It was just before sunrise, and as the Muse ran by a garbage truck she tossed the glass cutter inside. Of course there was no name written on it, but she figured her bluff was a nice touch. And it had worked.
Her neck was still a little stiff, but nothing that a good night's sleep couldn't fix. Of course, for her, a good night was about two or three hours.
She soon arrived home and managed to quietly crawl into her window. She fumbled into some pajamas and finally col-lapsed onto her bed.
Emma wondered if she had slept at all when her alarm went off. It was the usual routine-she wanted to continue to sleep, but the alarm clock insisted otherwise.
Right on schedule, her mother refereed with a knock on the door. "Get up," she said. "You're going to be late for school!"
This was a battle Emma never won.
After somehow getting up and ready for school, she joined her parents in the kitchen for breakfast.
Unlike most teens, Emma got along with her parents.
Except that they were way too normal. Her father was a well-respected judge, and her mother a substitute teacher who did more community work than one would think possible.
They always took an interest in everything Emma did and encouraged her along the way. Sometimes Emma imagined it was too good to be true-they had to be channeling TV par-ents from late night reruns.
"Good morning, pumpkin head," her mother said cheerful-ly. "How about an English muffin?"
"Sure," said Emma as she poured herself some orange juice.
"So," her father said from behind his newspaper, "are you ready for finals?"
"I still have a couple of days to study," she replied, "but I think I'm gonna nail them."
"Good," her father said. "I only hope you don't get spring fever."
"I'll take some echinacea to be on the safe side," she joked.
Her father either didn't get it, or didn't think it was funny.
"So what are your plans for this summer?"
"Sleep."
"For three months?" her mother asked with a laugh.
"I should be caught up by then."
"And when you're not sleeping?" Her father raised an eye-brow.
"Then it's off to the beach with my teen magazines and dreams of some hunky actor," said Emma.
Her father folded his paper. " That may be a nice weekend activity, but I think it's time you spent your weekdays a little less frivolously."
You should see how I spend my week nights, she thought.
"What do you mean?" she said.
"I think you should take an internship at the courthouse with me."
"An internship?" Emma said with a hint of whine. "That's like working-for free."
"You're working for the experience," her father said.
"You've said plenty of times you were interested in studying law in college. Well, imagine how good all those applications you'll be filling out next year will look if you can include this experience on them."
"It will look like a girl who didn't have fun on her summer vacation," Emma pouted.
"You'll have time for fun," her father said. "It's not like I'll be working you forty hours a week."
"Only because the labor laws won't let you," Emma attempted to joke again.
"I think it's a great idea," her mother said. "And we can go shopping for some new outfits."
What girl didn't like shopping? Though Emma was plan-ning to spend her summer in shorts and old boy band T-shirts.
"Your friends can come visit you for lunch," said her father.
"Think how impressed they'll be, visiting a friend in such a prestigious position."
"I don't think they're the ones who'll be jealous," Emma mumbled.
"It's either that, or serving fries at a fast food place. You're seventeen. You should be working."
"Either for fries or for free, huh?" Emma said. The choice was obvious.
"As soon as finals are over, we'll discuss the details," her father said. " You need to focus on getting good grades first."
"And being on time," her mother reminded her, "so you bet-ter get moving."
With a heavy sigh, Emma grabbed her backpack and left the house.
On the days that Emma was not late for school, she met her friends on the benches by the flagpole. Today, they didn't have much time before homeroom, but still enough time for Emma to complain.
"I can't believe my dad wants me to work at the courthouse this summer," she whined to her friends.
"That's so cool," they said at the same time.
"Did my parents pay you to say that?" she said.
"No," said Brett, "but this is an opportunity for you to get experience in what you want to do."
"Yeah, you get to see justice in action," Dawn said.
"I am justice in action," she reminded them. "Besides, I'll be an intern, the bottom of the barrel. My days will be filled with jammed staplers and paper cuts."
As she spoke, Grayson Bishop was making his way past them toward the school building, winking at Emma along the way.
"At least you won't have to deal with Grayson Bishop,"
said Dawn, trying to look on the bright side.
"I'll remember that when you guys are tanning at the beach."
"I don't tan," Dawn said. "I burn too easily. Though I do love to go to the beach and read."
"You're not helping," Emma said as she started inside.
"I hate the beach," Brett said.
"Sure you do." Emma wasn't buying it.
Out of the corner of his eye, Brett noticed Gloria getting out of a luxurious town car. She appeared more stunning than the previous day. Even though she was dressed in jeans and a pink blouse, her looked like she was heading out for a night on the town.
Emma and Dawn entered the building without much thought of Gloria, but Brett stopped and held the door open for her.
"Thank you," she said, stepping inside.
During homeroom, the principal made his usual morning announcements about lunch menus and afterschool activities.
But then, his voice turned somber:
"I received a call this morning from the Legion of Honor. It appears that during our visit, one of their artifacts was stolen.
They do not accuse our students of stealing it, but they would like any information you may have in locating it.
"The sword was stolen from the Greek History room-"
In three separate homerooms, three separate pairs of ears suddenly perked up.
