A Comedy of AR's

Chapter 79
CHAPTER 179 .......... On a Mission

Chapter Description: 2 new pictures added 4/3/24 Images for this story can be found at the following web...... https://sites.google.com/view/comedy-ars-characters/home

CHAPTER  179

“Derrek, don’t let the teachers see my phone or they’ll confiscate it.  This morning, something weird happened.   I received this text message with an attachment.  Take a look.”

Starline played me a brief video that made me freeze in place.  I was mortified.  In a raspy whisper, I uttered, “Holy Jesus Freaking Christ.”

The video I was shown suddenly became my new number one priority for this school day.

“Starline, who sent this to you?”

The girl declined.  “I’m sorry.  I can’t tell you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I retorted.  “I know who it was.  But why did they send it to you?”

Starline answered flippantly, “They sent it to all the bad girls.”

I asked, “So you consider yourself a bad girl?”

She shot back, “Well, duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

“Starline, I appreciate you showing this to me, but I need to borrow your phone for 30 seconds.”

“Are you crazy?  I can’t let this phone out of my sight.”

“Starline, I promise I won’t show it to anybody, or change or delete anything.  You’ve got to trust me on this.  I won’t bring your name up either.  I’ll give it right back to you in 30 seconds, I promise.”

This time, my powers of persuasion were good enough.  When she handed me the phone, I sprinted to one of the boys’ bathroom stalls and closed the door.  I didn’t want the girl to know that I had school permission to carry my own phone. 

I pulled my ‘flippy’ out and took a video of her attachment for about 15 seconds.  That’s all I needed to own my own piece of the ‘evidence’.  Then I sprinted back and returned her phone.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked me.

For a moment, I thought about the time when Kitti Power’s boyfriend, Chikon Crudup, slapped me around in my bedroom.  At the time, I borrowed a famous quote from Bugs Bunny that I decided would be appropriate to use now, too.

“Of course you realize … this means war.”

The girl protested, “Hey Derrek, don’t war on me.  I didn’t do it.”

“I know that, Starline … but what made you decide to show it to me?  You don’t like me at all.”

The girl put away her phone.  “Call it ‘class warfare’, Derrek.  I don’t like the idea of a high school student exploiting my middle school classmates.  Just keep my name out of it.  I didn’t show you anything.”

I nodded.  “Agreed … Well, thanks again for the heads-up … and vote ‘Adams’ for class president.”

“Easy decision,” she replied.

I stuck my nose back into homeroom just long enough to ask my friends to tell Mr. Victum that I’d be missing math class for ‘election’ preparation.”

“But what did Starline say?” asked Hoshiko.

“I’ll let you guys know later, but right now, I need to run some school errands.”

I grabbed my backpack and returned it to my locker.  For the moment, I wouldn’t need my school supplies.  Then I made a beeline for the football locker room.  I told Coach Parker that I just came down to see if my ‘returned’ uniform was in good order.

“Not a problem, Derrek.  Kitti and her father brought them back early at 7 am this morning.  Everything appears to be in order.  Her father told me that Kitti’s uncle is a locksmith and that’s how she was able to obtain a compatible key to break in.”

(Kitti and her father?  I would hate to upset such a happy family … but that was my fullest intention.)

“You guys played a hell of a game Friday without me.  I should retire.”

“No way, Coach.  We can’t get by on trick plays every week.  But maybe we should dress in drag for every game.  ‘Pussy Power’ got us highly motivated.”

“You crack me up, Adams … or should I say President Adams?”

“The election’s not till Wednesday, Coach, but thanks for the vote of confidence.”

I had to wait for the first period boys to change and vacate the main locker room and head out for their class in the gym.  Then I headed back toward the showers, but I made sure not to get too close to the entrance.

I stopped and studied the wall across from the shower entrance.  Nothing stood out.  Whatever I was looking for had to be really tiny, but with today’s technology that wouldn’t surprise me based on my experience with Shilo.

I looked carefully at every one of the square tiles without luck.  Then I looked up … where the wall met the ceiling.  The only item that stood out was an emergency light that would go on if the power went out.

The front of the light had a clear plastic covering that shielded the bulb.  It didn’t look out of the ordinary, but with no other leads,  I felt that I had to check it out … But what could I stand on?  The only object nearby was a rubber garbage can than wasn’t exactly the most stable as a stool.

I weighed 125 pounds which was decent for a twelve-year-old, but I wasn’t sure if the can would collapse under my weight and send me on ride to break my kneecaps.  I set the can near a bench first and stood on it with one leg.  Then I carefully lifted my other leg.

The can held.  I bounced a little and it still held.  (Thank you Rubbermaid).  Then I grabbed a spare towel and draped it over my head and face, so my face wouldn’t be seen in any video.  I placed the can under, but to the side of the emergency light and hopped up.  I was a little wobbly, but I grabbed the light to help steady my balance.   

