Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 00.5 - Jolie and Scoobie High School Misadventures (13 page)

“I finished most of it.” He opened the door for me. “Enough to pass, anyway.”

We were walking toward my homeroom
. “What ticked you off so much?”

“His last question on
the exam was to describe how O. Henry’s ‘descent into alcoholism’ limited his work.”

I stopped and looked at Scoobie
. “And?”

He stepped to the side of the hallway so people could pass, and I did the same
. “O. Henry wasn’t
limited
by his alcoholism. He was the greatest short story writer in America.”

“Even I know that,” I said, with impatience
. “But what was so bad about the question?  Couldn’t you just write that you disagreed with it?”

Scoobie stared at me for a second
. “Huh. I never thought of that.”

“Are you feeling okay?  I mean, what difference did it make?  Mr. Samuels might have flunked you
. What’s worth that?”

A smile played at the corner of his mouth and vanished
. “Nothing. I was mad about other stuff. See you at lunch.” Scoobie walked away.

I GAVE SCOOBIE one more opportunity to say what he was mad about, then I blew it off. I was going to be leaving in just a few days. Or so I hoped. My parents still were not in touch with me, though I knew they’d talked to Aunt Madge. It was ridiculous. They had a year off, or whatever it was, and then everything was supposed to be back to normal. We’d have to see.

It was
near the end of that day’s geometry class two days before the end of school, and the teacher was going to give us exam results. I wasn’t the least bit nervous. I told Aunt Madge I knew I had flunked the test and she wasn’t mad. “As long as you did your best,” was her comment. I supposed I did.

The teacher placed each test face down on our desks. Everyone else picked up theirs and either groaned or hooted in delight
. I decided to wait until lunch. At least I’d have some comforting words from Margo and the others.

I
exchanged some sympathetic patter with Ramona about our grades and wished her a good summer. I had no plans to come to class tomorrow.

I went from geometry to chemistry, where I’d actually gotten a B on the exam
. I placed that on top of my binder when I walked into the cafeteria.

The noise level was off the charts
. I put my books on our table and got in the food line. There were three kinds of cake for desert, apparently the cafeteria staff’s way of saying have a good summer. I bet they weren’t coming tomorrow either. I asked for two hamburgers and the response from the elderly food server was “why not?”

Good
. Scoobie can have his own burger.

I was the first one to sit down, and surveyed the large room as I took my time squeezing mustard and catsup on my burger
. I wasn’t going to miss this place, but I would miss Scoobie and Margo.

“Yo, Jolie
.” Scoobie slid into the seat across from me and grabbed a burger. “What did you get?”

I picked up the exam and turned it over
. “I don’t believe it.” There was a big C minus on the paper.

“A pass is a pass
.” He was laughing and slapping the table.

“
Half of my answers were guesses.”

He grew serious
. “The rabbit’s foot.”

“I was due for some good luck.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

HOME!  I WAS GOING home
. The school year had ended and I didn’t plan to give Ocean Alley another thought. Except for the usual Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Madge’s of course, and maybe some summer beach time.

Scoobie was trying to be happy for me.

“I’ll see you this summer,” I said.

“Nah,” he tossed a grape at me
. “You’ll be with your buds and you guys will have a million things to catch up on.”

I certainly hoped so
. Ever since what Scoobie called the ‘dark shadows’ incident I’d been even more anxious to go home. I wasn’t sure how my parents would act, or how long I would be angry with them—or if I could hide it—but I would not miss what I felt was a constant need to look over my shoulder. It had been a few weeks, so I was starting to relax, but still…

We were sitting on the boardwalk outside the salt water taffy store
. We’d spent all our quarters at Screw the Bunny and neither of us had won enough prize tickets to get anything except the plastic snakes, and as Scoobie said, there’s a limit to how many of those you really need. We thought the owner did something to the machine over the winter, like people say they do to slot machines in Atlantic City.

“What time are your parents coming?” Scoobie asked.

“When my dad gets off work. They’re taking Aunt Madge and me to dinner and then we’re driving to Lakewood.”

“I think your aunt’s really the one who deserves the free dinner,” Scoobie said
. He ducked as I threw one of the snakes at him.

We were on one of the concrete and wood benches facing the ocean, and we both stared at it without talking for a minute.
It was a little windy, so there were some whitecaps.

“I know we aren’t supposed to talk about it…” I began.

“If you mean ‘dark shadows,’ there’s probably a good reason,” Scoobie said.

I sighed
. “Okay, I don’t want to talk about it. I just wondered, has anything happened since that night that reminds you of that night, or makes you worried that someone’s looking for us?”

“I don’t expect anything that happens in my life will ever remind me of that night,” he said
. “Forgetting about it is getting easier.”

I nodded
. “For me, too. It just bothers me that we’ll never know what happened to those kids.”

“It seemed like a lot of people were looking out for them
.” As he said this, Scoobie looked over his shoulder.

“Yes
. But it made me decide something. I don’t care what anyone tells me, if there’s something not right, I’m not sitting on my duff doing nothing. Not ever again.”

“You can’t fix everything,” Scoobie said, in a reasonable tone.

“I know, but I can try.”

“
Somehow, Ms. Gentil, you’ll probably find a way to butt in wherever you want,” Scoobie said.

*              *              *

This is a prequel to the Jolie Gentil Cozy Mystery Series.

To learn what happens after high school, try:

Appraisal for Murder

Rekindling Motives

When the Carny Comes to Town

Any Port in a Storm

Trouble on the Doorstep
(Amazon Bestseller-cozy mysteries)

Behind the Walls (Fall 2013)

Though written for adult adults
, the Jolie Gentil books have no explicit sex and there is minimal swearing. Most adults believe that the Jolie Gentil series can be read by young adults – or shared with your mom.

Links to all books (including Amazon International Sites are at
http://www.elaineorr.blogspot.com/p/links-to-all-books.html

Visit
www.elaineorr.com
for information on Elaine’s book signings or other events.

Elaine L. Or
r
has written fiction and nonfiction for many years. She began writing plays and novellas and graduated to longer fiction by the mid-1990s. In 2011, Elaine introduced the Jolie Gentil cozy mystery series. She grew up in Maryland and moved to the Midwest in 1994.