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Teenage Ghost
“We? Mam?” the officer continued to question. “Who is ‘We’?”
Addie reached down to her lap only to realize she didn’t bring her cell phone. “The head of Maintenance.” she replied quickly. If only she had her phone all of this would be so much easier.
“The name?” the officer pressed.
Addie thought hard as she watched her school go up in flames. “Dan…” she shook her head. Slowly the last name came to her as she remembered picking up the file on her desk and looking down at the name and the employee picture. “Dan Holbert.”
The officer radioed it in to dispatch and a car was sent to the Holbert residence. “Mam, I’m going to need you to wait in the car while I fill in Officer Donelson of your account. He may have some more questions for you.”
“All right.” Addie sat quietly and watched the firefighters battle the flame to no avail. The crowd across the street was thick with on lookers, then she noticed the news van with the antenna. Her eyes scanned the crowd, then she saw the cameraman filming the school.
She was grateful they were not looking at the pack of squad cars that were massing behind the fire trucks. She drew in a deep breath and tried to soothe her nerves which were beginning to become unraveled. This was the end of her career, the very first public school she had been placed in charge of. She watched it go up in flames.
Officer Donelson opened the driver door and got into the front of the squad car. He turned to the principle of the school and looked again at his notepad of facts. “I’m going to need you to answer a few questions about the school.” he glanced up at her. “First off, why were none of the alarms functioning?”
“There was some vandalization at the school.” Addie started to explain but was cut off abruptly by the officer’s quest for knowledge.
“And why wasn’t this reported?”
“We, just thou..”Addie tried to explain.
Officer Donelson took a sharp tone, “We who, Mam?”
Addie drew in a deep breath and steadied herself. Trying to remain calm she continued, “The head maintenance worker, Dan Holbert.” She paused, but the officer only seemed to get more annoyed by her silence. “We thought it was just a Senior Class prank because this is my first year as principle at Studemont High. I was principle at Westbury Private for seven years.”
The annoyed officer wrote down everything she said. “It’s a criminal offense not to report a crime to the authorities. You are aware of that, aren’t you Ms Stone?” He asked but gave no time for her to answer. “And what parts of the school were vandalized?”
“The entire school was vandalized pretty much. The main building was completely disrupted. Shelves and bookcases were tossed down. Cabinets in the science room were collapsed and glassware were smashed. The trophy case glass was smashed into, nothing was stolen. All the paper work in the office was tossed on the floors.” She paused as she remembered the only thing that was left in any kind of order was the employee file of Dan Holbert.