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PROM FRIDAY

  J. M. Davis

  Copyright © 2014 by J. M. Davis

  Cover Design by Fury Cover Designs

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Discover other titles by J. M. Davis

  Portrait of Conspiracy

  As Tough As They Come

  A Woman To Die For

  Murder And Mayham

  The Ghost of Leonard Korn

  No Tears For Jack

  The Durley Incident

  The Storekeeper

  Dedication

  In Memory of My High School English Teacher

  Mrs. Nellie Rea Sledge Gordon May 18, 1914 - September 2, 2014. I had the great pleasure of being one of Mrs. Gordon’s students. She was a wonderful lady and great teacher.

  Table of Contents

  PROM FRIDAY

  About the author

  Excerpt: PORTRAIT OF CONSPIRACY

  PROM FRIDAY

  If you have a nick-name in high school, it means one of two things. The other students are being cruel to you, or your classmates actually like you. I got my nickname for trying to outrun the only police car in town. I didn’t, really. My rearview mirror was missing, and I had the radio turned up to earthquake level, while driving around. I had no idea a policeman had been following me all over town, until I pulled in at the Freezo for a soda.

  Being a Saturday afternoon, the home of the greasy hamburger was packed with my high school classmates. With blue lights flashing and a siren blaring, the policeman pulled his vehicle up behind mine. All of the kids inside the Freezo ran outside to watch the long-arm-of-the-law nab a fugitive.

  The policeman, Bad Badge Bugger Johnson, a man the size of Jupiter, wiggled his stomach loose from his patrol car’s steering wheel and exited his cruiser. He strolled up to the driver’s side window of my car with the finesse of a rogue elephant.

  “Boy, I’ve been chasing you all over town.”

  Both of his hands were on his black leather gun belt, which, I concluded, based on its length and width, must have taken a good part of a whole cow hide to make. After catching his breath, he went at me again.

  “Don’t you know better than to try and rabbit on the police?” he bellowed.

  All of the high school students standing around my car heard him.

  The fact that Officer Johnson had used the word rabbit instead of the verb run changed everything. I would forever be grateful to Officer Johnson for using that word which, no doubt, must have come from an extensive list of official words cadets are required to memorize before graduating from the police academy.

  From that day on, I was known as Rabbit. I never told any of my classmates I had not really tried to rabbit on the police, because Rabbit sounded a whole lot better as a nick-name for a skinny kid than did Bird Legs or Stick.

  Surviving high school requires a bit of luck, on occasion, but being prepared never hurts one’s chances of success. I often wished I had studied more, especially when I tried to guess the right answer to test questions.

  Time flies when you’re seventeen years old, especially, when you have not properly prepared for an upcoming event. Before I knew it, the Pedlow High School Junior/Senior Prom was four days away, and as hard it was to believe, I had not yet summoned the courage to ask one of my high school classmates to be my date.

  I had a pretty good idea what the topic for discussion would be at the breakfast table. Being raised by a single parent meant I had to rely on my mother for advice, including how to get a date for the prom.

  “All you have to do is ask one of the girls to be your date. It is that simple,” my mother had said well over a month earlier, when I had mentioned the prom to her.

  By the time I entered my junior year in high school, I had obtained a height of six feet. If I drank plenty of water before getting on the scales, I weighed in at a hundred pounds, fully clothed. With that kind of physique, my mother apparently thought valor was my middle name. After getting dressed for school, I made my way downstairs and smelled food before I entered the kitchen.

  My mother worked full time outside the home, but awoke at 5:00 A.M. every school morning to get ready for work and prepare a good breakfast for the two of us, homemade biscuits, milk, and eggs. Probably the reason I had developed the body of a gladiator.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  She smiled and hugged me, before filling two plates with food and setting them down.

  I pulled her chair out from a small round table squeezed into one corner of our kitchen.

  She removed her apron and placed over the back of her chair. “Who is your date for the prom?” she asked, while I helped her slide her chair closer to the table.

  “I don’t have one yet.” I took a seat across from her.

  Her smile faded a bit. “You shouldn’t have waited so long. All of the girls probably have dates by now.”

  Her tone indicated she was concerned about my timing. “You do realize the prom is this Friday night,” she added to make sure I had a clear understanding about the urgency of the situation.

  Sensing her disappointment, my stomach churned at the thought of letting her down. All was not lost, since I still had four days to get a date. I decided to give her hope.

  “Don’t worry,” I replied. “I’ve been waiting for someone special.” I tried to figure out who someone special might be while I finished eating my scrambled eggs.

