Trouble With Liberty (4 page)

“If he's guilty, he'll probably go to jail,” Mom pointed out. “At the very least he'll lose his job, and maybe even his license to teach.”

“That's
if
he's guilty,” Dad said with emphasis.

“What do you mean ‘if'?” Cody exploded. “There's no
if
about it! Liberty said he tried to rape her. Don't you think she would know?”

Dad put up his hand. “Calm down. I don't like men who force themselves on women any better than you do. All I'm saying is it's dangerous to jump to conclusions. Since I didn't witness what happened — and neither did you — I'm not willing to crucify Dave Henderson just yet. I'm sure there will be a complete police investigation.”

“It's already underway,” Mom said. “There were officers at the school all afternoon, interviewing people and checking out the band room. I imagine they were at the Hayes' house too.” She looked at me and then Cody. “Has either of you spoken to Liberty this afternoon?”

“I tried,” I said. “I phoned after school, but her mother said she was sleeping.”

Mom nodded. “Of course. Poor thing. After
all that's happened, she must be completely wrung out. We shouldn't bother her. It's just that your father got me thinking.”

“About what?” Dad said.

“About witnesses. I was wondering if there'd been any.”

After supper I called Ryan. I wanted to find out why he'd missed history. I also wanted to see if he knew anything more than I did about what had happened to Liberty. After all, he'd been standing outside the office when I got there. Maybe he'd seen Liberty arrive. Maybe he'd even talked to her.

“I just couldn't stay awake,” he explained.

“No kidding,” I replied. “I watched you go to math. You could barely walk.”

“Yeah, well, then you won't be surprised to find out that I never made it to math. I passed an empty classroom on the way and couldn't resist going in. I figured if I could put my head down for forty minutes I'd be okay.”

“Obviously the forty minutes stretched out a bit.”

“You could say that. By the time I woke up, history class had already started.”

“That's like two periods!” I exclaimed. “I can't believe nobody found you.”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“Or unlucky — if you consider that you missed the test. What are you going to tell Mrs. Adams?”

Ryan sighed. “I was kind of hoping the truth would work.”

I chuckled. “You never know. By the way, how's Hercules?”

“Lots better.”

“That's good.”

“Yeah. Doc Jensen gave him some medicine. Hopefully we'll both be able to sleep tonight.”

“I saw you waiting for your dad outside the office. I waved, but I guess you didn't see me.”

“Sorry.”

“That's okay. I was just wondering if you'd been there when Liberty showed up. You heard about what happened between her and Mr. Henderson, right?”

Ryan didn't say anything.

“Ryan? Are you still there?”

He sighed. “Yup. I'm here.”

“Were you there when Liberty went to the office?”

“Nope.”

“You do know what Mr. Henderson tried to do though, don't you?”

Another pause. Another sigh. And then in a brittle voice Ryan said, “I know what Liberty
says
he tried to do.”

I was kind of mad at Ryan. Though he hadn't come straight out with it, he'd pretty much called Liberty a liar. And that was so not like him. Ryan's the guy who usually sticks up for people. But when it came to Liberty, he couldn't seem to find enough rocks to throw at her. I think being on the outside of the group was getting to him.

I didn't like the situation either, but there wasn't much I could do about it. Ryan was
determined to hate Liberty, and because everyone else liked her, he was the odd man out. As for Liberty, she was too busy with her own problems to notice what was going on with him.

After her traumatic experience, I totally expected Liberty to be away from school for a while. But she didn't miss a single day. Most of the time she rode the bus, but the day after the band room incident she arrived in her dad's red Porsche. As I watched her get out of the car, I wondered how everyone was going to act. Would the kids mob her with questions? Or would they keep their distance, whispering behind their hands? And what about me? Liberty had said I was her best friend, so I felt like I should be doing something to help her. I just didn't know what.

But I didn't have to wrestle with the problem for long. As usual, Liberty took matters into her own hands. As soon as she saw me she waved and headed over.

