Chapter 100 – The Eye of the Enemy – Holly Hayfield

Outside the school a makeshift running track had been created on the eastern most side of the school building. The lines cutting through the grass were indicated with bright yellow ribbons so that each runner could stay in their lanes without bumping into other participants. The track that we built was far from perfect, much of it cutting through the school’s woody surroundings, and being fairly small for what it was. Despite our limitations, the girls with me were having a lot of fun testing it out for the school field day. It was an incredible change of pace that I couldn’t stop myself from taking part of.

Friday had come and the last day of the spirit week event had come with it. What was initially planned as a school ‘free day’ had evolved into a field day with the help of the teachers and PTA. From what I heard, one of the parents in the PTA had been decrying the lack of athletic clubs in the school since day one. Virtually all of the preexisting athletic clubs at this school were indoor oriented clubs, or athletic clubs that didn’t require fixed facilities. This field day was an opportunity to test potential athletic group types, and maybe even a future addition to the school amenities.

I was incredibly glad for it, along with the several girls that wanted to be a part of this track making effort. The moment that things became exciting was when one of the girls helping me make the track, Jada Green, challenged me to a three lap race around the track that we built. The other girls in attendance cooed at the challenge and egged me to accept it. I laughed because I didn’t need the additional encouragement. I accepted immediately. From there, Jada and I went to the black tape starting line that we outlined in the grass. The one to start the countdown was Megan. Megan was wearing an official Meredith School cheerleading uniform made specifically for the spirit week event. As she finished counting down she waved her pom-poms and jumped out of our way.

To my surprise, Jada was more of a challenge to race against than I suspected. She was a year younger than me and an underclassman so I took her lightly when she challenged me to a race. She was about my height and had a similar build to me so I wasn’t expecting the difference to be so massive. She began the race at a full sprint instead of pacing herself like I did. That made me want to push myself in a way that I hadn’t experienced since last school year. I started laughing uncontrollably as the other students on the sidelines started cheering our names as we ran by at the end of the first lap. Jada held a clear lead and they were cheering her name louder than mine.

It wasn’t until the middle of the final lap that I finally caught back up with Jada. Her sprint burst at the start of the match was catching up with her. She was a great athlete but she lacked the physical endurance to outpace me for long. She laughed tiredly as I past her and I could tell that she was far more worn out than I was. My after school training sessions without my ankle monitor were really paying dividends. I managed to come out on top and win the race, but not by an overwhelming margin. Although Jada’s pacing was rough, I could tell that she had some formal training behind her. That was probably why she was willing to challenge me in the first place. I talked about my own experience back while we were setting up the track. Jada was quiet up until the moment she challenged me.

“You’re good!” I said as I walked over to her.

She was hunched over, taking in deep breaths and sweating profusely. My own heart was beating hard but I was in better shape.

“Not as good as you.” Jada said between breaths. “I didn’t expect you to come back… That was one hell of a return. You don’t even look tired.”

“I could probably do several more laps at that speed.” I bragged a little, “The important thing in a multi-lap race is to set a pace. I’m going to guess you’ve got some experience with sprinting? That was a great gap you created at the start.”

“I was on my school’s track team the past couple of years.” Jada said. “I was always more of a short distance runner but I’d also do long distance jogging for practice. It seems that you’re more rounded?”

“True,” I said, “In my track and field club I didn’t really specialize in a particular area. I guess it’s different for track teams at other schools.”

While we were talking, Megan and the other onlookers made their way over to me and Jada. Jada stood up straight and greeted the girls that came to console her. Megan slammed into me and put her arms around me. She tried to kiss me on the lips but I ducked away from it. I let her kiss me on the cheek instead.

“Holly! I knew you could do it!” Megan said.

I grinned.

“Is that why you were waving your pom-poms and shouting ‘go Jada!’ for the first two laps?” I asked.

Megan flinched and averted her eyes.

“That… well… I wanted to encourage our underclassman! We’ve got to look out for them as seniors, you know?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah right... And if Jada won I’m sure you’d be hugging me like this, right?” I asked, and then pointed at a girl holding a camera. “Don’t tell me this girl is taking a picture of this for your website…”

“Say cheese!” Megan shouted.

My mouth was still wide open as I turned to the photographer. She took the picture of us with me looking like a complete idiot as Megan held onto me like the massive parasite that she was.

