Before She Was Found. Heather Gudenkauf

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       Case #92-10945

      Excerpt from the journal of Cora E. Landry

       Nov. 9, 2017

       Violet and I have been eating lunch every day for the last few weeks. She’s quiet, like me, but we talk to each other. I even told her that I liked Gabe and I held my breath waiting for her to say that he was too cute or too popular for me, but she didn’t. She just nodded like it made sense.

       We don’t even have to talk all the time. Sometimes we just sit there and eat, not saying anything, and it doesn’t feel weird. Violet always gets hot lunch and I bring cold lunch from home. I think that maybe Violet gets free lunch. I think this because for the last three days the lunch lady only gave her a peanut butter sandwich, apple slices and a carton of milk. My sister says that’s what kids get who are behind on paying their lunch bill.

       My mom always packs me a sandwich, a clementine, a bag of chips and some kind of dessert. Today she put in a monster cookie. I broke it in half and tried to give Violet some but she said no thanks. I put it on her tray, anyway.

       The other night my mom dropped Violet and me off at the high school basketball game. I was excited because I hardly ever go to the basketball games. Gabe was already there and waved us over so we could sit next to him and his friends. Jordyn was sitting behind us and I could feel her glaring at me from three rows up.

       During the game, Gabe asked me for my cell phone number and I had to tell him that I didn’t have one. Violet jumped in and gave Gabe her cell phone number and said that we could text each other using her phone whenever I wanted. No one has ever done something that nice for me before.

       Violet decided to do our urban legend project on Pop Rocks candy and soda. Violet said she heard from her brother that this kid from an old cereal commercial died when his stomach exploded after drinking Coke mixed with Pop Rocks. I’ve never had Pop Rocks but Violet said that she’ll ask her mom to bring home a few packs from the gas station where she works and I can try them.

       At dinner I told my mom, dad and sister about the project and how cool Mr. Dover is. I talked about how Gabe and his partner wanted to do theirs about a woman whose butt implants exploded but Mr. Dover said no way. A lot of kids wanted to research gross urban legends about murders and ghosts and sex and stuff. Mr. Dover told us that if we didn’t want our grandmas to hear our reports to choose a different topic.

       Later, Kendall said Mr. Dover was a perv. Kendall told me to watch how he looked at the girls who had big boobs, then I’d see. What she said makes me have a sick feeling in my stomach. Mr. Dover has only been teaching here for a few years. Some people say he came here because he got in trouble at his old school. But I don’t think that can be true. They wouldn’t have hired him at our school if he did anything bad, would they?

       Mr. Dover is cute. He is tall and has longish hair that he pushes out of his eyes about a thousand times during class. He has a young face but he dresses like a teacher (except when he’s dressing up like Paul Revere or Abe Lincoln): khaki pants, button-down shirts with a tie. I told Kendall to shut up, that Mr. Dover was the nicest teacher at school. That he actually cared about kids. Then I came up to my room and cried, though I’m not sure why.

       For the next few days I watched Mr. Dover more closely. I didn’t see him looking at any boobs but it seems like he spent more time talking with girls than boys during class. In social studies, I whispered to Violet what Kendall said about Mr. Dover being a pervert and she laughed. She whispered back, “Hey, that should be our urban legend topic. ‘Mr. Dover: Social Studies Teacher or Child Molester?’” I laughed, too, but I felt icky that I brought it up. I like Mr. Dover.

       Jordyn came over and asked what we were laughing about and, thank God, Violet said it was nothing. I can just imagine Jordyn telling everyone that I called Mr. Dover a pervert. Jordyn actually sat down and talked to us for a few minutes about normal stuff. She even told me she liked the earrings I was wearing.

       Suddenly, I heard a voice say, “Ahem,” and when I turned around Mr. Dover was walking over to us. He stood really close behind Jordyn, put both of his hands on her shoulders and said, “Ladies, I hate to interrupt this obviously very important conversation you are having, but we’ve got work to do.”

      Violet’s eyes went wide and she gave me a look that said, Oh, my God, you’re right, he is a perv! She burst out laughing and I started laughing, too. Jordyn looked at us like we were crazy but then she started laughing, too, even though she had no idea why. Violet was laughing so hard she gave a loud hiccup. Then everyone started laughing.

       “Go get a drink, Violet,” Mr. Dover said, finally dropping his hands away from Jordyn’s shoulders. To the rest of the class he said, “Okay, comic relief is over, turn to page twenty-four in your books.”

       Violet hurried out of the room, hiccupping all the way. I pulled out my social studies book and when I looked over at Jordyn she was smiling at me. Smiling like a friend would. Maybe she’s not as bad as I thought.