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March Madness!!!! Day 7 - Prompt: snapshot

My job was to drive Mindy

to Show Choir practice and stay the whole two hours doing homework to avoid a second round trip to school to fetch her home. The middle school was right next to the high school so I slipped over to watch boys basketball practice. I tried to look inconspicuous but Ethan caught sight of me. His head tipped back, he raised his eyebrows in surprise, and he smiled. I was too startled to smile back, but Lexi Thompson’s blonde head popped into view and she waved at him as he’d been looking at her all along. Was he? I didn’t think so. But she parked her tight Levis in the front row and proceeded to cheer whenever Ethan’s side scored. She glanced back at me from time to time.

The little bitch.

Had she seen that my sister was missing? Of course she had.

There’s this idiotic video the school makes us watch every new school year. It shows how every person has some little crisis or big concern so we should cut everyone some slack if they cut us off in traffic or yell at us or whatever. Mrs. Fagan stood there saying, “There would never be any bullying if everyone saw this film.” What rot! Bullies are inspired and motivated by those who are hurting, and their goal is to kick them even harder when they’re already down.

Everyone knew Lexi was a phony who charmed all the teachers but mean girls always knew how to time their attacks so that adults would never see what went down. Ethan knew how mean Lexi was. At least he’d be impervious to her sudden, overly obvious flirting.

I tried to focus on Romeo and Juliet. That stupid, overdone play. Why did every high school kid in America have to read it? As if two fourteen-year-olds knew what true love was. Romeo went on and on about Rosalind, then took one look at Juliet, and he was struck by true love? Shakespeare wasn’t such a genius after all if he believed that. And the priest, helping Juliet fake her death. He let her shocked, grieving parents seal their daughter in the stone-cold tomb, just so stupid Juliet could go run off with stupid Romeo. A priest! And then the maddening series of if-only this, if-only that goes on until both kids end up dead. Stupidly.

What if Jenny was faking her death or disappearance?

After she served time for that bogus charge of being caught with weed, she was a felon. Nobody will hire a felon. Nobody will rent an apartment to a felon. She was basically hit with a life sentence. The waitressing job at Howlers, wearing short-shorts and a tight T-shirt, was as good as it would get until she figured out a way to swing college and outlast the felony on her record. Luckily, that music professor already knew her and offered her the house-sitting gig for one semester.

The gig was up. Jenny was nowhere. She might conceivably leave her parents and sisters in the lurch, even her employers, but the cats, no. Never. She would not have left those cats unattended. She wouldn’t leave her makeup behind.

Unless she wanted it to look like she’d been abducted and would never be found, because she was starting all over again somewhere under a new identity?

Lexi’s screaming drew my attention back to basketball practice. Ethan had sunk one into the net. I was ready to sink something into Lexi’s head, an ax for instance, so I looked back at my Shakespeare instead.

source: Romeo and Juliet - Warner Home Video

I couldn't read Shakespeare on the best of days,

much less now, with Jen-Ben missing and Lexi-Bitch preying on Ethan. I walked out into the hallway, checking out the posters Ethan had hung. Taped to the band room door, a snapshot of Jenny in Show Choir holding a trophy, standing between Ethan with his trombone and me holding my violin, with huge words over our heads: FIND JEN-BEN! How many did he print from his computer? Under the snapshot he'd typed, “Can I ask all our friends to share this post?” He included a Facebook link. "Jenny Bennett needs to be found. Please everyone just take a minute to share. Somebody has to know something!"

Somebody had to know something,

but nobody knew anything when the police asked questions.

I headed down the long, empty hallway.

One way or another, I will find you, Jenny.

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