yes, of course," Chanda said.
"You will be as good as new tomorrow. I will write you a note to give your teachers to explain what happened," he told me.
"Thank you," I said.
"I don"t want to see tears in your brown eyes anymore. If this stalker is trying to hurt you somehow, we won"t let him," he said.
"Okay," I said, trying to smile.
"Just leave all this here. I guess it is sort of evidence, I will put it in storage," he said.
I thanked him again and I also thanked Alice. The princ.i.p.al went in his office and wrote a couple of notes and he gave me one and one to Chanda then we left.
"Wow," Chanda said, "he was so nice."
"Yes, he"s great," I said.
"If you go after school and get the notebooks, you can start copying my notes," Chanda said.
"Tonight, I have to go down to the precinct and give my fingerprints," I said glumly.
"I know, but come over to my house afterward," Chanda said.
"Okay," I said.
"Is your dad going to be upset about all your stuff getting destroyed?"
"I don"t know. I know it was this stalker guy trying to send me some kind of message. I think it was because I talked to the police," I said.
"I don"t understand how he knows so much about you," Chanda said.
"I have been thinking about that, and I don"t either," I said.
I walked to my first period cla.s.s and told Chanda goodbye, she waved and I hoped she didn"t get into trouble because she was majorly late to cla.s.s.
When I showed my note to Mrs. Simpson, my English teacher, she gave me a disapproving look and said, "Okay."
That was pretty much how the day went. I sat in cla.s.s and listened I had to borrow paper and a pencil from my friends.
After school, I walked home with Chanda. Nothing else happened at school.
When I got home, my dad was waiting for me. I told him all about my locker, books, and notebooks getting ruined.
He said that he was grateful to the princ.i.p.al for not charging us for the books.
"Are you ready to go to the police precinct?" Dad asked me.
"I guess so," I said.
My dad got his keys from the little leaf bowl that my parents keep their keys in.
"Let"s go then," he said.
"Where are you going?" Jacob asked coming out of the kitchen eating a fudge pop.
"Whitney and I have some business to tend to," my dad said.
"What business?" he said slurping.
"My own business," I said leaving the house.
We could hear Jacob yelling "Mom!" as we got in the car.
It took us ten minutes to get to the police station.
We parked and got out and there were police cars everywhere.
My dad held my hand as we walked up. His hand was dry but mine was sweating. It had been a long time since my dad had held my handanot since I was a little girl.
"Don"t be worried, honey, this is the easy part," my dad said.
"Okay," I said.
We walked into the police station and, for as many cars as were out front, the station looked a little deserted, my dad went to the front clerk and explained why we were there.
The man asked us to sit and wait. Officers Malcolm and Mitch.e.l.l would be right out.
They both came out of the same office so I guess they worked together. They came over and shook our hands.
Officer Mitch.e.l.l said we would first fill out a complaint. My dad said he had more to tell about, that my locker was vandalized and all my books and notebooks were ruined by water damage.
"This is getting more serious," Officer Malcolm said.
"Yes, he or she is getting angry now. By calling the police, you have made them angry. Also the vandalism is more serious. I think schoolbooks are about fifty dollars each, and you said you had five. This is coming close to petty theft and if they are caught, they might have to serve community service," Officer Mitch.e.l.l said.
"It"s hara.s.sment," Dad said and they both nodded.
I always kind of knew the officers weren"t taking my stalker seriously before, but they seemed to now.
"Let"s fill out the complaint, then let"s fingerprint Whitney," Officer Mitch.e.l.l said.
My father filled out the complaint form with some prompting from me. Then the officers took me to a room where there was a digital fingerprinting machine.
"We do this the modern way now," Officer Malcolm said.
"Yeah, no ink," Officer Mitch.e.l.l said.
Officer Malcolm took each one of my fingers and rolled them on a digital card. Then he had me do my four fingers at once on each hand and then my thumbs, it was quite easy.
After we were finished, the officers thanked us and said they would get back to us to see if there were any other prints on the note other than mine.
My dad took me to McDonald"s for dinner and we sat in a booth and talked.
"What are you going to do about not having your books and things not vandalized again?" my dad asked.
"I guess I will keep everything with me in my backpack," I said. "The princ.i.p.al will give me a new locker, but I don"t want to take any chances that this might happen again."
"Your poor back." My father smiled.
"Oh, by the way we need to stop at Staples so I can get some new notebooks," I said.
"Okay."
We stopped by Staples and I got five notebooks in different colors and they were pretty cheap because it was toward the end of the school year.
When I got home, I went over to Chanda"s and borrowed her English notebook. I figured that was one of the most important ones. Chanda had beautiful writing and it was almost like calligraphy. I thanked her for the notebook and went home and I knew I had my work cut out for me in the next few days.
I went into the house and all my family were there. I could tell that my dad had told my mom about the vandalism because she had a strained look on her face. Jacob and Jordan were playing some video game where an a.s.sa.s.sin kills everybody I thought their video games were so lifelike. Sometimes, a cuss word rang out and my dad would threaten to turn the whole thing off if it happened again.
I went in my room and started copying Chanda"s notebook and I had a cool desk. My dad got it for me from a thrift store it was really sort of a huge table.
My phone rang and the number showed as blocked. I didn"t take the call, of course just one word showed up in the text.
It said, "Witch," and that was all.
This guy was really getting on my last nerve.