Chapter Six: Warning bells are a ringing
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aniya Rebecca Perkins, age seventeen, captain of the varsity cheerleading squad at Englewood High School, lay sprawled on the linoleum floor, with a jagged cut running across her forehead and blood pouring out of it like a busted faucet. I felt sick. The room started to spin all around me. No! Alarm bells were ringing in my head so loudly that I couldn’t hear the commotion that was going on around me. She was just a kid! A baby for Christ’s sake! Who’d done this? Suddenly I heard,
“Get her into a chair!” Someone pulled me away from the crowd and helped me into one of the velvet chairs.
“Caitlin! Caitlin, talk to me, honey!”
“Get her something to drink! Something with sugar in it!” That was my brother, Richard, crying out frantically. I was shaking all over, and I felt sick to my stomach. Oh God, please don’t let me throw up all over my dress!
“Caitlin, honey, drink this down.” My mother was holding a glass of something and begging me to drink.
“It’s all right, my dear. You must drink.” Stacey Van Dyke knelt in front of me and took my wrist in his hand to measure my pulse.
“Babe, come on, drink it.” Joshua came forward, cupped my chin, and held the glass up to my lips. I was still shaking. I tried to push his hand away.
“Stop it!” I cried.
“Caitlin Michelle, you have to drink or you will pass out!” My mother wasn’t angry with me, she was frightened. She always does this when I have insulin attacks and my blood sugar drops off the charts. She gets real stern with me. She practically forced my lips open and made me drink. Juice ran down my chin and onto my chest. I felt like a baby.
“No Mama! Stop it!”
“Caitlin, you drink this down, do you hear me, child?” She poured more juice into my mouth. I finally swallowed some and started to feel a little better. The shakes were slowing down.
“She gets like this when she’s under stress,” I heard Rick say.
“It’s gotta be tough, seeing one of her students passed out like that.” That came from Eric.
“Don’t talk about me like I can’t hear you!” I screamed at them.
“Babe, calm down. It’s all over, okay?” Joshua knelt next to me and stroked my hair. By then, I was able to hold the glass for myself and drink the orange juice.
“I’m sorry Mom. I’m sorry Ricky…” I started to cry. Mascara ran down my cheeks in seconds.
“It’s all right sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry Mommy. I’m so sorry.”
“Drink you juice, baby girl.” Mom was wiping my eyes with a tissue.
“You gave us all a good scare,” Stacey said. “Should we call a doctor for you?” He sounded very concerned.
“She’s going to be just fine in a few minutes. Stacey, could you get her some more juice?”
“Certainly. Be right back.”
My eyes focused and I saw my friends all crowded around me, looking very solemn.
“Cheer up you guys,” I said. “I’ve seen better looking faces at funerals.”
“Are you okay?” Autumn asked.
“I think so. I didn’t mean to scare anybody. It’s just that I saw…Zaniya! Josh, is she okay? What’s going on? I saw her and the room got all fuzzy and my ears were ringing.”
“The paramedics are on their way, babe. She’s okay.”
“Like hell! I want to see her right now!”
“No, Caiti! Caiti, sit down.” Joshua pushed me back into my chair.
“But she needs me! I’m her teacher! I’m the only person here that she’s comfortable with! Please, just for a few minutes.”
“No. Babe, please, try and calm down, or we’ll be hauling both of you out of here on a stretcher.”
“Mom? Please try to make him understand.”
“Honey, the party is over. It’s time to go home. You’ve had enough excitement for one night.” Joshua motioned for Rena to follow him back into the kitchen. They pushed their way through the crowd.
“Did she have an accident or something?” Eric wondered. “Did something fall on her head?”
“More than likely,” Rick said. “Poor kid. She’ll probably just have a bad headache for a few days. Heck, she’s only seventeen. She can bounce back like a tennis ball.”
“Poor thing,” Autumn lamented.
“I guess this means that the party is definitely over,” I said.
Stacey came back to me with another glass of juice. This one was red, not orange.
“Sorry Caitlin, but they were out of orange juice, so I brought you cranberry. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Mr. Van Dyke, thanks for being so kind to me. You didn’t have to do anything.” He smiled.
“I wanted to. A young and beautiful woman like you shouldn’t have to suffer the way that you do.”
“Thank you.” He turned to my mother.
“I think that I should escort you all home,” he started to say, when Joshua came out of the kitchen, breathless and sweating.
“Papi, what’s wrong? What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Don’t lie to me! It’s Zaniya, isn’t it? Something happened to her and you’re afraid to tell me!”
“Caiti, everybody, Zaniya didn’t have an accident in there. Somebody attacked her.”
“Attacked her?” We all said at the same time.
“I don’t know all of the details, but Rena and I are going to the hospital with her.”
“Josh, maybe the guy’s still in the building. We should try and look for him.” Rick volunteered.
“That’s really not necessary,” he said.
“Richard, that’s dangerous. You should come home with us,” Mom said.
“Mom, don’t worry about me. I’m taking Eric with me. We’ll be fine.” Before Mom could say anything else, Rick had kissed her on the cheek and then said to Autumn, “You go home with them. I’ll call you later on tonight.” Then he and Eric hurried from the ball room before anybody could stop them.
“I will make sure that the ladies get home safely,” Stacey spoke up. “I’ll have my limo take them all home.”
