Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Once a Pretender, Always a Pretender
By RaajmdTMP
Part 5
The Bridge
Ell Pond
Miss Parker had nothing else to do so she went to the bridge early. She was thinking about what was going on.
'What am I doing!? I should just bring him in and be done with it.'
'You don't really want to do that, do you?'
"What was that?"
"What was what?" Jarod said, almost making her jump into the pond.
"Don't do that to me! You know I've been jumpy since the train crash."
"I'm sorry I scared you. I have a question, if you don't mind me asking."
"No, go ahead," she said, her heart rate returning to normal.
"Why did you go back? I mean, you had the perfect chance to leave and…"
"Jarod, we've been through this already, I still need some answers."
"I still need answers, too, but you don't see me in that place."
"I'm not like you, Jarod. I can't just hack into the Centre mainframe and not get caught. Besides I'm not ready for life on the run. Can we just talk about what we came here to talk about?"
"Of course. What do you want to know?"
"What happened to Mr. Patten?"
"He supposedly left school early on the fourth with stomach pains. That was only a cover up for a secret training mission in his branch of the Marines. Not many at the school know that was the real reason he left."
"What's the big deal about that?"
"That isn't a big deal and for all I know he actually came home that night, but I haven't had the time to speak with his wife. The mystery begins the next morning."
"What happened then?
"He didn't come to school. I was speaking with a girl at lunch today about the whole incident. She told me that his truck wasn't there when she left school on the fourth but it was there the next morning…"
"And he wasn't," she finished his sentence for him. "Which would mean he had to have disappeared between the time he parked his truck in the morning and the time he should have been in his classroom."
Parker and Jarod were unaware of the eyes that were watching them… or the ears that were listening. They also didn't know how well the closed YMCA pool acted as a hiding place. Unfortunately for them, Fiona did. She now knew Jarod was trying to help. She felt she could trust him. She also felt a sense of relief that she didn't have to do this alone.
Tomorrow was going to be a long day. She was going to tell Jarod only the basic information.
'I wonder why Mr. Patten is so important to him?' she thought.
Fiona, as well as Parker, had a strange feeling something weird was going to happen. Both of their "inner senses" combined couldn't predict what it was. Parker had just found out the truth about her mother. Soon Fiona was going to find out the truth about Mr. Patten… and her parents.
Parker and Jarod's conversation was interrupted by a loud thud and the clanging of a chain-link fence. They both jumped and turned around to see… nothing. Fiona had climbed and jumped down from the fence surrounding the pool. She was now running to where she had called home for the past year to get ready for tomorrow.
Jarod and Parker shook off the noise and resumed their conversation. Jarod got a strange idea. Sure, it was a long shot, but…
"Parker, if you don't mind me asking, where are you staying?"
"Oh, it's just a little inn on the other side of the pond."
Jarod laughed, "The Beliveau Inn?"
"Yeah, what's so funny abut that?"
"What room are you in?"
"Seven, why?"
"I'm in room eight."
"Oh, I should have known."
"Do you want to walk back with me?"
"Sure, why not?"
***
60 Herrick Court
Outside Blue Cove, DE
Fiona watched from an open window as Jarod and Parker walked by. She overheard them talking.
"Are you hungry, Parker?" Jarod asked as his stomach growled.
"A little. What do you have in mind?"
"There's a little pizza place down the street. I think it's called Caruso's. Want to join me?" he asked.
"It will give us more time to talk about Mr. Patten. I might as well," she replied.
"Frances, I need to go out for a little while. I'll be back in time to do my homework," Fiona yelled over the sound of the vacuum.
"Okay, dear. Just be careful," said the older woman. It was the sixth time she vacuumed this week but she needed something to get her mind off of what was happening.
"Oh, Richie, where are you?" she said out loud when Fiona left.
Fiona took the shortcut to Caruso's. She arrived just after Parker and Jarod. She took the booth behind them and sat with her back towards them. She listened carefully. She couldn't afford to miss a word they said.
"So what do you think is good?" Parker asked, scanning the menu.