“Get off, Megan.” I said flatly.

She did as I asked while performing a little cheer dance over towards Jada. The photographer snapped a few shots of the two of them together before Megan pranced off to her next target. It looked like she wasn’t going to let this event go to waste and was going to milk it for all the content she could. As much as I didn’t like to be used that way it was still a good thing for the school. This would be good publicity for the school overall, which was one of the goals of the spirit week event to begin with. Improving school publicity and the student outlook seemed to be going well. A lot of this success came from the unexpected wave of support of the PTA parents. I didn’t anticipate that they’d want to get so involved. Without them, this event wouldn’t have turned out even half as well. They were creating new opportunities in areas I wouldn’t have thought about.

One such opportunity was the idea of splitting the school into a red team and blue team for the field day event. The PTA volunteers bought all the supplies that was needed for the armbands and had a reserve of T-shirts and shorts for the students that didn’t bring their own gym clothing. The group versus group event going on while I was busy with the track was a tug-of-war game. They were broken into multiple sub-groups with various volunteer parents acting as referees on the sidelines. The results from each of these mini-games were being tallied into a massive scoreboard representing the red team and blue team. I, along with the rest of the event committee, wasn’t involved on either side. We were too busy with event setup to play along. My race against Jada was just a small distraction from our work.

The tug-of-war matches were ending as I returned to the area behind the school where these games were taking place. Ms. Sampson flagged me down the moment she saw me round the corner. She was waiting over near the temporary stage set up by the janitorial crew. Ms. Sampson looked unusually bright today. She was wearing a long-sleeved white jersey and matching shorts. This was in great contrast to the usual professional suits that she wore. I could tell that she was beginning to enjoy the event as well.

“Holly!” She said as I approached. “Do you have it? Is it ready?”

“Ah, yeah… It was ready a while ago. I was just tied up working on the running track, sorry.”

“Here, give it here.”

I reached into the pocket of my training jacket and pulled out the folded up paper. I handed it to her and she unfolded it to look it over.

“Good… Good…” She said. “You’re getting better at writing these speeches for me.”

This sounded like less of a compliment and more like something she was noting.

“Thank you.” I said anyways, “I wrote one for myself too. I’d like to go up after you’re finished speaking. It’ll be slightly shorter than yours.”

“That’s good. The parents will be impressed to see one of the students giving a speech. After this week they won’t have an excuse to be on my back about ‘student participation’ all the time.” She said. “This spirit week is going even better than I hoped it would.”

“We all worked hard on it.” I said. “It wasn’t just the members of the student council, but the PTA too. The members of the staff have been incredibly accommodating at seeing things through with us. This entire event has been a show of the group effort that the people of this school are capable of.”

She ruffled my hair roughly as if I were a dog.

“You really deserve the internship that you got.” She said and let go of me, “I may have brought you on in a difficult situation, but it wasn’t a fluke. If you go on to become a permanent member of the staff after college then the school will be better off for it.”

This was unusually high praise from her so I was willing to overlook the fact that she made my hair messy.

“Thank you.” I said while trying to brush my hair with my hands.

“If you want any sort of reward for getting this together you can talk to me about it over Thanksgiving break.” She said while walking up the steps of the small stage. “Stand off to the side so that the parents can see you as I deliver my speech.”

“Okay.” I said.

I followed her onto the stage and did as she asked. She waited for the last tug-of-war tally to go up before she blew her whistle. The mass of students standing around moved to gather around the stage area. Ms. Sampson tapped the microphone a few times to get everyone’s attention. The parent volunteers were mostly in the back, but some were scattered throughout the groups of students. I waved at Lilith’s aunt Margaret when she turned my direction.

“I’d like to start by first thanking all of the volunteer guardians that showed up to involve themselves in today’s field day event. Your support has helped to make all of this possible…” Ms. Sampson read from the unfolded paper.

I looked around the audience as Ms. Sampson gave her speech. The speech was an inspirational piece meant to give everyone positive vibes without sounding too sappy or cheesy. Going by the look of the faces on the crowd it probably wasn’t even necessary. Everyone was in uplifted spirits after a fierce session of tug-of-war battles. A lot of the girls in attendance had dirt firmly coating their gym clothes after just a few field day events.