“Take Mrs. DuVall with you,” Joshua said. “Her husband is going with us to the hospital.”
“Certainly, Detective Martinez. You won’t have to worry about anything.”
“Thanks, Mr. Van Dyke. I owe you one.” Joshua leaned over me.
“Babe don’t worry about Zaniya. She’s going to be okay. I don’t think the guy…you know…sexually assaulted her. I’ll call you from the hospital later.” He gave me a long kiss on the lips. “I love you, Caiti.”
“I love you too, Papi.” Then he was gone.
“Can you stand?” Stacey asked me.
“Yes, I think so. Before we go, I need to make a visit to the little girls’ room though.”
“I’ll go with her,” Autumn spoke up. She took my arm and we went to the washroom together.
We didn’t say anything while we were in there, which was unusual for us. I guess we were both lost in our own thoughts. I was starting to feel a little dizzy. I just wanted to go home and get into bed and fall asleep and wait for Joshua to crawl in next to me.
“You okay?” Autumn saw me at the sink splashing cold water on my face.
“I don’t feel so hot. Maybe we should take a cab home.”
“Why? Stacey said he would take us in his limo.”
“I just…I just don’t feel so good about him right now.”
“Caitlin, Stacey Van Dyke is harmless! Whatever you’re thinking about him, you are wrong! That insulin shock is just clouding your judgment. Daddy would never leave me alone with a man that he didn’t trust.”
“Appearances can be deceiving. Ask your mother about that one,” I deadpanned.
“Oh Caitlin, nothing is going to happen to us! He’s going to take us all home and then in the morning, you’ll wake up and feel so silly that you thought anything bad about him. Now come on. You look awfully pale.”
“For a black person, that’s a bad sign. All right, I’m coming.”
By the time we got downstairs to the lobby, I felt so weak and dizzy that I had to lean against my mother for support.
“Maybe we should get her to a hospital,” Stacey suggested as he helped me into the car.
“She’s just feeling the after affects,” Mom explained. “Have your driver take my daughter and I to my house. She can spend the night with me, where I can keep an eye on her.”
“Do you feel like you might throw up?” Autumn asked.
“No, just real lightheaded.”
“Lay your head on my lap, honey,” Mom said. So I did. Autumn and her mom sat across from us. Stacey closed our doors and got into the front seat with the driver.
“Why isn’t he sitting back here with us?” Mrs. DuVall asked.
“Stacey? Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine, Thelma. You and your daughter just relax.” Mom shrugged. The car took off and started off down Michigan Avenue.
As the car traveled, I expected that the dizzy feeling would get better. It didn’t. Instead, it got progressively worse, to the point where I could not hold my head up at all.
“Mom, I feel really sick.” Mom felt my forehead.
“You’re running a fever.” Mrs. DuVall felt my hands.
“Her palms are cold and clammy.”
“Stacey? Stacey?” Mom rapped on the glass between us and the driver. He pressed a button and lowered the window.
“Yes, Thelma?”
“Caitlin is getting sicker. I want to take her to Great Northern Memorial right away. Tell your driver to turn around, please.”
“What’s the matter with her?”
“She’s got a fever, she can’t hold her head up, and her palms are cold and clammy,” Mom explained.
“Sounds like a touch of the flu,” Stacey said in a tone that sounded very cool, too cool, if you ask me. “A few days of bed rest will do her just fine.”
“She’s also a diabetic. I don’t want to take a chance with her health. Please, I’d rather have them send us home than something really be horribly wrong with her.” Stacey didn’t answer. He just put the window back up.
“Now what’s that all about?” Mom wondered.
“He’s never acted that way before,” Autumn said.
“Stacey! Stacey, answer me! What’s going on?” Mom banged on the glass now. Still, she didn’t get an answer.
“I’m calling the chauffeur,” Mrs. DuVall said. She picked up the phone, and then she put it right back.
“Mum, what’s wrong?” Autumn asked.
“The line is dead.”
“Mom! It’s a trap! We have to get out of here! He’s trying to kidnap us!” I screamed.
“What?”
“Mom! We have to get out of here now!” Mrs. DuVall leaned over and jiggled the door handle. It was locked. Autumn tried the other one, but it was locked too.
“It’s a trap!” Then all of a sudden, we heard a hissing sound. Some pink smoke was being pumped into our area.
“Noooooooooooo!” Autumn was the first to pass out, falling across her mother’s lap. Then Mrs. DuVall followed, falling backwards across the seat. My own mother had pinched her nose and my nose shut. She took off her shoe and aimed for the glass.
“Turn your head,” she said to me. I held my breath while she took a good aim at the glass. Nothing happened but a loud bang. It must’ve been shatterproof! My head was spinning all over the place, but I had to try and stop this man. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on the steering mechanism of the car. In case you haven’t guessed by now, my special powers also include telekinesis, the ability to move objects by force of the mind. But when I tried, a pain shot from my nose to my temple and shouted. Goddamn it!
I could see that Mom was having trouble holding her breath. She tried to breathe into her coat while jiggling the lock, but it was growing worse by the minute. Her eyelids fluttered, and she passed out on the floor. Then finally, just to stop the horrible pain engulfing my body, I closed my eyes and gratefully, passed out.