Chapter 45: Chapter 45

“We can’t shut down the school,” Mr. Jorge said. He tapped his fingers on his desk. He pinched the bridge of his nose. I saw the bags under his eyes and the tics beneath them. He was stressed just thinking about the possibility that our security had been breached.

“Did no one see anything unusual?” He asked the security men and Matron and Concierge for the umpteenth time.

“No, sir, we have searched and there was no sign of forced entry.”

The office door was suddenly thrown up and the last security guard came in. “Actually, Mr. Jorge, I found the point of entry. There is a line of our electric fence that was cut and I found these pair of pliers on the fence.” He held it up for all to see.

Mr. Jorge buried his head in his hands. “The board can’t hear of this, they will hold me responsible for putting the children in danger. We can’t break the trust of everyone who has trusted us well enough to bring their kids here. This is Edwin and Co.! Not Saint Patrick! Not some cheap public school!” he slammed his fist on the desk. “Mr. Maximilian Edwin is going to fire me if I don’t do something about this.”

He buried his face again in his trembling hands. We, seniors, didn’t know what to do so we just stared at each other and at Mr. Jorge having his breakdown. One thing I can’t tell you is we students love Mr. Jorge as our principal and we don’t want him fired.

“Does anyone have any suggestions? We can’t evacuate the students from school, we don’t have the resources and we can’t upset anyone at this time of the night.”

No one had any suggestions.

“I can’t lose my job. We have to do something about this but until then we have to maintain peace and give the students a sense of calm.” He glanced at the Matron and Concierge.

I’m not trying to be mean here but Miss. Diana, our Matron, isn’t very useful. She earns a lot and does very little. The Concierge on the other is quite good but we prefects do our job so well that he almost doesn’t have to worry about our welfare. The only thing he does is assign lockers to new students. So when Mr. Jorge asked for suggestions they had nothing else to say.

The guards however were a bit helpful. “Sir, if we get your approval we can get more of our colleagues from the agency and perform some tests on the pliers to trace the owner, we can also check the cameras and run some identity scans to find out who our mystery man is.”

“Thank you, Daniel. I’ll give my approval on that. That’s a very helpful suggestion.” Mr. Jorge sighed. “Okay, what about the students?”

Once again the Matron and Concierge were clueless as to what to do. Mr. Jorge made a face at them.

“Are you both even important in this school? Get out of my office please.”

They stood. I don’t doubt Miss. Dana got her job because she was recommended by her rich parents or something. She doesn’t care about her job. Most of the times I’ve seen her she’s either on her phone or she’s all dressed up to go somewhere.

“Sir, maybe the students can think of something,” Concierge said.

Mr. Jorge looked at us for the first time since we came into his office his eyes filled with pity. “I’m so sorry you kids had to experience this. This is your safety at stake here. Miss. Diana, you can leave my office and let Bianca and Aaron take your seat. If there’s anything you kids think would be a good suggestion please my ears are open to them.”

As soon as both Matron and Concierge were out Aaron and I took their seats. Everyone was still on the edge of their seats but for now, no one was crying or trembling, we just wanted to find a solution to the issue at hand.

“This might mean the basketball game is cancelled,” Mr. Jorge said in a small voice. “You kids need a break after what happened tonight…”

“No!”

I turned in surprise at the sound of Andre’s voice. His face was grief-stricken at the news. The other boys groaned and murmured but Andre’s objection was the loudest.

“You can’t cancel the game, Mr. Jorge. Some of us have staked our lives on it!”

“I know that Andre, I know you are hoping to get scouted and get the scholarship attached with winning but for now there really is nothing I can do if I can’t guarantee your safety.”

I frowned. That was a new piece of information. I didn’t know Andre was hoping to get scouted. I know Aaron wanted to make a name for himself with this game and also to make major league but Andre? I didn’t know he was depending on the scholarship. Why?

He was the son of Ignacio Rios, wasn’t he? Mr. Jorge had announced that the day he arrived with Carla and I assumed his dad was as famous as everyone else’s – well not mine.

I looked at Carla expecting that she too would be sad that this opportunity that seemed so important to Andre might come to an end but she was frowning at Andre, trying to catch his eyes. Andre didn’t seem to notice her. In fact, I was the only one who truly saw the hope sizzling out of Andre’s eyes at the news.

Not even Siobhan seemed concerned.

“Mr. Jorge, we can’t cancel the game. We have practiced too long to give up now,” Aaron was saying. “Besides Andre, there are many of us hoping for a career in this, myself included.”

“But for your safety…you can’t all go back to your rooms knowing that whoever got in might still be lurking around…”

“Please, Mr. Jorge,” Andre pleaded, the desperation in his voice making it thicker.

“Andre, for your safety…”

“Mr. Jorge,” I cut in unable to help myself. “The game should go on as planned. If we cancel it then the goal of putting the other students’ minds at rest will be a waste of effort. They will find out that something is wrong no doubt.”

Mr. Jorge stopped talking to listen to me. He narrowed his eyes as he considered my words. “Hmm, what do you suggest?”

“Let the game happen as planned and let’s do something fun to take everyone’s minds off this incident. If the guards need time to find the culprit then we can give them all the time they need without interfering with their work. And you're right, evacuating the students might be dangerous right now given that we do not know who our mystery man is after and where he is hiding."

If I looked I would have seen the look of gratitude Andre gave me.

“But what will the other students be doing to stay out of the way? We can’t just ask them to go to classes like nothing is wrong. They will ask questions.”

“A party!” Siobhan chipped in.

I cut my gaze to her. Her hand was still wrapped comfortingly around Eva’s shoulder. Nothing like grief to bring people together.

“A party, Mr. Jorge, that would definitely take everyone’s minds off this. After the game, we have a party, we have a king and queen of uhm…a king and queen of Summer Term! Everyone would be too invested in making king and queen and preparing for the party to get in the guards’ way and we can take our minds off what happened tonight.”

Mr. Jorge thought about it solemnly. After a while, he smiled, “Not a bad idea. But what about tonight, where will you kids sleep? Your Matron and Concierge are too useless to take care of you.”

“We can sleep together. We can partner up – boys and girls and sleep together,” Aaron suggested. As he spoke his voice got stronger with conviction. “The boys can protect the girls no problem.”

Everyone murmured their agreement.

Mr. Jorge listened to us approve the suggestion for a while before smiling again. “How does every Edwin and Co. student become smarter and wiser when they become final-year seniors?”

I shrugged and smiled. “Must be something in the seniors’ quarters.”

He stood up and held out his hand to take mine. “We have always had strong Head Prefects but the Head girls always stood out more, I’m glad to know I didn’t make a mistake approving you as Head girl, Bianca Davis. I am glad we have Aaron Pratt as Head boy and I am glad you turned out to be level-headed young adults as opposed to your hotheadedness when you were still young adolescents of 10 and 12. You all will make Edwin and Co. proud.”

I glowed under his praise.

Now we just have to choose our sleep partners.