Whoever it was talking in the parking lot of the Frostee Freeze had hit the prospects for the football team right on the nose. Two nights later Spearfish Lake High School had their football opener – it was usually before school started, due to playoff scheduling. That helped them not a bit, because the Marlins got drubbed 46-0 by Warsaw, a much smaller school that was usually trampled by their opponents, but was on the schedule because it was relatively close by.

Uncle Josh happened to be down in the basement working on the model train layout with John when the game was on. The two weren’t very interested in the game, but flipped the radio to the local radio station, to find out what the score was. “That’s pitiful,” Josh shook his head at the news. “If they can’t beat Warsaw they aren’t going to beat anyone. Now, when Danny Evachevski and I were playing, and Harold Hekkinan was coaching, that kind of thing wouldn’t have happened.”

“That’s getting to be an awful long time ago,” John pointed out. “Things have changed. If they allow stuff like what happened the other night to go on, then they deserve to get their butts whipped.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Josh shook his head. “Hell, back when I was playing, if something like that had happened, Hekkinan would have kicked their asses so bad they’d be shitting through their noses.”

“Football is awful over-rated in this town for the kind of teams they’ve had the last few years, that’s for damn sure,” John observed.

“Yeah, but this is Spearfish Lake, we take our football seriously.” He paused for a moment, and added, “too seriously.”

“Well, I suppose Shay will give us all the dirty details when he gets home from the game,” John shook his head.

“Sure was strange to see him go the game without Bethany,” Josh agreed. “I was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to get rid of her.”

“I’ll give Candice credit, she didn’t rub his nose in it when he told us,” John grinned, “but you could see she wasn’t sorry in the slightest.”

“Boy, he sure isn’t going to be home for long, is he?”

“He heads out tomorrow. I don’t know how he managed to get all that crap piled into the Escort, but he did,” John sighed. “At least if he has the car with him we might see him a little more than last year, but I’m not betting on it. Another year and this place is going to seem really empty.”

“At least I’ve got a few more years till that happens,” Josh shrugged. “I mean, Curt starts kindergarten Monday, so it’s going to be a while.”

“It goes a damn sight faster than it did when we were kids, I’ll tell you that.”

“I guess, but I sure hope they get the football team fixed by the time Curt gets old enough for it.”

Especially after the events of the previous Wednesday and the outcome of the football game on Friday, Cody wasn’t anxious in the slightest to go to school on Monday morning. More than ever he wanted to put Spearfish Lake and especially Spearfish Lake High School behind him, and he had no doubt that Janice felt the same way.

Janice hadn’t said anything yet about the way that Untermeyer had bad-mouthed her at the Frostee Freeze, but Cody could tell that it had hurt her. In spite of everything, she still bore the stigma of her past, and the scene had only brought it to the surface. Although the second semester last year had been relatively placid for them, both of them were aware of the rumors and the whispers that went on behind their backs, and if nothing else the incident had shown them that little had changed in that area.

Nine more months, a hundred and eighty three school days stretched out like an eternity before them; if only they were walking into classes at Southern Michigan University instead of Spearfish Lake High School things would be a whole lot better for them.

He and Janice had no more than gotten seated in their homeroom, Mrs. Belafonte’s room, when the bell rang and a voice came over the intercom: “Cody Archer, please report to the principal’s office.”

“Now what?” Cody said softly, shrugging at Janice. She shrugged back at him – she obviously had no idea of what this was about either. “I guess I better go,” Cody said to Mrs. Belafonte – and got up from his seat.

“All right, Cody,” she said. He’d had her for a couple classes previously, and she was a nice teacher. “See you later.”

Cody grabbed his nearly empty backpack and headed down to the principal’s office, which was near the front entrance. For some reason – perhaps the same kind of feeling he’d had when he went to check on Janice back in December – he felt like this was going to be trouble.

There were a couple of kids waiting in line at the sliding glass door where the secretary sat, so he waited his turn. When it came, the secretary, Mrs. Foxbender, said, “Hi, Cody! How are things going today?”

“As well as can be expected,” he replied to the friendly woman. “I guess the principal wanted to see me. What’s that all about?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “You’d better head on back.”

Still wondering what was going on, he walked back to the principal’s office. It seemed strange not to see Mr. Hekkinan there, but a strange, thin man with an out-of-place pot belly and thin, slicked-back black hair. For no good reason, he put Cody in mind of a duck. He knocked lightly on the door frame and said, “Mr. Payne, Cody Archer. You wanted to see me?”