  No more was said about the prom before I left for school, but the look of disappointment on my mother’s face that morning made me think about my short comings as a son. I should not have told her I wanted to go to the prom. I needed to make things right, but with time running out, that meant an all-out effort, on my part, would be required.

  After arriving at Pedlow High School, the first girl I saw was Cheri Darnell. According to an almost unanimous class vote—her words, not mine—she was the prettiest girl in school. Why not put her at the top of my list? She would certainly be someone special.

  Cheri appeared to be stunned by my request.

  “You’re kidding, right? Bill and I have been going steady for over a month, and he’s taking me to the prom in his new car.”

  Bill Right Halfback Farris, better known as Flash, a star football player and Most Handsome two years running, drove a new blue Corvette Stingray. There was no way I could compete with a football player who ran the hundred yard dash faster than all the other running backs in the district. He also drove the faster car in town. Bill had earned his nickname honorably.

  Unlike Flash, I drove an old white Chevrolet, with a dented left front fender, the result of a horrendous parking lot accident. I had pulled in behind an elderly woman’s new car and waited for her to back it out from her parking spot at the grocery store. The petite woman with white hair, barely tall enough to see over her steering wheel, claimed I was too close, which, as it turned out was a correct statement. I had backed up only two full car lengths to give her more space to maneuver. The fact she failed to take her car out of reverse and place it in drive, before she gunned it, might have had a little something to do with the accident. Her car shot backwards in the driving lane like a rocket, and before I had time to react, her car’s rear bumper rammed into my car.

  Upon close inspection, the elderly woman agreed her car’s bumper had suffered little damage, while the fender on my Chevrolet had been crumpled to the point that my turn signal light was no longer visible. Satisfied her new Oldsmobile was safe to drive, she got back into her vehicle and drove off without offering to help pay for any damage to my car.

  Cheri tapped me on the shoulder. “Sorry, but I need to get to my first class.” She turned an
d walked away.

  My daydreaming must have been a hint I had seen the error of my ways. Left alone to ponder the reasons my first attempt to get a date to the prom had failed, I considered the possibility I might have tried to reach a bit high on the social ladder. A rejection from the prettiest girl in school did make me focus on the fact I was skinny, had a zit or three on my face, and drove an old Chevrolet.

  The rest of the morning didn’t go any better. I confirmed, in person, that twelve other girls already had dates to the prom; all of them secured at least a month in advance. It was beginning to look like someone special was more likely going to be someone desperate.

  I decided to ask Darla Jean Hicks, a star basketball player, and to my knowledge the tallest girl in the state. If any girl was desperate for a date to the prom, I assumed it had to be Darla Jean, who was cruelly nicknamed Cirrus, following a science class in the ninth grade where we learned that Cirrus clouds only formed above an altitude of 16,500 feet.

  If the prom photographer had a stool for me to stand on, Darla Jean and I would make a nice photo, assuming the photographer cropped the stool out.

  Darla Jean looked down at the top of my head. “I’m sorry, Rabbit. I’m going to the prom with Globe. He asked me last week.”

  I’d been beaten out by a guy who wore fifty-five-twenty Levis. I looked up to show her my extreme disappointment.

  She smiled. “But thank you for asking me.”

  My chances of being able to get a date for the prom were dwindling faster than M&Ms in an open container surrounded by five-year-old kids. There was no reason to lose all hope with three and a third days left before the prom, but based on recent history, a miracle appeared unlikely.

  Standing at my locker, I was in the process of retrieving my English textbook, for my last class of the day, when I heard someone call out my name. I turned to see who was trying to get my attention.

  Sherrie Mae Burling stood at the stop of the stairs on the other end of the hallway with a smile on her face the size of a waxing crescent moon. Word must have gotten out I was trying to get a date for the prom. If there was one girl in school I would not, under any circumstances, ask to the prom, it was Sherrie Mae. She homed in on me like a bumblebee diving on the only sunflower left in a plowed field.

  Unfortunately, Sherrie Mae and I had a history.

  The first time I ever laid eyes on her, we had words. It was the first day of class in the eighth grade. There was this girl sitting beside me I’d never seen before. She had long red hair pulled back into a single ponytail, held with a rubber band wrapped around her hair at least twenty-seven times. I couldn’t help but notice the new girl in school was wearing a pair of boots, not the normal footwear for city girls.

  If you lived way out in the county, you attended a community elementary school until you completed the seventh grade. Then you would be bused into the big city of Pedlow, population 3,412, to finish your schooling. That day was Sherrie Mae’s first day of school in the big city.

