Perfect Streak (8 page)

“
Ms. Pantaget’s room,”
Hildy gulped.

A mousy girl named Vicky
DiMarco poked her head in the door. “You need any help, Dr.
Z?”

Vicky was a first-class
suck-up when it came to Dr. Zabrinski. She worked as a student
assistant to the provost a few hours each day, mostly doing light
clerical work. Hildy and her friends disliked the little
brown-noser, and they often told her so to her face. Now Vicky had
a ringside seat for her tormentors’ shaming, and Hildy fumed as she
thought what a delicious moment this must have been for that
kiss-ass bitch.

“
Victoria, take the master
key and get their clothes out of Ms. Panteget’s classroom,” the
provost ordered.

“
Okay” responded
Vicky.

“
Be quick about it. I’m
anxious to see a lot less skin around here.”

Vicky retrieved a key from
a desk drawer and hurried off toward the art classroom. She left
the door wide open after she exited. That gave the crowd gathered
outside the office a fine view of the four naked girls on the
bench.

Susan was the first to
notice the open door. “The door!” she pleaded. The girls did their
best to cover up as cameras were pointed in their direction. Dr. Z
realized what was happening happened and shut the door.

Dr. Zabrinski was a plump,
austere woman with grayish hair and a perpetually hardened stare.
Everyone knew she' had been dealing with student shenanigans for
decades, and she had no tolerance for it.

“
And I thought streaking
went out in the 80s,” she grumbled. “Someone wanna explain this to
me?”

None of the girls
answered.

“
I’m waiting for an
explanation.”

Still there was silence.
Eventually, Cindy eeked out a pained, “We’re sorry.”

“
Sorry,” muttered the
provost as though it were the most idiotic thing she’d ever heard.
“They’re sorry.”

“
Police wanna talk to ya,
Dr. Zabrinski,” said Mrs. Ross, holding out the phone
receiver.

Dr. Z took the
phone.

“
This is Loraine
Zabrinski…. Well, we’ve got some
streakers
here at Valefour. Four
young ladies…. Yeah, that’s right. Totally naked, right through our
assembly…. Yeah, they’re all over 18. That makes ‘em
adults—
supposedly
…. No, they’re still sittin’ here nude in my office. I just
sent a girl to get their clothes…. Names are Susan McGruder,
Cynthia Wicks, Dara Javitz, and Hildegard Bowlers. All students….
Oh, I imagine hundreds of ‘em, based on what I saw goin’ on.
Y’know, everyone’s carryin’ a camera these days…. All four? I
dunno. You’d have to ask around. I don’t know who’s got what as far
as identifiable pictures go…. That legal?... Yeah, okay. I can do
that…. Okay. Thanks.”

She handed the receiver
back to Mrs. Ross.

“
They’ve got a couple of
cars in the area,” the provost told her secretary. “They’ll be here
soon. Meanwhile…”

Dr. Z glared at the four
naked girls., “Stand up, nature girls.,” she ordered.

They girls did as they
were toldordered.

“
Just stay like that,” was
Dr. Z’s command as she ducked into her private office. The girls
looked at each other with uncertain expressions. Then, all of a
sudden, there was a click. Hildy turned to see the provost with a
small digital camera in her hand. Before the girls realized what
had happened, Dr. Z had snapped a full-length photo of the four
nude girls standing in a row. Evidence—a clear, unblurred, fully
identifiable shot that could later be used to prove for the court,
without doubt, the naked truth of who' had done the
streaking.

Of course, Hildy expected
copies would also end up in many of the local cops’ private
collections of nude arrestees’ photos. Just a perk of the job for
the boys in blue, she supposed.

“
We’ll call that Exhibit
A,” the provost quipped without humor.

Almost as a reflex, the
girls spun around, trying not to face the camera. Presented with
the sight of four naked asses, Dr. Z shrugged and took a second
shot.

“
Okay, we’ll call that one
Exhibit B,” she said with an un-amused expression.