“You’re darn right I did,” Payne replied angrily. “You’re suspended. Get your stuff and get off school property.”

“Suspended?” Cody said. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. You’re a danger to the student population and I can’t have you running around the school, especially after the way you beat up those two football players the other evening.”

“They attacked me in front of witnesses,” Cody replied, feeling the hairs starting to stand up on the back of his neck. “All I did was defend myself and my friend. It’s all in the police report.”

“That doesn’t matter, you injured those two so badly that they’re not going to be playing the rest of the season. That kind of stuff is uncalled for. I have a responsibility to protect the rest of the students of this school from random violence from a known killer. Don’t try to mess around with me, Archer. I’ve gotten a number of complaints on you. I don’t know how you got away with killing those two upstanding citizens and walking away with it, but I can’t allow someone like you around this school.”

“Upstanding citizens?” Cody snorted. “They were meth heads raping a helpless girl.”

“They were still citizens of the community and they didn’t deserve to be shot like dogs,” Payne ranted. “I’ve had reports on you, and I know what you are. Intransigent and uncooperative is what the school counselor told me, and that you didn’t care about killing those two any more than if you’d stepped on a cockroach. Now get out of here Archer. We don’t need your kind around this school, and I’ll do everything I can to protect the students from you.”

Logic or the facts were clearly not going to get anywhere with this guy. Cody shook his head. “Sir, you have your facts wrong, but I’ll be glad to leave,” he said.

Well, he thought as he walked out through the door, your gut feelings were pretty good on that one. Wyatt was right when he said that I’m not exactly Payne’s favorite student. Now what the hell do I do about Janice? She’s not going to know what happened to me, and she’s going to be worried. Damn it all, anyhow!

He headed out to the student parking lot, got in his truck, and headed straight downtown. He knew that the whole rant Payne had put out was total bullshit – if any of it were true, why hadn’t Mr. Hekkinan dealt with it after it happened? Really, there was only one thing to do, and that was to go to his parents with it.

“Cody?” John said when he walked into his office a few minutes later. “What are you doing here?”

“We’ve got trouble, Dad. Looks like big trouble. Maybe you’d better get Mom over here so I won’t have to go through it twice.”

Candice joined them within a couple minutes, and Cody went through the whole story, word for word; he had a good memory for things like that. “The whole thing is a crock of shit,” he summarized. “From what I hear Payne really likes to hang around jocks, and I guess he’s pissed because I didn’t let those two idiots beat me up last Wednesday.”

“Somehow I knew that wasn’t going to be the end of that,” John sighed, “but you’re dead right, this is a total crock of shit, and there’s only one thing to do. I’ll see if Matt is in his office.” He picked up his phone and started to dial his attorney.

“Yeah, but I’m worried about Janice,” Cody said. “This will get around school in a flash, and then she’s going to catch all kinds of shit. She should at least know that I won’t be around.”

“She has world history second hour, doesn’t she?” Candice replied after a moment’s thought. “I could run over to the store. I could probably tell Mrs. Clark to pass a message along to her.”

“That might help,” Cody agreed. “I can’t think of anything else to do. Shit, if this goes on it’s going to screw up everything.”

“You’re right, this can’t be allowed to happen,” John said. “That’s why I’m calling Matt.”

In a couple minutes John had the attorney on the phone. “Afraid we’ve had another problem come up with Cody,” he told the attorney. “From what I hear he’s been suspended from school as a result of what happened Wednesday night, but I think it really goes back to the deal with the Lufkins last winter.”

He listened to the phone for a moment, then said to Candice and Cody, “Matt’s not doing anything he can’t put down. Let’s get the signs up and get over to his office.”

Over in Mr. Schindenwulfe’s office, Cody had to go through the whole exchange again, this time with the attorney taking notes. “I think ‘crock of shit’ pretty well covers the whole situation,” he summarized as soon as Cody had finished his story. “I’ve heard stories about this Payne guy and I don’t know what DeRidder was thinking when he decided to hire him. First off, he’s way out of line. He can’t suspend a student on the basis of what happens off of school property, except in some circumstances, which don’t apply here. I don’t know where he gets off thinking he can, except for the fact that he’s probably trying to bluster his way through it without following the rules.”

“I never even got to point out that none of it was on school property,” Cody agreed, “but I could see it wasn’t going to matter. He has his mind made up, and doesn’t care about the facts.”