"Anything without anchovies. I tried them last year. I can't figure out why anyone would want to put small, canned fish on a pizza."
"I've never figured that one out myself," Parker said, almost laughing at how serious his last statement was.
'I guess I won't be trying anchovy pizza. Thanks Jarod, if that is your real name,' Fiona thought. 'Maybe pepperoni is good.'
"Parker how's Sydney? I haven't talked to him in a while."
"Oh, he's as good as he possibly could be, I guess," she paused. "You miss him, don't you?"
"In some ways, I guess," he replied.
They were quiet for a while, not knowing what to say. Fiona listened, hoping they knew something she didn't.
"Fiona, this is Dr. Wolfman."
"Hello, Dr. Wolfman," Fiona greeted the young doctor, her dark brown eyes fixed on the doctor's eyes.
"Nice to meet you, Fiona. I would like you to do something for me." The doctor handed the six-year-old a piece of paper.
"Can you solve this problem for me?"
"Can you take me higher? To the place where blind men see," Fiona's radio alarm clock blared.
Fiona jumped out of bed and turned off the alarm. She didn't mind that it woke her in the middle of her dream. She knew how it ended.
It was 4:30 AM. Even after a year she was still used to getting up now. It didn't matter, though. It gave her some time to think without being interrupted.
She gathered all of the things she would need for school that day. She planned on asking Jarod for help finding Mr. Patten. She wasn't getting too far on her own.
***
Stanton Junior High
Room 312
7:35 AM
"Jarod, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean I'm not exactly good with kids and…"
"Parker! Parker, calm down. It's no big deal. All you have to do is sit down, watch and listen. Just stick to the plan and you'll be fine," Jarod said while watching a very nervous Parker play with the visitor pin on her jacket.
The morning bell rang. All you could hear was the drone of kids talking and locker doors slamming shut. The homeroom students came in the door, one by one.
"Good morning class. Please take your seats. We have a visitor. Her name is Miss Parker. She'll be with us until vacation," Jarod explained.
"Why is she here?" someone in the second row asked, a little rudely.
"She…"
"I can speak for myself, thank you very much," Parker interrupted. She wasn't nervous anymore. "I'm a teacher from another part of the country and I am going to be teaching in Delaware. I wanted to see how things are done here," she explained, making it up as she went along.
"She's better at this than I thought," Jarod said under his breath.
"What was that, Jarod?"
"Nothing."
"It better have been nothing."
The class laughed at that statement.
"Good morning. Would all students please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance?" Mr. Brow, the principal, said over the loudspeaker like on any other school day. "Please remain standing for a moment of silence," he paused. "Thank you, please be seated."
***
Stanton Junior High
Room 312
First Period
"Jarod, I've been meaning to ask you. What's with the glasses?"
"I usually wear glasses when a teacher. I've heard they make you look smart," Jarod answered sarcastically.
***
Stanton Junior High
Room 312
Third Period
Miss Parker came in the classroom after the students. Jarod was still in the hall. He was right. Fiona was sitting in her seat just like he said she would be. She was going through her binder in search of something. She pulled out a compositions notebook and walked up to Miss Parker.
"You're Miss Parker, right?"
She nodded.
"And you're with Jarod?"
"Yes, we…"
"I need to talk to you guys." She looked around the classroom. "Alone," she added, teeth clenched.
Jarod walked in the door. Miss Parker walked up to him, spun him around, and almost pushed him out the door. Fiona followed and shut the door behind them.
"What?" Jarod asked.
"Fiona said she needed to talk to us," she told him.
"Oh she did, did she? So Fiona, would you mind telling me why you ran away yesterday?"
"Yes, actually I would mind."
"Fiona, you do know that Mr. Garland can arrange to keep you after school for the rest of the school year."
"Mr. Garland can't do anything to me. He doesn't really exist. Isn't that right, Private Camello?"
"Well, I, ah…"
"Now you've done it. He's speechless," Parker joked.
"Look, I need your help. I've tried everything I can think of and I can't find Mr. Patten. I didn't think I would have to tell you my life story to get you to help me."
"We don't know much, Fiona."
