Sneakers

The biggest thorn in the paw of my grand plan to stop going to school was that my mom would probably notice that I wasn't going to school. I'd either have to explain all the weird things going on with me, pretend to go to school every day and find something else to do, or play it like I couldn't focus because of my dad and if I failed classes I'd make up the credits in the summer and get my diploma in the mail. That one seemed like the easiest.

It wasn't an issue, however. When I got home my mom was running around the house packing suitcases.

"Are we going somewhere?" I asked, setting my car keys on the kitchen table.
She stopped in place and stood up, looking at me for a moment.

"I am," she started. "I've been talking to Aunt Cathy on the phone and I don't think she's doing very well, with the divorce and then your father. I'm going to spend a few days out there with her until she's feeling better."

Cathy's my dad's sister and I suspected always a bit batty. She didn't come from Delaware for my dad, her brother' funeral; said she wouldn't be able to drive herself, and nobody could go pick her up.

My mom continued, "Would that be ok? I mean will you be ok by yourself for a while?"

She must have noticed that I was doing alright with everything. My dad died in January, it was now March. Seems like enough time to me.

"I'll be fine," I said. "Nothing major going on, just school. Are you leaving tonight or tomorrow?"

Nothing major going on. Nothing major! I was almost surprised at what I was saying, it seems like I should be more obviously concerned about mysterious money and a weird conspiracy to get me off the hook for knocking four guys into the hospital. Perhaps I was hesitant to trust anybody, even my mom.

She left early the next morning, before I would normally had left for school. Before she left she told me not to throw any wild teenage drug parties. I told her I wouldn't know how if I wanted to. She left, I went back to bed.

It's a marvelous feeling to sleep right through the opening bell for school. Skipping school is one thing, playing sick is one thing, but just not going to school is another feeling entirely. It felt like freedom, like taking charge of my life.

I woke up again around 10, and sent Amy a text message saying I'd meet her in the school library during lunch. I spent a while not thinking about my problems, just sitting around the house. I longed for my innocence again, when I had two parents and my biggest concern was -- hell, I had no biggest concern.

I marched from the school parking lot into the building and straight into the library. I'd missed three classes already, freedom bells were still ringing in my head. Classes were out for lunch and teenagers loitered around the building dealing with their own fragile little lives. I didn't pay attention to whether anybody was noticing me as I walked through the school.

The library was big. Not Breakfast Club big, but one of the largest rooms in the building nonetheless. Fear of school shootings had changed the standard library design from halls of tall bookshelves to long hedgerows of waist-high shelves bisecting the room at angles. Tables were spread wherever there was room, and librarians stood vigilant behind the front desk making sure nobody was talking too loudly or eating any food.

Amy was at a table in the back of the library, sneaking chips from her backpack in defiance of the no-food rule. I pulled up a chair across from her.

"You just get here?" she asked.
"Yeah. Someone took my parking spot." I said. I hadn't had time to eat, but her chips weren't too enticing. I hate Fritos. Curly little disasters.
"I thought you said you'd be coming to school," she was splitting her focus between me, her Fritos, and the Newsweek in her hand.
"I said I'd be coming to school, not going to classes." She rolled her eyes.

"So," she said after a minute, closing the magazine, "what's your plan for snooping Comstock's bank records? Should I be wearing a repel harness and kevlar?"
"Shoot," I said, "I forgot to plan that." I thought for a second. "How's your phone voice? Can you sound like a grownup?"
"I can," she said, her voice a bit thicker and sounding like a WASP.
"Good," I said, "now give me a notebook and a pen."

After lunch was fourth hour. Amy and I were in the same study hall, a class typically spent sitting in silence or doing homework due that day in hours five or six.

People tell me that in the West coast they're called periods. When I say fourth hour, I mean fourth period. Follow?

Anyway, it was fourth hour but Amy and I weren't in class. We were in the administrative office, suspiciously hiding in an empty office down the hall from Mr Comstock's. Nobody was currently using the office, in it were only a built-in desk and a telephone. The lights were off, only a small amount of light filtered in through the rectangular window in the door.