“That’s just about how I read it,” Schindenwulfe nodded. “There is a due process that has to be followed in these cases, and he clearly didn’t follow it. Now, to keep things from getting too complicated, I think I’d better call up the superintendent and have a little heart-to-heart talk with him. If Mr. DeRidder can’t make this Payne character see the error of his ways, then we’re going to have to take the next step.”

As he picked up the phone Matt Schindenwulfe was pretty sure that talking to the superintendent wasn’t going to solve anything. If he’d hired Payne, DeRidder was going to be more willing to listen to his principal rather than an outside attorney, whatever the facts in the case might be. Still, he thought he might as well be friendly at first, at least before he bared his claws.

“Morning, Chuck,” he said as soon as the superintendent was on the phone. “Matt Schindenwulfe here. So how are things over at the school today?”

“First morning of school, so everything’s confused,” DeRidder said. “I suppose you’re calling about the Archer kid, aren’t you?”

“Right the first time.”

“I guess I was expecting this call,” DeRidder said. “I just got off the phone with the principal over at the high school telling me that he’d suspended the kid because he thought he was a danger to the rest of the students. I think he’s worried that the kid is going to set off a school shooting or something and doesn’t want to get in the way.”

“Do you honestly think that’s likely to happen?”

“I don’t know, but again, I don’t know that we dare take the risk, either. Let’s face it, the kid did kill those two meth heads last winter, and the school counselor calls him ‘intransigent and uncooperative.’ On top of that, there’s a case that he used excessive force in subduing those two kids last Wednesday. I’ve got the football coach all over my case on that one.”

“The football coach ought to be keeping a little closer eye on who his players decide to pick on,” Schindenwulfe told him, “but when you get right down to it, it’s all beside the point. One, none of that happened on school property. Two, as far as I know, the kid has a blank disciplinary record at the school. Third, any kind of due process was totally ignored.”

“You’re probably right on all of that,” DeRidder said, “but the fact of the matter is that Payne is the principal, and he was the one who made the decision, so I guess I have to back him up. It’s not quite as clear cut as all of that, after all. I’ve had complaints about the kid clear back since that business last winter. I’ve even had parents take their kids out of school since they didn’t want their kids going to school with a known killer, their words. The kid may not have any record of school disciplinary action, but he has guns and knows how to use them. In my mind, that adds up to an unknown danger.”

“Hell,” Schindenwulfe snorted, “this is hunting country. Probably two thirds of the kids in the high school have guns and know how to use them. You know how empty the school gets on deer season opening day.”

“Be that as it may, those kids who skip school for deer opener don’t have a record of killing people. Look, I’m sorry about the suspension, but I have to back up my principal, so that’s the way things are going to have to be, and they’re going to have to stay that way. Payne is asking me to ask the school board for a permanent suspension at the board meeting, and I’ll have to back him up.”

“All right,” Schindenwulfe said. “I hoped we could solve this informally, but if you want to talk about the way things are going to be, I guess I’m going to have to take this to the next step.”

The attorney hung up the phone, shook his head and let out a sigh. “He’s not going to be any help,” he announced to the Archers, who were still sitting in his office. “As if you couldn’t tell from the nature of that phone call.” He shook his head again and said, “All, right, here’s the deal. We can go to court this afternoon and ask Judge Dieball for an injunction staying this action and ordering that Cody be allowed to attend school, but I can tell you right now, it’s not going to solve anything.”

“An injunction is an injunction,” John spoke up. “It ought to solve things.”

“It’d solve things for today,” the attorney said, “but it won’t solve anything in the long run. This Payne joker is going to be looking for anything he can hang on Cody to suspend him again for anything that happens on school property. Cody, you could be a saint and not do anything wrong, but he’ll find something and hang you for it, probably something that isn’t nearly as clear cut as this thing is.”

“I hate to say it,” Cody nodded, “but that’s pretty obvious to me.”

“So now what do we do?” Candice asked. “For that matter, what does Janice do? She’s going to have a hell of a time going to school there without Cody around, with all the shit she has to carry around, like it or not. To top it off, the kids’ getting into college is going to depend on their getting good grades this year.”

“Very true,” Schindenwulfe nodded, “but there’s still plenty of time and options to deal with that. My first reaction is that this Payne character needs to be pulled up by the short hairs, if for no more reason than to learn that that kind of thing doesn’t work in this community. If he thinks he can get away with it, what’s he going to do to the next kid who comes along and doesn’t have the kind of support that Cody has?”

“It’s a concern,” Candice said. “But Cody and Janice are my main concerns. I don’t want this prejudiced idiot to screw up their lives just because of the bullshit he’s heard.”

