The Fire and the Veil (Veronica Barry Book 2) (12 page)

Veronica had been hoping to leave right after her second section of French I, but she was tempted to let Shona and her friends come and have their club meeting—it was hard to turn down kids who wanted to help animals.

“Okay,” she said.

“Yes!” Shona cried, turning to grin at Regina. “I told you she was cool!”

“I need to do some grading while you’re in there, though, so it can’t get rowdy.”

“Miss Barry, you know me,” Shona said, putting a firm hand on Veronica’s arm. “I will not let anybody get outta line.”

Angie’s face popped into Veronica’s head. Veronica peered at Shona. “I have a condition,” she said gravely.

“Oh here we go,” said Regina.

“Girl, quit trippin’,” Shona told her. She turned back to Veronica. “What is your condition, Miss Barry?”

“There’s a new student,” Veronica said. “I know her mom, and we’d both like to see her make some friends at this school. If she agrees to come to your meeting, will you girls take her under your wing for me?”

“What does that mean?” Regina asked skeptically.

“Oh, no, I feel you, Miss Barry,” Shona said nodding. “You want us to be nice to this girl, make sure she’s included in the meeting, maybe look out for her at lunch or something?”

“Exactly,” Veronica said. “Can I count on you?”

“Who is she?” Regina asked.

“Angela Dukas, do you know her?” Veronica asked.

Both girls shook their heads.

“Like I said, she’s new. I doubt you’d have run into her, you’re both juniors, right?”

“Yeah,” Shona said.

“She’s a sophomore,” Veronica said. “She’s a friend of mine’s daughter, and she’s kind of been through a rough patch recently. She didn’t do anything wrong, but things haven’t been easy, you know what I mean?”

“Is that why she had to switch schools?” Shona asked.

“Yep,” Veronica nodded.

“Okay,” Shona said, looking at Regina for confirmation. “We’ll look out for her.”

Regina nodded. “Easy peasy.”

“Then you have a deal, girls. See you at lunch.”

Now Veronica had to find Angie and invite her. She only had ten minutes before class started, and she had hoped to have time to make copies. Luckily, she had a TA in both French I classes. She could have the TA in the first class do the copies, which meant if she hurried, Veronica could talk to Angie before school started.

Veronica jogged from building D to building A, over to one of the secretaries whose desk was near the copiers.

“Hi Marisol,” Veronica said, giving the woman her best help-me smile. “Busy morning?”

Marisol raised her eyes to heaven. “Busy doesn’t begin to cover it,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“I need to find a student before class, and I was hoping you’d look her up for me.”

“You know, you can pull up her info on your computer,” Marisol said, but she was already typing. “What’s her name?”

“Dukas, Angela.”

“Angela Dukas is in room… B5. Mr. Lopez-Rivera’s class.”

“Thank you, Marisol!” Veronica said and bolted.

B-hall was notoriously difficult to cross between classes, and it reminded Veronica with a pang of her own school days, when navigating a packed hallway had seemed like an insurmountable ordeal, at times. As a teacher it was a little easier. When she demanded that people let her through, they generally obeyed.

At last she reached Lopez-Rivera’s door. It was a lab class, but she wasn’t sure which—Lopez-Rivera taught all of the lab sciences. She opened his door and stuck her head into his class, fingers crossed that Angie was already there. Veronica was in luck. She spotted her sitting at the third row of lab stations from the door. She waved to Lopez-Rivera, who was still setting up at the board—something Veronica needed to get to her class and do immediately. She hurried across to where Angie sat and crouched near her.

“Hey Ve—Miss Barry,” Angie said. “Sorry, it’s hard to remember to call you that.”

“It’s okay,” Veronica said with a dismissive wave. “Angie, you like animals, right?”

“Duh,” Angie said. “You know I do.”

“Okay. There’s a new club getting formed here at school, and they’re meeting at lunch in my room. You should come.”

Angie frowned. “I don’t know…”

“They’re all about animals,” Veronica powered on. “They want to do fundraisers to benefit shelters, and they want to go and do puppy walks at the mall…” She could tell that one caught Angie’s interest. “And I’m sure they’ll think of other things, too. I know at least one of the girls involved, and she’s very nice, Angie, you’ll like her.”