"Almost nothing if Jarod really told me everything."
"Why do you care so much about Mr. Patten?" Fiona asked both of them. She had her reasons; she just wanted to know theirs.
"You don't get that much, do you, Jarod?"
"There's a first time for everything."
"Hey! Would you two just cut it out!"
"What do you mean by that?" Parker asked.
"Never mind. I thought you wanted to find Mr. Patten. Why?"
"Jarod likes to help people. He's kind of a… knight in shining armor."
"And what about you?"
'And I chase Jarod,' she thought.
"Mr. Patten was my teacher when I was in seventh grade."
"Great! I need help and all I get is a guy who thinks he's a superhero and a forty year old teacher's pet."
"Hey! Mr. Patten is a great man! He helped me through a tough time. He was one of the few people who would actually talk to me after my mother's death," she said. She didn't even notice she had told some thirteen year old that her mother died.
"Your mother died when you were little?"
Parker seemed to have involuntarily gotten through to Fiona.
"Yes. Yes she did. Did you lose someone, too?"
"Yeah, I- Wait a minute! Why am I telling you this?"
"We're just here to help," Jarod said.
"Nothing more, nothing less," Parker added.
"Okay. This is what I have on Mr. Patten. We have to get back to the class before they decide to take over the school. Miss Parker, can you sit in the back with me? I'll explain what I have written," she said, referring to the notebook she handed Parker.
"That can be arranged," Jarod answered.
They walked back in the classroom. The other students looked up. They all wanted to know what happened but they didn't want to get Fiona or Parker started. They had had a taste of both.
Fiona took her seat in the back row and Parker followed. It was otherwise empty today. Parker started to read the notebook.
"How do you know he gets up at 4:30?"
"I have my sources."
"Okay. So he gets up at 4:30, gets ready and is out of the house by quarter of seven. He gets in his red Chevy truck and drives to school. He parks in spot 100 and walks to his classroom. If I didn't know any better I'd say you had been stalking him."
"Well I wasn't so…"
"Relax, it was just a joke. Do you always have to be so defensive?"
"Look who's talking."
By RaajmdTMP
Part 5
The Bridge
Ell Pond
Miss Parker had nothing else to do so she went to the bridge early. She was thinking about what was going on.
'What am I doing!? I should just bring him in and be done with it.'
'You don't really want to do that, do you?'
"What was that?"
"What was what?" Jarod said, almost making her jump into the pond.
"Don't do that to me! You know I've been jumpy since the train crash."
"I'm sorry I scared you. I have a question, if you don't mind me asking."
"No, go ahead," she said, her heart rate returning to normal.
"Why did you go back? I mean, you had the perfect chance to leave and…"
"Jarod, we've been through this already, I still need some answers."
"I still need answers, too, but you don't see me in that place."
"I'm not like you, Jarod. I can't just hack into the Centre mainframe and not get caught. Besides I'm not ready for life on the run. Can we just talk about what we came here to talk about?"
"Of course. What do you want to know?"
"What happened to Mr. Patten?"
"He supposedly left school early on the fourth with stomach pains. That was only a cover up for a secret training mission in his branch of the Marines. Not many at the school know that was the real reason he left."
"What's the big deal about that?"
"That isn't a big deal and for all I know he actually came home that night, but I haven't had the time to speak with his wife. The mystery begins the next morning."
"What happened then?
"He didn't come to school. I was speaking with a girl at lunch today about the whole incident. She told me that his truck wasn't there when she left school on the fourth but it was there the next morning…"
"And he wasn't," she finished his sentence for him. "Which would mean he had to have disappeared between the time he parked his truck in the morning and the time he should have been in his classroom."
Parker and Jarod were unaware of the eyes that were watching them… or the ears that were listening. They also didn't know how well the closed YMCA pool acted as a hiding place. Unfortunately for them, Fiona did. She now knew Jarod was trying to help. She felt she could trust him. She also felt a sense of relief that she didn't have to do this alone.
Tomorrow was going to be a long day. She was going to tell Jarod only the basic information.
'I wonder why Mr. Patten is so important to him?' she thought.
