Chapter 20

 20

The next morning Jordan stood shivering in shorts and a t-shirt, readying for P.E. class with Stacey- also looking mildly uncomfortable.

“This sucks!” Stacey muttered. “I hate gym with a freaking passion!”

“I do too,” Jordan sighed miserably. She finished shoving her clothes and her purse into the beat up locker and both girls shuffled out the locker room door into the main gym. Everyone stood around, arms crossed, heads down, a few though, pumped for the physicality of it all, jogged in place or swung their arms vigorously, ready for the day’s activity. Jordan and Stacey took their places.

“Why does she always get out of P.E.?” Stacey remarked and Jordan followed Stacey’s gaze to Teresa, lounging on the bleachers, fully dressed rather than shivering in their P.E. outfits like the rest of them.

     “No idea,” Jordan replied, “I can bet she’ll fail P.E. though. You can only skip two days for the semester and she’s pretty much skipped out on all of it so far. I swear my parents would kill me if I pulled half of what she did.” They were interrupted by the P.E. teacher, Mr. Millen, running into the gym, whistle blaring, two students following him pushing carts full of basketballs.

Stacey groaned, “Uh, basketball again? I hate basketball!”

Jordan did too. She wasn’t really into sports, much to her father’s chagrin and she typically made a fool of herself regardless of the activity.  She shook her head ready for further humiliation.

As they stood waiting for further instructions, Stacey leaned in, a serious look creasing her brow- her eyes narrowed, boring into Jordan’s.

“You know we need to talk,” Stacy began. “I want to know how you knew about the fire, Jordan. You’ve got some explaining to do here. I didn’t tell my parents I saw you that night, but if anyone had seen you Jordan, you would’ve been implicated in the fire. What is going on?”

Jordan hung her head, mostly in shame that she hadn’t confided in her best friend in the first place, “I’ll explain everything today after school. Let’s stop by Jo-Jo’s for a milk shake and we’ll talk then.”

Satisfied, Stacey refocused on Mr. Millen’s instructions and the two girls got ready to play. Meanwhile, Teresa had slipped off the bleachers and crept back into the locker room. She listened carefully to ensure no one was in there and she crept to Jordan’s gym locker. The old lockers had one advantage- there were no locks. Kids were encouraged to lock valuables in their school locker rather than these busted blue containers, but most kids ignored it and while a phone or IPod was stolen occasionally- most kids escaped thievery, giving a false sense of security. Teresa was after Jordan’s purse. The mirror had to be in there.

She pulled the faded blue jean purse from the locker shelf and dumped its contents on the floor of the locker- scavenging the contents for a mirror. It was drawn small on Jordan’s paper so Teresa felt it must be a hand held mirror. Minutes passed, checking the pockets of Jordan’s jeans, the jacket pockets, picking through the purse’s contents again, and she came up with nothing. She heard the whistle blow, signaling shower time, frustrated and sweaty, Teresa slammed Jordan’s locker shut and slipped out the alternate door to the school hallway- hurrying on to her next class.

When Jordan and Stacey burst through the locker room door they headed to their lockers.

“What the-“ Jordan blurted. She stood staring at her locker- the clothes crumpled- her jeans hanging off the shelf and the contents of her purse dumped all over the locker bottom.

“What’s wrong?” Stacey called from her locker, looking over her shoulder, a question in her eyes.

“Someone rummaged through my stuff!” Jordan shrieked, stooping to collect the items of her purse, mentally checking off if everything was there. Puzzled she found that nothing had been stolen. Her phone, her IPod, even her money was all still there.

“It’s like someone was looking for something,” Stacey remarked, now standing beside Jordan surveying the jean pockets pulled out, the coat pockets gaping open and the purse rummaged like a ransacked room.

Jordan stood with a start, nearly cracking her head on the upper locker door that was still swung open. She replayed what Stacey had just said, and realized Stacey was right. Who had the opportunity to do this and why would they? The only answer that made sense was Teresa. Had she been on the bleachers the whole time? What did she know? Jordan realized that maybe Teresa had stolen her notebook and panic fluttered in her stomach like a gaggle of geese.

“We’ve got a lot to talk about," Jordan mumbled as she gathered her items and made ready for the rest of the day. She had to tell Stacey what was going on, it might be the only way to protect the mirror.