Angie shifted in her seat and sucked in her top lip. With her thumb she started rubbing at some pencil marks on her lab table. “I don’t know, Veronica, I won’t know anyone…”

“That’s exactly why I’m here talking to you about it. Just come today. If you don’t like it, I won’t bug you about it.”

Angie sighed.

“Cute fuzzy puppies, falling over themselves at the mall…” Veronica sing-songed.

Angie rolled her head back on her shoulders and groaned. “Fine, I’ll try it out today. But I’m not promising I’ll join for good.”

“Perfect!” Veronica exclaimed. “Now, I have to run. Have a good class.”

“Sure, thanks,” Angie murmured just loud enough for Veronica to hear.

~~~

The two sections of French I went by without too many glitches, despite Veronica’s nearly arriving late to the first of the two. It was a nightmare she had from time to time—although it had been much more frequent in her first year—that somehow she would be terribly late to class, and all the students would be standing in the otherwise empty hallway, waiting for her. In some versions a super was there with them, and the super would ask Veronica all sorts of awkward questions about where she’d been and why she was late, and in the dream she never had any good answers. In the worst versions it was the principal or a vice principal like Candleman instead of a super.

She made it just under the wire, however, unlocking the door about a minute before the bell rang. It did not give her enough time to set up the board the way she liked, but she still managed to get them started on something while she got caught up. She sent the TA to do the copies and by the time the second section was filing in, she had achieved some semblance of organization.

As the lunch bell rang and her students filed out, Shona and Regina appeared with a half a dozen other girls and two boys. Most Veronica didn’t know, but a couple took French.

“Salut Mademoiselle Barry!” Shona called as they entered.

“Salut Shona,” Veronica said. “You all do your thing. I’m going to try to get some grading done. Okay?”

“Okay, Miss Barry. We don’t need you for anything,” Shona assured her.

“Can we move the desks?” Regina asked. “Make a circle?”

“Okay, but you have to have them back in perfect lines before lunch ends,” Veronica said, noting mentally that they were hardly in perfect lines now.

“No problem,” Regina said.

The group started dragging the desks, which made a terrible racket, so they could sit in a circle. Veronica watched them, wondering if Angie would make it. Then, just as the students moved the last desks to their spots, Veronica’s door opened and Angie peeked in.

Shona, sharp girl that she was, noticed this and put two and two together right away. She further impressed Veronica by not letting on that she’d ever heard that Angie might join them.

“Hey,” Shona said to Angie. “You hear about the meeting?”

Angie’s eyes were wide. “Um, yeah,” she managed.

“That’s cool. Come on in. We need all the help we can get.”

Veronica wanted to hug Shona. Angie came in, looking awkward but pleased at the reception.

“I’m Shona, this is Regina, Alicia, Dwayne, Paulina, Beatrice, Alex, Marshall, Frannie, and Jenny. Not that anyone could remember all those names. But just remember mine, I’m Shona. What’s your name?”

“Angie. I know Alicia—we have French together.”

Alicia nodded.

“Awesome,” Shona said. “You know what this club is for, right?”

“I, um, heard it was to do things for animals,” Angie said.

“Exactly!” Shona exclaimed. “I love animals. I got the idea last weekend at the mall. You know how they have that thing where you can sign up to walk the puppies? Oh my god. There was this one little husky puppy—”

“Girl, that puppy was so cute,” Regina chimed in.

Angie nodded. “I love puppies.”

“That’s why we’re all here,” Shona said. “I figure, we can go to the mall sometimes after school—I have track every day but Thursday and Friday—well, I have it before school on those days and sometimes there are meets, but most Thursdays and Fridays I’m free, and I thought we could all go and walk the puppies at the mall.”

“Yeah, and I think it would be cool to do a fundraiser for money for like, the Humane Society,” Regina added.

“And we could ask around and maybe do a community service project or something,” Shona said.

“Sounds good,” Angie said.

“Come and take a seat,” Shona told her. Everyone followed Shona’s lead and sat down. “The first thing we need to do is come up with a name. Then Regina and I brought construction paper and markers, and we can make some signs to put up in the halls so if anyone else wants to join, they can. Miss Barry?”

Veronica had been watching the whole time, and she remembered she was supposed to be grading when Shona called her name. Veronica shuffled some papers on her desk quickly. “Um, yes?” she answered.