  While we waited for Mrs. Lyndle to start class, a couple of city boys teased Sherrie Mae about her Red Wing boots and called her farm girl.

  I decided to be nice and give her a compliment.

  “Nice boots.” I smiled to let her know she had at least one friend in the big city school.

  She immediately turned toward me and her glare made me think she wished she had a pitchfork, instead of the pencil she aimed in my direction.

  “Shut up, bird legs,” she said.

  I may have been on the slender side, but there was no call for her to make an issue of my skinny legs. Since that day back in the eighth grade, I had prided myself on keeping my distance from Sherrie Mae. There was no way she would get the satisfaction of me having to ask her to be my date for the prom.

  Ignoring her, I closed my locker and took off in the opposite direction. Taking two steps at a time, I made haste going up two flights of stairs. Since running in the hallways was not allowed, I looked like one of those Olympic walkers as I made my way down the hallway. After entering my classroom, I went directly to my seat. The bell rang, safe at last.

  Mrs. Kilwood, our Junior English teacher, read aloud from a book of poetry. The poem had something to do with a lot of water and not a drop to drink. The class time was almost over when I felt a tap on my right shoulder. I turned around. It was my worst nightmare. Sherrie Mae was attempting to do the unforgivable, trying to pass a note in the classroom. I didn’t care what was in her note. I wasn’t going to take it. I shook my head and turned back around.

  Seconds later, something white fell from above. Apparently, in an act of frustration, she had wadded up the note and tossed it over my shoulder. It landed on the front edge of my desk at precisely the exact moment Mrs. Kilwood stopped reading aloud and looked up.

  Passing a note in English class was a felony offense, punishable by having to read the note aloud while standing at the front of the class. Mrs. Kilwood closed the book, placed it on her desk, and stared at me.

  “Please bring the note to me.”

  I picked the wad of paper up and walked to the front of her desk. She held her hand out, and I gave the wad to her.

  Mrs Kilwood unfolded the note and appeared to read it silently. I didn’t know what Sherrie Mae had written, but Mrs. Kilwood appeared to be more sad than angry. But rules were rules.

  She handed it back to me.

  “Please turn around. Face the class and read it aloud.”

  “Yes ma’am.” I turned to face the class and quickly read silently to myself what Sherrie Mae had written in the note.

  Dear Rabbit,

  I heard you’re trying to get a date to the prom. I don’t have a date either. Mama made a nice dress for me, and she wants me to go to the prom really bad, but no one has asked me yet. If I don’t get a date, my dad is going to take me. I would rather die. Rabbit, will you be my date for the prom?

  Sherrie Mae

  I glanced back at Mrs. Kilwood. Didn’t she realize she was sentencing Sherrie Mae to a life of ridicule? From the sadness in her eyes, she did. I then stared at Sherrie Mae. Her head was down on her desk buried as deep into her folded arms as it would go. She was waiting for the onslaught of laughter that would surely come from our classmates.

  I gazed at the top of Sherrie Mae’s head and thought about what the other classmates might say to her in the hallways, if I read her note aloud.

  Mama made a nice dress for me.

  And even worse, what cruel nickname would she be called from that day forward? Sherrie Mae had escaped near disaster in the eighth grade. Had she been pegged Farm Girl, that nickname would have stayed with her until graduation. I hoped no one remembered her wearing boots back then.

  Up until the flying note episode, I probably had a good chance of pulling out a “C” in my English class. If I didn’t read that note aloud, I could kiss a passing grade goodbye. I did the only thing I could. I held the note up in front of my face, stared at it, and said,

  “Dear Rabbit,

  Thank you for asking me to the prom. I would love to go with you. You may pick me up at six-thirty.

  Sherrie Mae”

  I quickly turned and gazed at Mrs. Kilwood to see how much trouble I was in. She appeared to be trying hard not to smile. I then glanced back at Sherrie Mae. She had raised her head. For the first time in my life, it appeared a girl might have fallen madly in love with me.

  To my relief, the bell rang, but Mrs. Kilwood left no doubt I was in a lot of trouble, when she instructed me to stay after class.

  She waited until all of my classmates were gone, and then closed her classroom door. I was still standing in front of her desk, when she approached me.

  All I could think of was having to attend summer school so I could retake English, but how would that be possible when I needed to work full time at the grocery store during those months to help my mom make ends meet. I had let her down again.

  Mrs. Kilwood placed her arm around me and gave me a little hug,
before stepping back.

  “Your mother raised a gentleman. She must be very proud of you. You may leave now.”

  A great relief came over me. I still had a good chance to pass my English class, plus, I had a date to the prom.