Having finished writing, I slid the notebook over to Amy, sitting behind the desk. She read through it briefly. "Can you do it?" I asked.
She nodded, then asked, "How do you know what bank he uses?"
"New England Federated? He has a mug from there on his desk."

She smiled and shook her head, picking up the handset and dialing the school's primary phone number. As it started ringing she handed the handset to me and said, "You should ask for him."
I could hear the phone ringing in the main office just a few feet away. I took it and asked why.
"They might notice if I call twice as two people."
"Huh. Smart," I said, putting the handset to my ear just as an office worker answered it.
"May I speak to Mr. Comstock, please?" I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Just a moment," the voice on the phone said. I handed the phone back to Amy and said, "connecting."

Amy took the phone and nestled it to her ear with her shoulder and picked up the notebook and pen.

"Hello, is this Mr. Nathan Comstock?" Amy said after a moment in the slightly modified voice we'd worked on. She crossed a line off of the notebook.
"Hi, this is Sarah from New England Federated Bank's fraud monitoring department. I'm calling today because our computer has flagged some suspicious-looking activity on your account and I'd like to verify with you whether they were authorized charges or not."

I swallowed hard. I really hoped he had an account at that bank and didn't just collect free mugs. Amy's eyes darted back and forth for a moment, then crossed a line off of the page.

"Ok", she said into the phone. "First I'll just need to verify your identity. Could you confirm your home address, please?" she wrote something down, "and could you verify the last four digits of your social security number?" she wrote some more.

She continued reading, "Thank you very much Mr. Comstock. Now regarding the suspicious activity on your account I'm seeing two separate charges this morning at a Citgo station in Bowling Green totaling $53.49 together and then shortly after a charge of $478.88 at a Circuit City store in the same town. Can you verify whether you authorized those purchases or not."

She smiled, "You didn't? Ok, sir, I'm going to mark this account for fraud investigation and for the time being we will remove these charges and restore the balance to your account. Are you around a computer right now? Ok, can you log into your account right now and verify these charges no longer appear?"

She nodded to me, it was working. I peeked out the window for a minute.

"Uh huh," Amy said into the phone. "Great. So I'm going to get started on processing the investigation request for your account and we'll cancel your current debit card and mail you a new one, but if you could go through your account history online for a few minutes, just looking for charges you don't authorize, that would be good. If you see any other unauthorized charges you can call me directly by dialing New England Federated's toll free number and pressing extension 7129."

She read him the 800 number I'd gotten from the phone book, reminded him to look right now for unauthorized charges, said goodbye, and hung up. She leaned back in her chair and sighed like she'd just given birth. "That's not easy!" she said.

"You did great," I said, "Now just one more call to make."
"And why can't you make this one?" she asked, hand on the handset.
"Because I sound like a 17 year old boy. It's much harder to tell female ages based on voice, and you need to be a parent for this one."

She sighed again, picked up the phone and pressed redial. This time she was in full WASPy mother voice.
When someone in the office picked up, Amy spoke into the phone, "Hi there, I was just at the school picking up my daughter for a doctor's appointment and in the front parking lot, that's the staff parking lot, isn't it? Yes, mm hmm, well when I was driving by it looked like I saw a group of young men wearing football jerseys apparently vandalizing one of the cars. One of them had a hammer I think, they ran away when I drove by but it looked like they were doing something to a grayish tan Sebring. I hope they weren't---" and she trailed off, pulling the phone away from her mouth. Then she blew into the microphone, and then hung up.

"Damn dropped calls," she said to me with a grin.
"Ok, I said. "It's on. Just have to wait for the call and hope it comes soon enough."

We both pressed against the door. A few minutes passed, but just down the hall a phone rang. A few seconds later, Comstock's door swung open and he ran down the hall past us.

"Amazing," I said.
"I'll watch the door," she said, "one knock means danger and two knocks means mega danger."

We crossed the hall, I slipped into Comstock's office and Amy stood in front of the door, blocking the window with her body. I stepped behind the desk and my heart sank when I saw a blank monitor screen. I sat down at the desk, and pressed the power button on the monitor.

The screen took a few seconds to cycle back to power, but the black screen soon quickly snapped to full color. Internet Explorer was open, and I was looking at New England Federated's website. Comstock was still logged in.

"Bingo," I said to myself.