Dreaming of Cheers (Standing Up to Life Book 3)

Chapter 22:

BACK AT SCHOOL, she walked into the office with me and signed me back in. Fifth period was just about half-way through as I walked into Home Ec. I handed my note to Coach Holt and sat down in my usual seat next to Amy. It turned out we were working on another sewing project today, so I began helping her out, cutting pattern pieces as she pinned them to fabric.

"Everything go alright?" She asked me.

I nodded, "Yeah, though I really hate having to go to classes after time with Doctor Reynolds."

"I can understand that..." she then caught me up on what I'd missed that morning. Not much, from what I could tell. Home Ec went by fairly quickly and we moved onto English. We were given time to read our non-fiction book for our book report that was going to be due soon. I had decided to use a book on filmmaking I'd found in the library. As I sat down to start reading it, I enjoyed learning more and more about how real movies were made.

Our little film had done really well, but I was learning all sorts of things that would make things work even better. I ended up daydreaming through part of the class about what I could actually do with the right equipment. Real film cameras, on real dollies, real actors, all of that would make things so cool! As Nikki and Ashley walked next to me to band, I couldn't help but tell them about some of the things I was reading. We all agreed we'd love to do another project and make a film for real. Unfortunately coming up with the money for such a film wasn't something that seemed possible. It sounded like it would be at least a hundred-thousand dollars to do anything at all, let alone something really, really good!

After band I walked down to the locker room and opened my locker, talking to Lindsey as I turned the knob, and then gasped at what I saw! I just froze for a moment, stopping in mid-sentence, when Lindsey looked over my shoulder and said, "GROSS!"

Amy had appeared right then too, "Who would leave their bloody tampon in her locker?!?"

A very used tampon was sitting atop the top that I wore each day for practice. By now all of the girls were gathering, and that was enough to clue in Coach as she walked in. "What's going on ladies?" she asked.

"Someone left a tampon in Tiffany's locker," Kristina said. "And not one still in its wrapper," she added.

Coach Holt took one look at it before grabbing a paper towel to grab it and throw it in the trash can. The look on her face was one that could kill. As she picked it up I noticed a note that had been left too. There had been just enough room through the diamond shape holes in the locker for whoever did it to slip the tampon in, and they had used the same holes to slip the note in. It was labeled, 'Freak.'

I had been just about ready to pick it up, but Coach had seen it as well and grabbed it with her other hand. She threw the tampon away, and then unfurled the note. If she had looked angry before the note, she was furious now! "WHO DID THIS?" She bellowed.

None of the girls said anything. I was just coming to terms with the fact that someone had left something so disgusting in my locker. Why couldn't I just get back to living normally?

"I want to know who did this Ladies, and I want to know it now!" Coach Holt said aloud.

Again, none of the girls said anything. Was it really one of the girls that were standing in the room? Or, was it someone else, someone from an earlier PE class? I don't think any of us had really looked at the tampon to see how 'fresh' it was. I was looking at Coach past the locker, so I could see that it must have been wet when it was put in there – there was blood on my shirt that it had been sitting on.

Coach Holt got really quiet with her voice then, "Ladies, I hope this wasn't any of you. If I discover any of you were involved with this, I will kick you off the team! I will also make sure that you receive a strong sentence from the office. You all need to be respectful of your squad members. Any more incidents and I'm going to seriously reconsider us going to nationals next month." She paused and let that sink in.