“It doesn’t have to,” the attorney smiled. “Cody and Janice do have options. The first thing that comes to mind is for both of them to just walk out of school, then go down to Albany River and enroll in classes there. Among other things, this early in the year that’ll sting the school district for $13,000 in state aid, which with the shape their budget is in, is no small number.”

“I don’t know how good an idea that is,” Cody protested. “I mean, what’s to keep Payne from calling down to Albany River and slinging a load of bull about what an upsetting influence to the school we are?”

“Not much, but they don’t have to believe it,” Matt told him. “Especially if I call up Harold Hekkinan and have him smooth the way down there for you. Of course, that raises the question if you really want to finish school at Spearfish Lake anyway.”

“It would be nice,” Cody said. “After all, I’ve attended here for years and I have friends here, but on the other hand, there’s no point in trying to go to school here if I’m going to have to put up with stuff like that from Payne all year long. If I tried, I’d probably get kicked out over some little thing before the year is over, and then where am I? And where is Janice, for that matter? So, no, I don’t feel like I have to finish high school at Spearfish Lake. I’d be concerned about going down to Albany River for a year, but nothing like I would be here. It’d easily be the lesser of two evils, and I have no doubt Janice would agree with me.”

“All right,” the attorney said. “We have a solid gold fallback position so long as we move quickly, and there are a couple other possibilities we haven’t explored. Now, that much said, I think the thing to do is to teach Mr. Payne that he can’t just get away with this stuff in this community, and maybe with a little bit of luck and some planning we can make it hurt enough to really get his attention.”

“You’re thinking a lawsuit?” John asked.

“Yes, and no,” Schindenwulfe said. “The problem with a lawsuit is that it could take literally years to settle. It’s worth taking a swing at it, though. We can sue for the difference in lifetime anticipated incomes for high school dropouts compared to college graduates. We probably wouldn’t get that much, but the chance of a settlement at a sizeable fraction of that figure is probably pretty good. But, again, you’ll most likely be out of college before you could get a penny of it. I hate to say it, but that’s the way things work. It doesn’t solve the problem for today, but in the future maybe you could pay off all your student loan debts in one fell swoop.”

“I can’t believe it,” Cody shook his head. “I mean, you hear of all these big damage settlements, but you never really believe them.”

“Very true, and to be honest a big settlement is most likely a long shot. But, if you’re willing to approach it on a contingency fee basis, I think we can get a reasonable settlement.”

“Works for me,” John smiled. “Right at the moment I’m not a lot less upset with DeRidder than I am with Payne.”

“Me either, and I think that DeRidder is the cause of a lot more problems over at the school district than Payne is, so maybe he needs to be brought up by the short hairs, too.”

“It would be nice,” John nodded. “Maybe the school board, too.”

“Well, yes, but that’s a long-term problem, and we need to think in the short term right at the moment,” the attorney pointed out. “It would be nice to get Payne caught in a clear-cut violation of a court order, and then we’d have some serious grounds to make a case with.”

“You mean this isn’t clear cut?” Candice said.

“Oh, it is,” Schindenwulfe smiled, “but remember that we’re trying to solve several problems at once. A lawsuit is a long-term thing, like I said. “What I’m thinking right now is that I’ll see if we can get in to see Judge Dieball this afternoon and ask for an injunction barring Payne from keeping Cody attending school, pending future action. With any kind of luck we can get it over there yet today, and it’ll be interesting to see what he does with it.”

“I’m not hopeful,” Cody said. “From what little I talked to him, he seems to think he’s a law unto himself, no matter what the rules are.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Schindenwulfe grinned, “and if he continues to act like that after he gets the injunction, then we’ll have a case. It may mean you have to put up with some uncomfortable times, Cody, but they won’t have to last for long.”

“I’ve put up with enough discomfort as a result of all of this, I suppose I can put up with it a little more.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Look, Mr. Schindenwulfe,” Cody said, “all of this is well and good, but I’m still concerned about what happens to Janice. She’s still pretty fragile in a lot of ways. That business last Wednesday didn’t do her any good, and I’m afraid that it’s going to get worse for her before it gets better. However we do this, I want to make sure she doesn’t get hurt any more.”

“She shouldn’t be,” the attorney replied. “I mean, if it gets right down to it, there’s no reason she has to attend school tomorrow. But if she’s a little bit strong, the word gets out to Payne that she’s your girlfriend, and he takes some kind of action against her because of it, then we can include her in the case and the possible settlement too.”

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