“How are you doing?” I asked when she reached me. I hoped my voice was cheerful enough to lift her spirits, but not so bubbly that it sounded like I was blowing off what had happened to her.

“I'm okay,” she said.

I nodded and smiled tightly. Conversation had never been a problem for us before, but all of a sudden I found myself groping for something to say. The incident with Mr. Henderson had made Liberty seem like a stranger.

“I phoned you last night,” I said.

Liberty flipped her hair back from her face. “I know. My mother told me.”

“I guess you weren't up to taking calls.”

She rolled her eyes. “I was fine. It was my parents who were wired. Well, my dad anyway. To tell you the truth, I don't think my mother even knew what was going on. She basically lives on tranquilizers. Most of the time you could drop an anvil on her head and she wouldn't blink.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't realize she was sick.”

Liberty snorted. “Oh, she's sick all right, but not like you think. She spends so much time with her shrink that people think she works in his office. Anyway, let's not talk about her.” And with a wave of Liberty's hand, Mrs. Hayes was gone. Then Liberty lowered her voice and said, “You'll never guess what happened when the police came to my house.”

Instantly curious, I leaned in closer. “What?”

“Well, my dad was furious,” she said. “Not with me, of course,” she added quickly. “With Mr. Henderson. After we got home, he got madder and madder. He was just about to jump in his car and go looking for the guy when the police showed up.”

“Why would your dad go after Mr. Henderson?”

Liberty shot me an incredulous look. “What do you think? To beat him up.”

“You're kidding!” I gasped. Then I remembered that Cody had wanted to punch Mr. Henderson out too. A picture of our band teacher mashed to a pulp popped into my head. I winced.

“Anyway,” Liberty continued, “it didn't happen because, like I said, the police came.”

“I guess they asked you a bunch of questions, huh.”

“Tons!” she exclaimed. “After a while I was so confused I didn't know what I was saying anymore. That's when I started to cry. And that got my dad mad all over again. I thought he was going to beat the
police
up! He wouldn't let them ask me even one more thing. He said they were bullying me, and if they didn't leave right that second, he was going to throw them out and
charge them with harassment.”

“What happened then?”

Liberty shrugged. “Nothing. They left. Then my dad ran me a bubble bath and made me spend the rest of the day in bed. He brought me tea and scones and sat with me the whole time. I felt like a princess. He even canceled an important business trip so I wouldn't have to go through this alone.”

I wanted to say, “
What about your mom? Wouldn't she be with you?
” But it didn't seem like Mrs. Hayes was Liberty's favorite person, so I kept my mouth shut.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cody coming our way. I knew he was anxious to talk to Liberty, but I also knew he was worried about saying the wrong thing and upsetting her all over again. Considering her mood, I didn't see a problem.

I nodded in Cody's direction. “Here comes your boyfriend.”

It was like I'd flipped a switch. Liberty dropped her books and spun around. “Oh, Cody!” she cried, running at him and throwing her arms around his neck. “Oh, Cody, it was so awful.”

After school Cody rode the bus with Liberty, so Mom dragged me to the grocery store with her.

“I just need to pick up a few things,” she said. Half an hour later she was still going strong. In an effort to speed up the process, I sneaked a peek at her list and headed for the pasta aisle. In three minutes I was back, dumping the spaghetti into the cart.

“Not on the tomatoes, Val!” Mom complained.

“Oops. Sorry,” I said, quickly rearranging the groceries. “What else do you need?”

She didn't even look up from the green beans she was picking through. “Just a couple of onions.”

“Where are they?” I said, tearing a plastic bag from a roll and grabbing a twist tie.

“Right next to the potatoes.”

“Got it.” I turned to go, but froze in mid-stride.

Mom looked up. “What's the matter?”

“Over there by the carrots,” I whispered out of the side of my mouth. “That's Mr. Henderson's wife.”

Mom glanced over. “So?”

“So I can't believe she's here! Look. People are staring at her and she's acting like she doesn't even notice.”

