Page 89 of Mad Mabel

“I heard he had a fiancée,” Daphne said. “Snake.”

“She said he’d had other relationships with students. Can you believe it?”

Daphne shook her head, muttering all sorts of curse words as we approached the school. It was nearly time for the bell and students hurried through the gates. Brother Stanislaus stood out front, which he did sometimes to greet the students and remind them to pull up their socks and straighten their ties.

“I was so upset,” I said to Daphne quietly. “I punctured his tire when I left.”

“Did you puncture anything else?” she said, equally quietly. “I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you did. And I will never tell a soul, I swear.”

Every person, I thought, should have a friend like Daphne.

“The truth is,” I said, then stopped talking when we noticed two uniformed police officers approaching Brother Stanislaus.

“What do you think is going on?” I whispered to Daphne, who shrugged.

We weren’t the only ones wondering. Students lurked nearby in groups of two or three, clearly trying to catch a word to fuel the day’s gossip. Billy Harris was loitering nearby, I noticed, in one of the groups of nosy kids.

Brother Stanislaus talked to the officers for a moment or two, then glanced around, his gaze locking on Daphne and myself. A bad feeling overcame me.

“Mabel,” Brother Stanislaus said. “These policemen would like to talk to you.”

“What?” I looked at the policemen—both middle aged, thickset, stern-looking. One of them, the mustached one, was familiar-looking. I thought I recognized him from one of my parents’ dinner parties. “Why?”

“We need to take a statement from you down at the police station,” the mustached police officer said.

Daphne moved closer to me. Her eyes were wide and worried.

“Why do you need a statement from me?” I asked.

“Because we understand you visited your teacher’s house on the night of his death,” the same policeman said, unnecessarily loud.

There was an audible intake of breath from students nearby. Brother Stanislaus took my bike out of my hands.

“It won’t take long,” the other police officer said. “Car’s just over here.”

“Wait…,” I said, bewildered, “don’t I need an… adult with me?”

Brother Stanislaus paused. Clearly, he hadn’t thought to ask this. But the police seemed unconcerned.

“We have parental consent,” the policeman said. “This way, please.”

It felt like every student was watching as I was led to the car, all of them barely able to conceal their delight. Brother Stanislaus, having handed off my bike, was trying to corral students through the gates, without much success.

“Parental consent,” I repeated as they opened the back door of the police car. “Who gave you consent?”

But of course I already knew. The policeman put a hand on my head as I climbed into the vehicle.

“Your father,” the officer said, and the door slammed shut.

The police talked about football most of the way to the station, making no attempt to engage with me. I was no stranger to loneliness; I’d thought I’d been familiar with its every variety. But as I traveled, alone, in the back of the police car, I discovered that there was a new, particularly potent breed of loneliness. Being alone, and frightened.

I looked out the window. I thought we’d go to the local police station, but instead we went all the way into the city. The building was four stories high. We parked in the basement.

“How will I get back to school?” I asked when the policeman opened my door. “Can I call my aunt?”

The policemen were still talking about football and were only half listening. “You can make a call after you’ve given your statement,” one of them said.

We rode the elevator to the top floor. I don’t think I’d ever yearned for a person as much as I yearned for Cess in that moment. It was so powerful that when the door opened, I was sure I heard Cess’s voice.