Ms. Sampson introduced me as one of the central organizers of the spirit week festival once her speech was finished. Everyone clapped as she welcomed me to the podium. My speech was in the same vein as Ms. Sampson’s. Only, my speech called for a moment of silence for Ms. Logan at the beginning. Everyone was quiet and somber until I thanked them and continued on with my speech. I felt it’d be better for me to deliver that part since Ms. Sampson delivering it would probably be seen as cheap. It was no secret that she wasn’t emotionally invested in Ms. Logan so I doubted her ability to sound sincere. After that, my speech was about hyping everyone up again and going over some of the upcoming events for the field day.

The crowd dispersed quickly once the speech was done and the volume rose back to high levels. Val found me as I was coming off the stage and pulled me into a quick hug.

“You’re a natural in front of the crowd now.” Val said. “I remember that you seemed more nervous about talking in front of a group before. What changed?”

“I guess it was just practice.” I said. “I’ve given a few speeches in front of the school now and it gets a little easier each time. Were the rest of the student council members watching it too?”

Val pointed into the distance.

“Sam is over there with Naomi. They lost their tug-of-war match against my team and are being salty about it.” Val said with a grin. She pointed elsewhere, “Jay is in the back over there talking to her mom. She’s volunteering here and has Jay’s little sister in tow.”

“And Lilith…?” I asked.

Val rolled her eyes.

“She’s skipping out once again…” Val said. “When her aunt tried to get her to participate in the action she ran off.”

“Let’s go get her.” I said. “She might try to ignore me. If we go together I’m pretty sure we can just grab her and carry her here if we have to.”

Val laughed.

“Good point. I hope you’re ready to get scratched.” Val said playfully.

We waded through the crowds of people to get back into the school. The inside of the school was virtually empty since everyone was outside enjoying the field day. The only ones remaining inside would be the type of people that wanted to skip out on outdoor activities, like Lilith. On our way to the library I ended up bumping into an older woman that was wearing a thick jacket with her hood pulled up. She turned to me and I assumed she must’ve been one of the parents from the PTA.

“Sorry I…” I started to apologize.

Then I noticed who this woman was. It was Raven Keyes, the Matriarch. She was wearing thick glasses and colorful makeup, unlike the last time I saw her. Her getup was an obvious attempt to conceal her identity but I was sure it was her. What was she doing here? More importantly, why was she snooping around the school while everyone else was outside? Val seemed to realize something strange was going on by the way I suddenly stopped midsentence to stare at this stranger.

“You’re fine, lovely. I was just a little surprised, that’s all.” She said, making no attempt to mask her voice.

Val was immediately on guard as she recognized the speech pattern and tone of voice. She stepped in front of me defensively and guided me behind her.

“Oh please, there’s no need to be dramatic.” Raven said with a roll of her eyes, “I’m not here for you two.”

“Then why are you sneaking through our school?” Val asked with some hostility bared in her voice, “You have no business being here.”

“Of course I do!” She said flippantly, “I’ve still got a niece that goes here. I’m a guardian or volunteer or whatever. I’m here for the whole spirit week charade. Good work on all this by the way, Holly. You’re really quite the honor student, aren’t you?”

“No guardians outside of those that signed up with the PTA are allowed to be here as volunteers. You can’t be here.” I explained.

Raven snickered as she walked around us. Val moved with her to keep herself between me and the intruder.

“Don’t worry. I’m not planning to be here long. I’ll leave as soon as I have a little chat with someone. Now why don’t you run along yourselves? I wouldn’t want you two to miss out on all the festivities!”

Raven started walking away before we could get another word in. The fact that she was here in disguise wasn’t a good sign. I felt so sure that she had distanced herself from the Society of Sisters after Sofi was canned. What was she doing here now? Was she trying to reassert her control over them? Or maybe today was the day that she revealed the rest of her plan? That made me panic internally. She was definitely up to something.

“I don’t think she was sneaking around randomly.” I said to Val. “Look at where we are. This isn’t far from the front office.”

“We need to do something about her.” Val said. “You go get Lilith. I’m going to tell Ms. Sampson that there’s an intruder on campus.”

“Okay. We should tell Erica too. I think she deserves to know.”

“I’ll leave that part to you. I’ll tell Sam and Jay when I go back outside.” Val said. “I’m going to round up the SCA and have them keep look out.”