“It’s okay if we come in here at lunch every Tuesday, right?”

Veronica thought about that for a moment, but seeing Angie crack half a grin was enough for her. “Sure,” she said.

“And you know, we kind of need a teacher to make the club official. Would you sign off on the form?”

Somehow, Veronica had known this was coming. She didn’t really have time to supervise a club, and if she did try to make time for one, shouldn’t it be a French club? “I don’t know, Shona…”

“Oh please, Miss Barry?” Angie said.

Veronica raised her eyebrows. Well, if Angie was feeling committed already… She sighed. “Okay.” Angie broke into a genuine smile. The light of it burned away any misgivings in Veronica’s mind. She smiled back. “You guys know I love animals,” she said.

“Now,” Shona said, turning back to the group. “We need a name.”

“I think we should be the ‘Furry Heroes,’” Regina put in.

“Girl, what did we talk about?” Shona said.

“Wait, let’s just see what they say,” Regina said, giving Shona a significant look.

“I don’t know,” said one of the boys. “No offense, Regina, but it just kind of sounds… wrong.”

“Yeah, like we’re like all hairy or something,” a girl said.

Shona turned to Regina in triumph. “See?”

Veronica felt her cell phone go off in her pocket. She pulled it out. The display said “Khalilah Jadeed.”

“Hello,” she said softly.

“Veronica? Am I interrupting a class?” Khalilah asked. “The website says you’re on lunch at this time—I can call back—”

“No, it’s lunch, I just have a club meeting in my room. It’s okay.”

“Oh, good then. I found out which mosque the Ahmads attend,” Khalilah said. “It’s not surprising, it’s the one closest to the Islamic Center. It’s the Masjid Al-Taqwa, on 27th street. It’s just a little house, really, but they have a separate room for the women to worship.”

“That might work,” Veronica said, glancing around to see if any of the students were listening. They seemed oblivious to her.

“When are you done today? Are you available to go over there?” Khalilah asked.

“I’ll be available as soon as lunch is done, actually.”

“Alright. I’m going to call the office and have them find someone to cover my afternoon periods. I’m developing a migraine as we speak.”

“Will that be okay?”

“Veronica, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve given up a prep period to cover a colleague’s class, when they had to leave for some reason in the middle of the day. They can return the favor. I can’t just stand here like there isn’t a chance we could find this girl, save her from whatever she’s going through at the hands of the person who abducted her—no. We have to try to find her as soon as possible.”

“Alright, that sounds good,” Veronica said. “I’ll be done in about twenty-five minutes. I have no car.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

Veronica gave her ERHS’s address and hung up. Listening to the students revealed that they were no closer to agreeing on a name. She was just about to start organizing her grading into piles so she could take it with her when her cell phone went off again. This time the display said “Daniel Seong.”

“Hey,” she said into the phone.

“Hey,” he answered, his voice warm. “How’s your day going?”

“Fine so far,” Veronica said. “Yours?”

“Pretty good,” he said. “In fact, I’m out early. Cooper and Pushkin wanted to switch shifts so Pushkin can go to her daughter’s dance recital tomorrow night.”

“Nice,” Veronica said, but she was already starting to chew on her lower lip. She knew what was coming.

“So I was thinking, you up for a lunch date? I could be there to pick you up in ten minutes.”

Veronica grimaced. “I wish I could, but I’m meeting Khalilah in less than a half an hour.”

“Khalilah? Jadeed?”

“That’s the one.”

“Why are you meeting with her? Have you heard from her since you ran into her on Friday?”

Veronica began drawing little circles intersecting on the cover of a notepad she kept on her desk. This was no good, she fretted. She didn’t want to explain to Daniel about the Ahmads. He wasn’t going to like her getting involved. “Um,” she said, stalling for time. “Oh, I ended up having tea with her yesterday afternoon. She called me.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“We haven’t spoken since Sunday.”

“I left you two voicemails, Ronnie. You could have called back.”

“I’m sorry! It’s just that this week is extra busy—”

“I know, grading is due. But you have time to meet with Khalilah… twice?”

“Turns out she needed my help with something,” Veronica said, hoping he’d leave it at that.

Daniel was a homicide detective. He never left it at that. “That explains the apology,” he said. “What does she need your help for?”