“
Actually, it probably
ought to be the other way around,” smirked Mrs. Ross.

“
Huh?”

“‘
A’ for ‘Asses’; ‘B’ for
‘Boobs.’”

The provost huffed at Mrs.
Ross’s joke. Dr. Z was never anything other than all
business.

“
Put a copy of each on
disk for the police to take as evidence of who did the streak,”
instructed Dr. Z as she handed the camera to her secretary. “They
say they need that. If they want any more, they can ask the
students.”

“
Or get ‘em off the
Internet,” Mrs. Ross added. “I can’t imagine they’re not already
there.”

Vicky returned to the
office. She left the door open wide as she delivered a
message.

“
Dr. Z,” she reported,
“their clothes aren’t there.”

The naked girls’ faces
registered horrified amazement.

“
What'ddaya mean not
there?!” was Hildy’s instant response.

Vicky just
shrugged.

“
They’ve gotta be there!”
hollered Susan.

“
That’s where we left
‘em!” added Cindy.

"And the door was locked!"
Hildy bellowed.

“
I want my clothes!”
whimpered Dara.

“
Where, specifically, are
they in the room?” the provost demanded of the
streakers.

“
Right on top of the desk
and a couple of tables!” stated Hildy. “Ya can’t miss
‘em!”

Dr. Z turned to Vicky.
“Did you look carefully?”

“
I looked.” Vicky’s
expression was the very picture of innocence.

Dr. Z turned back to the
naked girls. “Are you sure it was Ms. Pantaget’s room? The
art room
?”

“
Yeah!” Hildy
assured.

Dr. Z put an exasperated
hand to her head and huffed a heavy breath. “Mrs. Ross,” she said,
“you go with her this time and see if you can help find
them.”

Mrs. Ross wasted no time
and headed for the door. Vicky was right behind.

“
It’s the art room,” Dr. Z
called after them as they exited. “Room 118. They’ve gotta be
there.”

“
I’m pretty sure they’re
not,” Vicky shouted back.

* * * *

Actually, Vicky was more
than just “pretty sure.” She was absolutely positive no clothes
were in the art classroom. The moment she left the office the first
time, she had her cell phone out and dialed her friend, Brandi
Higginbothom. Brandi was a stoner, and Vicky knew she could count
on her friend to be outside smoking some weed on a day when there
was a general assembly.

“
Whassup, Vicky?” was how
Brandi answered the call.

“
Meet me outside the
windows of the art room.
Right
away
.”

“
Hey, did ya know there
was a naked girl runnin’ ‘round?”

“
Yeah, I know. Just hurry
and get to outside the art room.”

Vicky arrived at Ms.
Pantaget’s room and keyed in. As soon as she entered, she saw four
sets of girls’ clothing—two piles neatly arranged atop the
professor’s desk and two other piles on separate sketch tables. It
was almost cute how ordered the sequence of stacking was—panties,
bra, pants, blouse. The shoes rested on the floor right beneath the
individual piles. Vicky locked the door behind her and moved right
to each of the piles, scooping them up and creating one large pile
of clothing. The shoes she stacked on the top. Then she took it all
over to the windows. Vicky grinned as she thought to herself that
she was holding in her arms every stitch of clothing the naked
girls had on campus.

She placed the pile on top
of a window-side ledge and popped open the shade that had been
drawn all the way down. Outside the window, she saw Brandi trotting
in her direction across the grass. Vicky unlocked the window and
opened it to its full extension.

“
What’s goin’ on?” asked
Brandi from right outside.

“
Take these.” Vicky passed
the big pile of clothing out the window and into Brandi’s arms.
“And hide ‘em in the bushes by the gym.”

“
Hey, are these that
girl’s clothes?” inquired Brandi as she began to put two and two
together.

“
Four
girls.”

“
There’s four of
‘em?”

