Point of No Return (47 page)

Not this time
, she thought and bent down to retrieve the fallen pages.

Lucy's hand was poised in midair, her fingers just about to touch one of the sheets, when she suddenly cried out.

“The meeting will now come to order,” Sarah Hogan announced, fulfilling one of her duties as the “clerk” to the student council after she'd called roll. Everyone was present and accounted for.

Karen sat in her usual chair at the front desk in the library. To her left was Brad O'Connor, the vice president. To her right was Olivia Bennett, the treasurer. Karen couldn't help but notice that neither one of them would look her in the eye.

Along the wall next to the main library door sat Mr. Felegy and Mr. Laker. Mr. Felegy watched her with a sad expression on his face. Mr. Laker's expression was cold and stony.

Not far from Mr. Laker, Mike sat with his notepad in hand. He didn't want to miss a word for the
Owl
.

No one in the room betrayed that they knew what Karen was about to do, but they all knew. Karen was sure of it. There was something about the stillness—the lack of the usual jokes from the usual kids— that told her they were waiting.

Karen decided to surprise them by going through their usual procedure. She stood up and asked, “Any old business?”

No one spoke.

“No old business? How about new business?”

Heather raised her hand. “Yeah. I want to hear you explain what happened to $347 of our money.”

Karen felt wounded. She expected someone to attack, but not Heather, not someone who was supposed to be a good friend.

Is this how Jesus felt when Judas kissed him?
she wondered.

“We're checking into it,” Karen said calmly. Why did she feel such a profound peace in the midst of this emotional hurricane?

“Who's checking into it?” Heather challenged her.

“I'll be working with Mr. Felegy to—”

“But aren't
you
responsible for the missing money?” Don Kramer asked from the other side of the room. “You're the president. You were the one who took the money out, right? Isn't that what the sheet says?” He held up the financial statement.

Karen felt flustered. Did everyone get a copy of the statement?

Olivia Bennett waved at Don Kramer. “As treasurer, let me say—”

“We don't care what you have to say, Olivia,” Heather snapped. “We want to hear what Karen has to say. We want an explanation. Rumors are flying all over the school that she stole the money.”

Some of the rest of the council joined in, calling out for Karen to explain what was going on.

Karen held up her arms to quiet them down. “Look, it's confusing right now. The statement
looks
like there's money missing, but we're not sure there is.”

“It says what it says,” Heather pointed out. “How could the statement be wrong?”

Karen was stuck. She didn't want to mention Mr. Laker. It was pointless without any proof.

“What are you going to do about this?” Carol Cofield asked. “It looks pretty bad when the president of our council is accused of swiping—”

“I didn't swipe anything!” Karen shouted. “Who's spreading these rumors? Who passed out those statements? Why am I being accused without the benefit of the doubt? Something looks fishy, but it's not what you think.”

“Then what is it?” Don called out.

Karen shook her head. “I can't say.”

Someone booed her. She didn't look to see who. She didn't care. Someone else yelled “cover-up” then booed as well. Then it seemed she was in front of a chorus of “boos” and “cover-up!”

Do it now
, she thought.
Resign before you start crying
.

“All right, calm down. Listen to me.” The council calmed down. Karen stared at the top of the table, her eyes and face burning. Her wellrehearsed words stumbled forward. “Since I can't offer a good reason for the confusion about—”

“Confusion!” someone called out indignantly.

Brad O'Connor hit the table with his hand. “Let her talk, for crying out loud!”

The room fell silent.

Karen looked at Brad out of the corner of her eye. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Go ahead,” he said back to her.

“Since I can't offer a good reason for the confusion about that mysterious statement, and you guys obviously want to believe the worst about me—even though I've never done anything to betray your trust— I want to offer my res—” That was as far as she got. The tears filled her eyes and got caught in her throat. She struggled to continue. “I want to offer my resignation, effective immediately.”

She glanced up at the council through misty eyes, only to realize that they weren't listening to her. They were all facing the door. Karen hadn't heard the door open, nor did she see Lucy enter with a handful of papers.

Everyone else saw it, though. It was like watching a silent movie. Lucy ran in, saw Mr. Felegy sitting next to the door, and frantically pushed the pages into his face. Most of them didn't know what it meant. They had no idea why Mr. Laker suddenly went pale and nearly fell out of his chair.

The only thing any of them knew for sure—and could agree about when they gossiped for the rest of the day—was that Mr. Felegy stood up and dismissed them.

“This meeting has to be postponed,” he announced. “Lucy, Karen, I'd like to see you in my office right away. You, too, Mr. Laker.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“T
HEY'RE FRAUDS
,” Mr. Laker said with a red face. He paced around Mr. Felegy's office impatiently, pausing only to scowl at Karen and Lucy.

Mr. Felegy looked over the bids for the report cards, the letter with its incriminating “P.S.,” and, of greater interest to him, the copy of the check for $2,000. “They look pretty genuine to me, Art. Where would these girls get the technology to put together forgeries?”

Mr. Laker grunted. “Kids can do everything with computers these days.”

Karen and Lucy watched the proceedings silently. They both knew there was little for them to say. The evidence had to speak for itself.