Fiona, as well as Parker, had a strange feeling something weird was going to happen. Both of their "inner senses" combined couldn't predict what it was. Parker had just found out the truth about her mother. Soon Fiona was going to find out the truth about Mr. Patten… and her parents.
Parker and Jarod's conversation was interrupted by a loud thud and the clanging of a chain-link fence. They both jumped and turned around to see… nothing. Fiona had climbed and jumped down from the fence surrounding the pool. She was now running to where she had called home for the past year to get ready for tomorrow.
Jarod and Parker shook off the noise and resumed their conversation. Jarod got a strange idea. Sure, it was a long shot, but…
"Parker, if you don't mind me asking, where are you staying?"
"Oh, it's just a little inn on the other side of the pond."
Jarod laughed, "The Beliveau Inn?"
"Yeah, what's so funny abut that?"
"What room are you in?"
"Seven, why?"
"I'm in room eight."
"Oh, I should have known."
"Do you want to walk back with me?"
"Sure, why not?"
***
60 Herrick Court
Outside Blue Cove, DE
Fiona watched from an open window as Jarod and Parker walked by. She overheard them talking.
"Are you hungry, Parker?" Jarod asked as his stomach growled.
"A little. What do you have in mind?"
"There's a little pizza place down the street. I think it's called Caruso's. Want to join me?" he asked.
"It will give us more time to talk about Mr. Patten. I might as well," she replied.
"Frances, I need to go out for a little while. I'll be back in time to do my homework," Fiona yelled over the sound of the vacuum.
"Okay, dear. Just be careful," said the older woman. It was the sixth time she vacuumed this week but she needed something to get her mind off of what was happening.
"Oh, Richie, where are you?" she said out loud when Fiona left.
Fiona took the shortcut to Caruso's. She arrived just after Parker and Jarod. She took the booth behind them and sat with her back towards them. She listened carefully. She couldn't afford to miss a word they said.
"So what do you think is good?" Parker asked, scanning the menu.
"Anything without anchovies. I tried them last year. I can't figure out why anyone would want to put small, canned fish on a pizza."
"I've never figured that one out myself," Parker said, almost laughing at how serious his last statement was.
'I guess I won't be trying anchovy pizza. Thanks Jarod, if that is your real name,' Fiona thought. 'Maybe pepperoni is good.'
"Parker how's Sydney? I haven't talked to him in a while."
"Oh, he's as good as he possibly could be, I guess," she paused. "You miss him, don't you?"
"In some ways, I guess," he replied.
They were quiet for a while, not knowing what to say. Fiona listened, hoping they knew something she didn't.
"Fiona, this is Dr. Wolfman."
"Hello, Dr. Wolfman," Fiona greeted the young doctor, her dark brown eyes fixed on the doctor's eyes.
"Nice to meet you, Fiona. I would like you to do something for me." The doctor handed the six-year-old a piece of paper.
"Can you solve this problem for me?"
"Can you take me higher? To the place where blind men see," Fiona's radio alarm clock blared.
Fiona jumped out of bed and turned off the alarm. She didn't mind that it woke her in the middle of her dream. She knew how it ended.
It was 4:30 AM. Even after a year she was still used to getting up now. It didn't matter, though. It gave her some time to think without being interrupted.
She gathered all of the things she would need for school that day. She planned on asking Jarod for help finding Mr. Patten. She wasn't getting too far on her own.
***
Stanton Junior High
Room 312
7:35 AM
"Jarod, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean I'm not exactly good with kids and…"
"Parker! Parker, calm down. It's no big deal. All you have to do is sit down, watch and listen. Just stick to the plan and you'll be fine," Jarod said while watching a very nervous Parker play with the visitor pin on her jacket.
The morning bell rang. All you could hear was the drone of kids talking and locker doors slamming shut. The homeroom students came in the door, one by one.
"Good morning class. Please take your seats. We have a visitor. Her name is Miss Parker. She'll be with us until vacation," Jarod explained.
"Why is she here?" someone in the second row asked, a little rudely.