"I would be very disappointed to learn any of my students were involved in such reckless theft," the principal continued, "but I will happily hear in confidence any information that may help regain this artifact."
As the PA crackled off, mumbles of suspicion began rum-bling through Emma's homeroom.
"Who'd steal a sword from a museum?"
"Bet it was Grayson Bishop."
"Or Derek Archer…didn't he go nuts earlier this year?"
"How'd they sneak it onto the bus?"
"Are they saving it for the medieval fair this summer?"
The vocal questions that spun around Emma were nothing like the ones in her head. Was this just a coincidence that some-thing from the Greek History room was stolen? Or did this mean that something big was brewing?
Dawn and Brett couldn't catch up to Emma fast enough before their first class.
"I know, I know," Emma greeted them before they could say anything. "I'm thinking the same thing."
"Do you have any idea who would steal such a thing," Brett said, "and not get noticed?"
"There had to be security cameras," Dawn said. Her father was a cop, and from the sound of it, most places with valuables had security cameras.
"It could be a coincidence," Emma said, trying to look at the situation for all angles; the debate club had taught her that.
"Still, the idea of somebody walking around with a sword is not very appealing. Somebody could get hurt. Probably me."
"We'll keep our ears to the ground," Dawn said. "People are sure to be talking about it. So if it was a student, somebody's gotta slip up."
As they walked into history class they thought it seemed noisier than usual.
"She is so hot!" one of the guys exclaimed.
"It's like one of my fantasies came to life!" another sighed.
Emma and Dawn glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes. High school boys were usually pretty obnoxious, but this was too much.
"What's going on?" Emma asked nobody in particular.
"Gloria," Brett sighed. " That's what happened."
"Gloria?" Dawn asked. "The new girl?"
"Mmmm hmmm," Brett said with a nod of his head.
"I guess spring is in the air," Dawn said.
"Sounds like a lot of that is going around," Emma said.
"Brett, don't tell me you're gaga over this new girl."
"She is cute," Brett said as he took his seat, "but the com-petition is fierce."
"She's a girl," Dawn said, "not an Olympic event."
"But," Dawn thought further, "it is strange that on her first day, something is stolen from a museum."
"Yeah, but if you remember," Brett said, "she sat next to me. I think I would have noticed something like a sword on her person."
"I think anybody carrying a sword would be obvious,"
Emma said.
"Maybe it wasn't anybody from our class," Brett suggested.
"Or they just moved it," Dawn added.
Emma took all this in, but she could say no more because class was starting and Mr. Coco began reviewing for the histo-ry final.
Emma and her friends walked out of the room after history class to find Mr. Rivers waiting in the hallway. They assumed he was there to talk to Mr. Coco, since they always worked on projects together.
But Mr. Rivers raised his hand and called, "Emma, can I talk to you for a minute?"
Dawn smiled playfully at her friend. It was no secret that Emma had a crush on her old Western Civ instructor, though Emma protested that she only thought he was a great teacher.
Emma excused herself from her friends and walked over to Mr. Rivers.
"Yes sir?" she asked.
"I'm sure you heard the Principal's announcement this morning…" he said.
"Yes," Emma replied, "and I'm looking forward to noodles and gravy for lunch."
"Very funny," Mr. Rivers smiled.
He really thinks I'm funny, Emma thought, containing her need to giggle.
"I was more concerned about the artifact taken from the museum," he said.
"Yeah, that wasn't good," she told him, "but I don't think anyone from our class took it."
"Why do you say that?"
"I think we would have noticed somebody coming back on the bus with a sword," she explained. "It's not like they can fold it and hide it in their backpack."
"Good point," he nodded. "I knew you were the right per-son to ask; you are very observant. But if you remember seeing something suspicious at the museum or think of anything else, please let me know."
"Will do," Emma said, motioning to move away. "I don't want to be late for class."
"Neither do I," Mr. Rivers said and strolled off in the other direction.
When Emma caught up with her friends, Dawn couldn't wait to shout: "Spring is in the air."
"Quiet, you," Emma returned, then noticed one of them was missing. "Where's Brett?"
Dawn pointed across the hall.
Brett was at Gloria's locker, trying to help her get it open.
When you enroll in a new school at the end of the year, you may end up getting the one locker everyone else passed up. In this case, apparently the reason was that this one was stuck.
Dawn and Emma stood back, amused and watched Brett struggle with the door.
"She is beautiful, isn't she?" the voice of Grayson Bishop echoed toward them.
The girls did not dignify the comment with a response.
"By the end of the school year, you can bet Gloria will be on my arms."
He then strode up to the locker and gave it a good solid WHACK in his best Fonzie impression. Assuming that was all that was necessary to open it, Grayson didn't even break stride as he moved on to his next class without another glance.
The locker was still stuck.
"What's his problem?" Gloria asked Brett.
"Where to begin…" Brett said, not gaining any ground with the door.
Emma reached into her backpack and pulled out her wallet.
She removed her movie rental card and stepped up to the locker. She slid the card into the lock and quickly jimmied it open.
"There you go," said Emma.
She and Dawn continued on to their next class.
Gloria said nothing.
"You're welcome," Emma shouted back at her.