Then I gently popped open the clear plastic covering … and I saw it.  Bingo!  I could not believe how frickin’ tiny this spy camera was ...  maybe the size of a cap on a small marking pen.  A little bit of tape kept it affixed to the light bulb.

I unpeeled the little tape by its edge.  In case it had Kitti’s fingerprint, I had to be sure not to mess it up.  And I placed it over the lense of the tiny camera so no more pictures could be transmitted.  The spycam had a short antenna wire extending out the back, maybe an inch.  I pocketed the object, replaced the plastic covering, and carefully hopped off the can.

I knew that the ‘right’ thing to do in this situation was to show the spycam and my portion of Starline’s video to either the coach or the principal.  If I was going to be the class president, then I should act responsibly ...  However, I chose not to.

I did stay in the locker room for a few more minutes to think about how my next actions might affect others … such as my teammates and my friends.  I thought about what Sammantha had told me about the time she was bullied in high school by a 15 year old Gort Canker.  When enough was enough, she physically destroyed him and he was gone from school.

She taught me not to let people ‘walk all over you’.  I had no intention of beating up Kitti.  But every fiber in my being directed me to pursue a ‘proportional response’.

I walked quickly to the main office and explained to the secretary that I needed the computer skills of Marlan Gopee for my election campaign.  (The election was a good excuse for everything … especially cutting class.)

She told me that Marlan was now in second period English class with Mrs. Bullutis.  I thanked her and smiled, knowing that my English teacher would ‘roll over’ for anything I asked.  After all, she wouldn’t want me telling anyone about the morbidly obese nude basketball player, Burlee Overshown … which happened to be her.

I headed to my English class.  “Mrs. Bullutis?”

“Yes, Derrek?”

“I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be missing third period English class because I need today to prepare for the election campaign for class president.  I wasn’t given much notice.”

“Okay.” 

“And I was also wondering if it would be okay if I borrowed Marlan for a few minutes.  He can do the tech stuff I need, and I don’t have a lot of time.”

“Fine … Marlan, you can go with Derrek.”

(Wow, I could tell that my English teacher was trying extra specially hard not to piss me off.  But I wouldn’t want to take too much advantage of the situation.)

I gave a puzzled Marlan a hand signal.  “Come on.”

When we entered the hallway, I shut the classroom door and asked, “Remember how on Friday, you helped us find out that the person who stole our uniforms was Kitti Power?”

“Yeah?” he replied, still with a puzzled look.

“That’s not all she did in the boys’ locker room, Marlan.”  I pulled out the object and asked him,  “Do you know what this is?”

The other boy needed only a brief look.  “It’s a mini spycam.  Hey, what’s going on, Derrek?”

“Can you keep our talk confidential, Marlan?”

“Derrek, I keep a couple hundred tech secrets confidential and I don’t tell a soul.  The answer is ‘yes’.  Tell me what’s going on.”

I pulled out my ‘flippy’ and showed the other boy the fifteen seconds of video that I coppied off Starline’s phone. 

“Kitti has been making ‘kiddie porn’ by using the boys on our football team as subjects.”

“Holy shit!  But why are you showing this to me?  Aren’t you going to turn her in?”

“No, Marlan.  I don’t like to tattle.  But I do want to turn the tables on her.  I want to know if you’re willing to help me.”

“Hell, yeah, Derrek … but how?”

“Would you be able to change the spycam so that it transmits on a broadcast frequency different from the current one?”

Marlan took a closer look at the electronic object and replied, “I can do it, but you’ll probably need a person on the ‘inside’, maybe like another high school student … and someone to plant it in the girls’ locker room.  Are you going for the showers?”

“Let me worry about that.  How soon can you change the frequency?  Today would be nice.”

“How about today right now?  Follow me up to the computer lab.”

We walked together quickly and said hello to Mr. Bopp who ran the computer lab and was busy conducting a class.  He just waved at Marlan indicating he had free rein to do whatever he wanted.

We sat down at a terminal away from other students.  Marlan held the spycam up to the light and noted, “The camera model is a Spy-varmint.  That’s a newer and cheaper brand, so it should be easier to hack into their website once we create a fake account.”

It turned out that anyone could create an account because the company wanted to send their ads to more email addresses.  “How are your eyes, Derrek?  The serial number on the camera is very tiny.”

I took the spycam and squinted.  “You’re right Marlan.  It’s almost microscopic … But that gives me an idea.  Can you wait here?  I’m going to the Bio-lab … be right back.”

It was amazingly easy for me to traverse through the school unchallenged by hall monitors.  My reputation for having stopped Sally with her gun gave me ‘Carte Blanche’ to ‘rule’ the school.  It’s fine for now if I don’t let it go to my head.