“
Yeah. They’re in Dr. Z’s
office. Bury these where no one’s gonna find ‘em.”

“
How are they gonna get
home without their clothes?”

“
Hey, if they wanted to
wear clothes, they shoulda kept ‘em on,” smirked Vicky.

It was clear to Vicky
that, even within the fog induced haze of the marijuana her friend
had just smoked, Brandi understood the plan. Brandi gave a grinning
nod and took the pile of clothing from Vicki, who watched the girl
scamper off toward the gymnasium. There were bushes and some ivy
growing there. Once Brandi dunked the clothes into the ivy, Vicky
knew nothing would be showing from above. No one was going to find
the girls’ clothes there.

* * * *

Back in the provost’s
office, Dr. Z waited for Mrs. Ross and Vicky to return from the
second search of the art room. She was past the point of mere
impatience.

“
I don’t suppose any of
you have a coat in your lockers?” she asked the reluctant
nudists.

The girls shook their
heads. It was an extra warm day in May, there was no rain in the
forecast, and no one at school that day had bothered to bring a
coat or sweater.

Mrs. Ross returned with
Vicky in tow. The secretary just gave a big shrug, and the
quizzical expression on her face indicated the girls’ clothing was
not to be found in the art room.

“
We checked the rooms on
either side, too,” said Mrs. Ross. “Just to be sure.”

Dr. Z tilted her head back
and slapped her hands at her sides.

Hildy was flabbergasted.
It was obvious the other naked girls were too—so much so that it
took several seconds before Susan realized that Vicky had once
again left the door wide open for the delighted viewing public on
its other side.

“
Door!”
Susan complained.

Vicky acted as though she
hadn’t realized what she had done. She indicated she would close
the door and then began to saunter in that direction, in no
particular hurry to accomplish the task. That’s when the cops
arrived.

V It’s Worse If They
Know

Hildy’s heart sank when
she saw two young, male, uniformed police officers enter the room.
The moment they walked through the door, their eyes locked on the
four naked girls huddled on the bench.

“
I guess I don’t have to
ask who the perpetrators are,” smiled a stout, black haired officer
who was the first to enter the room.

“
They seem to have
misplaced their clothes,” was Dr. Z’s exasperated remark. “Can’t
find ‘em anywhere.”

“
Got anything they can put
on?” asked the first officer.

“
Not really,” responded
the provost. “Do you?”

“
Our standard issue
doesn’t usually include a wardrobe for four,” said the second
officer.

“
Call maintenance,” Dr. Z
instructed Mrs. Ross. “See if they’ve got some kinda covering we
can use.”

At the moment, Hildy would
have been content to wrap herself in a dirty drop cloth—anything
that would bring a stop to this extended nudie show.

“
No answer,” Mrs. Ross
reported, holding the phone receiver to her ear.

“
Where the fu—!” It was as
close as Hildy, or anyone, as far as she knew, had ever heard Dr.
Zabrinski come to uttering a curse word. “
Where the hell is the maintenance staff
?
”

What none of them knew at
the time, but Hildy learned later, was that the entire maintenance
staff was then occupied listening to a tale being told by Mr.
Pressley about a naked girl he found outside the building. The
staff’s rapt attention to the story meant, for the time being, no
one was picking up the phone in the maintenance office.

Hildy saw the fuming
provost bite her lip.

“
Well, we’ve got to get
them the hell outta here.” With a look of urgency, Dr. Z turned to
the cops. “I need to restore order to this school. And I can’t do
that while there’s four naked girls on campus. You can see what
kind of mob this incites. We’ve got a dangerous situation on our
hands.”

“
Understood, ma’am,”
acknowledged the first officer. “But, if we just walk ‘em out like
they are, isn’t that gonna incite even more?”

“
I don’t see how it can
get any worse,” reasoned the provost. “What’s left that everyone
hasn’t already seen? The faster they’re outta here, the better.
I’ve got an academy to run, and I can’t do it with
them
here.”