"She…"
"I can speak for myself, thank you very much," Parker interrupted. She wasn't nervous anymore. "I'm a teacher from another part of the country and I am going to be teaching in Delaware. I wanted to see how things are done here," she explained, making it up as she went along.
"She's better at this than I thought," Jarod said under his breath.
"What was that, Jarod?"
"Nothing."
"It better have been nothing."
The class laughed at that statement.
"Good morning. Would all students please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance?" Mr. Brow, the principal, said over the loudspeaker like on any other school day. "Please remain standing for a moment of silence," he paused. "Thank you, please be seated."
***
Stanton Junior High
Room 312
First Period
"Jarod, I've been meaning to ask you. What's with the glasses?"
"I usually wear glasses when a teacher. I've heard they make you look smart," Jarod answered sarcastically.
***
Stanton Junior High
Room 312
Third Period
Miss Parker came in the classroom after the students. Jarod was still in the hall. He was right. Fiona was sitting in her seat just like he said she would be. She was going through her binder in search of something. She pulled out a compositions notebook and walked up to Miss Parker.
"You're Miss Parker, right?"
She nodded.
"And you're with Jarod?"
"Yes, we…"
"I need to talk to you guys." She looked around the classroom. "Alone," she added, teeth clenched.
Jarod walked in the door. Miss Parker walked up to him, spun him around, and almost pushed him out the door. Fiona followed and shut the door behind them.
"What?" Jarod asked.
"Fiona said she needed to talk to us," she told him.
"Oh she did, did she? So Fiona, would you mind telling me why you ran away yesterday?"
"Yes, actually I would mind."
"Fiona, you do know that Mr. Garland can arrange to keep you after school for the rest of the school year."
"Mr. Garland can't do anything to me. He doesn't really exist. Isn't that right, Private Camello?"
"Well, I, ah…"
"Now you've done it. He's speechless," Parker joked.
"Look, I need your help. I've tried everything I can think of and I can't find Mr. Patten. I didn't think I would have to tell you my life story to get you to help me."
"We don't know much, Fiona."
"Almost nothing if Jarod really told me everything."
"Why do you care so much about Mr. Patten?" Fiona asked both of them. She had her reasons; she just wanted to know theirs.
"You don't get that much, do you, Jarod?"
"There's a first time for everything."
"Hey! Would you two just cut it out!"
"What do you mean by that?" Parker asked.
"Never mind. I thought you wanted to find Mr. Patten. Why?"
"Jarod likes to help people. He's kind of a… knight in shining armor."
"And what about you?"
'And I chase Jarod,' she thought.
"Mr. Patten was my teacher when I was in seventh grade."
"Great! I need help and all I get is a guy who thinks he's a superhero and a forty year old teacher's pet."
"Hey! Mr. Patten is a great man! He helped me through a tough time. He was one of the few people who would actually talk to me after my mother's death," she said. She didn't even notice she had told some thirteen year old that her mother died.
"Your mother died when you were little?"
Parker seemed to have involuntarily gotten through to Fiona.
"Yes. Yes she did. Did you lose someone, too?"
"Yeah, I- Wait a minute! Why am I telling you this?"
"We're just here to help," Jarod said.
"Nothing more, nothing less," Parker added.
"Okay. This is what I have on Mr. Patten. We have to get back to the class before they decide to take over the school. Miss Parker, can you sit in the back with me? I'll explain what I have written," she said, referring to the notebook she handed Parker.
"That can be arranged," Jarod answered.
They walked back in the classroom. The other students looked up. They all wanted to know what happened but they didn't want to get Fiona or Parker started. They had had a taste of both.
Fiona took her seat in the back row and Parker followed. It was otherwise empty today. Parker started to read the notebook.
"How do you know he gets up at 4:30?"
"I have my sources."
"Okay. So he gets up at 4:30, gets ready and is out of the house by quarter of seven. He gets in his red Chevy truck and drives to school. He parks in spot 100 and walks to his classroom. If I didn't know any better I'd say you had been stalking him."
"Well I wasn't so…"
"Relax, it was just a joke. Do you always have to be so defensive?"
"Look who's talking."