Mom shook her head and went back to her beans. “What do you expect her to do?” she muttered.

I rolled my eyes. My mother was so clued out.

“Her husband tried to rape a student! She has to know everyone in town is talking about it.”

“Well, shame on them if they are,” Mom snapped. “And shame on you too. Obviously you didn't hear a word your father said last night. You've already found your teacher guilty — and by the looks of it, his family too. The Hendersons are under enough stress without having to worry about malicious gossip.”

Then she pushed past me and got the onions herself.

The Tattler
is the town paper. It comes out once a week, but because not a lot happens in Sutter's Crossing, there isn't usually much to it. So the story about Liberty and Mr. Henderson should have been splashed all over the front page. But it wasn't. In fact, the only mention of it was a measly couple of sentences near the back.

“Look.” I flipped the paper across the table to Cody. It landed on top of his math homework.

“Do you mind?” He glared at me from under lowered eyebrows.

“Well, excuse me,” I sniped back. “I thought you might be interested in the article about Liberty.”

Cody put down his pencil and picked up the paper.

“Where?” he said, scanning the page.

I reached across the mound of school books and tapped the article with my pen. “This one here —
Local Teacher Suspended
.”

Cody read the article out loud.

“Just a month into the school year, Clarence Cobb Regional Secondary School is already short a teacher. David Henderson, the band instructor, was suspended last week following allegations of behavioral misconduct involving a student. School principal, Brian Garvey, declined to comment, and district superintendent, Walter Bishop, would say only that the matter was under investigation. The name of the student is being withheld.”

Cody threw the paper down in disgust. “Behavioral misconduct — what a bunch of crap! Why don't they just say what really happened? The creep tried to rape Liberty! It's like everybody is trying to protect him. Why? Liberty is the
victim here — not Henderson. Doesn't anybody care what happened to her?”

I thought about that for a few seconds. What
had
happened to her? I still didn't really know. Every kid in the school seemed to have their own version of what had gone on in the band room that morning — but I hadn't actually heard the story from Liberty. All she'd talked about were her feelings and what had occurred afterwards with the police and her father. Since I was supposed to be her best friend, I thought she would have confided in me, but she hadn't — at least not so far. Maybe the memory of being attacked was too painful. Or maybe — I looked across the table at Cody — maybe she'd told someone else.

Subtlety is wasted on my brother, so I didn't even go through the motions. “Has Liberty told you what Mr. Henderson did to her?” I said point- blank.

Another glare from under the eyebrows. “Of course,” he sneered. “I'm her boyfriend — remember?”

“I'm talking about details,” I said bluntly. “Has she given you a blow-by-blow account of things?”

Cody screwed up his face as if he were in pain. “What are you — a reporter?”

I shook my head. “Supposedly I'm Liberty's friend. But the only thing she's told me is that she stayed after class to ask Mr. Henderson something about her clarinet. The next thing she knew, he was coming on to her and wouldn't take ‘no' for an answer.”

“What more do you need to know?”

“I told you — details. Like what did he say to Liberty? What did she say to him? Did he try to grab her? Did she scream? How far did he get? How long did it take? You know — details!”

Cody threw down his pencil. “You're a pervert!”

“I am not. I just think it's strange that nobody knows any of this stuff?”

“If it happened to you, would you want the world to know?” he shot back.

“I might if I was Liberty,” I muttered under my breath.

But Cody had heard me. “What's that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. I kicked myself for thinking such a mean thought and — even worse — for letting it leak out of my mouth.

“Then why did you say it?”

“Because I'm stupid.”

“No kidding.”

I ignored the dig.

“It's just that Liberty isn't exactly a lowprofile person, is she?” I chose my words more carefully this time. “She likes being in the middle of things. I'm not saying that's a bad thing,” I added hastily, noting the way Cody's eyes had narrowed and his nostrils were puffing in and out like a racehorse's. “It just seems like she would have told somebody what had gone on.”