“Are you telling me you've
never
received any money from Ballistic Printing?” Mr. Felegy asked.

“Well,” Mr. Laker stammered, “what do you mean by ‘received'?”

“Good grief, Art!” Mr. Felegy cried out. “Do you realize what this means? What about your retirement? Your pension!”

Mr. Laker abruptly turned to Karen and Lucy. “Get out!”

The girls looked to Mr. Felegy.

“Thank you both for…er, all your help. I'll call you when I need you again,” he said.

The girls stepped out of the office and into the main office area. Mr. Laker slammed the door behind them. Maybe they imagined it, but the muffled shouts on the other side of the door had the sound of justice being done.

Mrs. Stewart looked at them warily.

Suddenly the door opened again and Mr. Felegy said, “Mrs. Stewart, will you please get the district office on the phone?”

Mrs. Stewart's eyes bulged. “Anyone in particular?”

“Superintendent Murphy,” said Mr. Felegy as he closed the door. Then he opened it again and added, “You'd better get someone from the legal department, too.” He closed the door.

“This must be serious,” Mrs. Stewart said excitedly as she picked up the phone.

Karen and Lucy looked soberly at each other.

“It's serious, all right,” Lucy said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

W
HIT DROPPED THE NEWSPAPER
onto the counter. “Well, what do you know about that?” he said.

It wasn't the
Odyssey Owl
, but the
Odyssey Times
he'd been reading. It chronicled the forced resignation of Mr. Art Laker and the school district's investigation of his business practices as a school administrator over the past few years. The article also hinted at further investigations by the district attorney's office into Ballistic Printing and the many questionable “gifts” they had paid out to influential decision-makers in Connellsville's and Odyssey's governments.

“You two really were in the middle of it, weren't you?” Matt said to Lucy and Karen.

“Yeah! You turned out to be the opener of a big can of worms,” Jack said with a laugh.

“Please, Jack, I'm eating,” Karen said as she scooped in a mouthful of ice cream.

Lucy smiled. “You should've seen Mr. Laker's face when I walked in with those copies.”

“I'll bet he nearly had a heart attack,” Oscar said. He jammed a straw in his mouth and slurped his milk shake.

“Now I understand why you were so hesitant to talk to me about it,” Whit said to Karen. “But where does that leave you?”

Karen swallowed her ice cream, then explained, “I'm still president of the student council. Mr. Felegy said that he believes Mr. Laker juggled the numbers in our account to make it look like I'd taken the money.”

“Mr. Laker was in a panic,” Lucy said. “He was ready to do anything to keep Karen from being believed.”

Whit nodded sympathetically. “He was so close to retirement. To be caught now jeopardizes his pension, his future,
everything.
It's sad, really.”

“I'll feel bad for him later,” Karen said. “Right now I'm too relieved to think about how he feels.”

“What would Jesus do?” Whit asked.

“Forgive him, pray for him,” Karen replied while she scraped the last of the ice cream out of the bowl.

“Will you?”

Karen replied while she licked the spoon. “Yeah. Probably. I made a promise, remember?”

“What about you, Lucy?”

“I resigned as the editor of the
Owl
,” Lucy said. “But Mrs. Stegner wouldn't accept it. She said she needs me there.”

“That's not
all
she said,” Karen interjected. “She said that the school needed someone with Lucy's ‘personal integrity' in charge of the newspaper. She's even going to let Lucy keep experimenting to make it more positive.”

“To try to do what Jesus would do,” Lucy said cheerfully.

“What about you boys? Do you have any new insights after all you've been through?”

The three of them looked at each other and shrugged.

“Typical,” Lucy laughed.

“I'm gonna be honest,” Jack said. “Following Jesus is tough. It's the hardest thing I've ever done, in fact. I don't know if I can do it. But I'll try.”

“Me, too,” Oscar said.

“All for one and one for all,” Matt joined in. “I don't remember what verse that is.”

Whit smiled and said, “
Three Musketeers
, I think.”

“What are you going to do when Joe catches up with you?” Lucy asked them.

Jack grinned and said, “Turn the other cheek.”

Matt began to laugh. “Joe's going to think we're crazy. First, Oscar won't talk to him, then he saves him from getting dunked in the creek. And if he tries to get revenge on us, we won't fight back! It'll drive him up the wall!”

The three boys laughed, as only boys can about fighting. Karen and Lucy thought they were terribly immature.

“So it's a happy ending all the way around,” Matt concluded.

Whit shook a finger at him. “Not a happy ending. This is just the beginning. We have a lot more challenges ahead of us.”

“See ya, Oscar!” Matt called out.

Oscar turned to wave at Matt and Jack, then walked on up the street to his house.

“Shortcut?” Jack asked, hooking a thumb to the woods.

Matt nodded. “Yeah.”

They strolled down the path into the late afternoon shadows of the trees.

“It feels like snow,” Jack said.

Matt agreed. “It sure does. I'm going to have to dig my sled out of the garage. I think my dad's been using it to store paint cans on.”

“I hate it when they do that,” Jack said.

The sudden rustling of leaves and crackling of branches all around didn't give Matt or Jack time to react. Before they knew it, they were surrounded by Joe Devlin and his gang.