Chapter 74 – Opening Secrets – Holly Hayfield

My position as Ms. Sampson’s favorite little puppet was quickly becoming annoying. It was easy to imagine how Ms. Logan’s mental state would further deteriorate over the course of years of dealing with Jackie Sampson. I needed to relax. That wouldn’t be in the schedule for me until I got home, however. I still had a student council meeting to attend after school. This student council meeting was going to be different because now class representatives from each homeroom had been chosen.

“Welcome to our first Student Council and Class Representative meeting.” Val said as she spoke to our small crowd.

This meeting was taking place in the tabled section of the library. Just like with the Student Corrections Authority meeting, the tables were arranged into a forum design. Only the student council members themselves sat at the front. Sam was absent, however. Riley, of all people, was sitting in her place. This fact wasn’t lost on one of the class representatives. Alison Yale had somehow made herself class representative for her home room.

“Excuse me, but shouldn’t the actual student relations officer be here?” Alison asked.

“What…? You don’t want me as the new officer?” Riley asked with a playful laugh.

Alison wasn’t amused. Val slapped Riley’s shoulder to quiet her.

“I insisted the same thing to Sam, but I guess you already know how she is. She’s stubborn. You already know that we didn’t see eye-to-eye on the club system. Now she’s made herself scarce.” Val said.

One of the class representatives raised a hand.

“Hi, that’s what I wanted to ask you about.” She said, “Someone in my classroom asked if there’s a time limit to turn in their club registration form. How long do they have?”

Lilith cleared her throat.

“Anyone can turn one in to the student council at any time. I spend a lot of time here in the library. If you see me on duty at the counter you can just hand it to me.” Lilith said.

Although Lilith’s position as a library assistant made her the practical choice, something like that was technically Sam’s responsibility. Some of the class reps whispered amongst themselves about that. I could tell Alison realized this in full by the funny look she shot me. She knew there was dissent in our ranks. Knowing her, she probably wouldn’t be satisfied with Riley taking her spot. Riley was just Val’s useful idiot.

“Also Jay and I are office assistants,” Val said, “You can send the registration forms to the front office if Lilith isn’t available.”

Another girl raised her hand.

“I have a follow up question about that. There was a rule each club has to be approved by a member of the staff. Can members of student council sign off on that instead?”

“No,” Val said, “You’ll have to get separate permission from a staff member.”

“What about Holly?” One girl called out. “She’s technically a junior member of the staff.”

They whispered amongst themselves. Val gave me a curious look. The truth was that I wasn’t sure myself. There were no real lines drawn around the extent of my staff-level permissions. The fact of the matter was that Ms. Sampson would probably allow it, knowing that I’d pay her back somehow in the future. She was always willing to give me more gifts in return for putting myself further into her debt. In fact, she’d probably be all too happy to see my name signed in that section of a registration form.

“I can,” I said, “However I’ll only do it if all other options have been exhausted. The members of the staff are supposed to check up on the clubs that they vouched for. As you might imagine, I’m pretty busy with the student council and separately counseling people. I’ll only act as a stand-in as a last resort.”

They all seemed satisfied with that answer. After that, Val was able to move the topic away from the club registration questions. The next rounds of questions were about the Student Corrections Authority. Most people seemed to think that they were like a beefed up hall-monitor program, which wasn’t too far from the truth. Val couldn’t give exact clarifications and it was easy to see her dancing around the topic. She didn’t want to limit herself only to walk back on her word later on.

“With all that wrapped up, I think now is a good time for us to end the meeting here.” Val said. “Thank you all for coming. Holly will let you know over the morning announcements when the next meeting is.”

It didn’t take long for everyone to gather their belongings and leave. A few stayed behind to help us move the library tables back into their usual positions. Most notably, Alison stayed behind, as I guessed she would. She made a subtle effort to make it look like her advance towards me looked natural. However, this was one of those body language things that I had learned to see through.

“Holly, do you have a minute?” She asked. “I’d like to talk to you about the Sam situation.”

“I thought you might.” I admitted. “What is it?”

“Riley isn’t actually taking Sam’s spot, is she? I’d like to think that Val would be wiser than to choose someone like that.”

“Of course it isn’t permanent.”

“Good.” She said happily, “Then I’d like to submit my candidacy.”

My jaw would’ve dropped if I hadn’t seen this coming. Did this girl have any shame? Sam missed a single meeting and Alison was already writing her off. It seemed like she was willing to do anything to advance her position just a little bit more. That was why she was appearing to me now as a class rep, another responsibility she had picked up. Now she was asking for more?

“Alison, Sam is coming back. Just because she wasn’t here today doesn’t mean she’s walking out on the student council as a whole.”

“I know, I know…” She said, trying to play it cool, “It’s just in case that she doesn’t live up to her duties as a member of the student council. You can always count on me, unlike Sam.”

“You don’t understand. Sam has helped me since the very first day I met her. She’s been there for me when I needed her. I’m not going to abandon her that easily.”

“I’m not saying that you have to. I’m only saying that you should know the truth about Miss Quinn.”

“The truth…?”

“Have you wondered why I called her the She-wolf?” Alison asked. “She was called the She-wolf of East Oak Academy after she snapped one day. She couldn’t take all the pressure she was under and lost it. The Samantha I used to know and the Samantha that you know are two entirely different people. One was more like me. The other is, well... Let’s just say she’s a bit eccentric. That might be putting it lightly after what she did to the soccer field back at East Oak Academy.”

“What did she do?” I asked curiously.

Alison grinned.

“You’re not going to believe this, but Sam was pretty mad over being kicked out for her repeat foul behavior. She took one of those big jerry cans of gasoline and…”

Alison’s story was interrupted by Val putting a hand on her shoulder. Alison jumped in surprise to see Val behind her. It was unclear how long she had been standing there or how much of Alison's speech she had heard. Val had an annoyed look on her face. Alison tried to hide her concern behind a friendly smile.

“Sam and I might not get along that well, it’s true.” Val said, “But I trust her, a hell of a lot more than I trust you. I’m going to have to cut your chat with Holly short. You’re free to stay in the library if you want, but the student council is about to have an exclusive meeting.”

Alison either couldn’t muster up the courage to say anything back, or she had nothing to defend herself with. Her scheming nature had been openly revealed. She nodded respectfully at both Val and I before backing away casually. She smoothly walked off, acting like the confrontation never happened. Val gave me an expression that seemed to be filled with suspicion.

“If that girl says anything weird to you then you come and tell me right away.” Val whispered. “Let’s go back into the student council room.”

The student council meeting felt different without Sam sitting in her usual spot beside me at the far end of the table. Lilith was busy looking through some papers she brought into the student council room with her. Jay was scrolling on her phone. Val was filling out some paperwork that looked to be about club registration. I was the only one with nothing left to do.

“How did things go with Detective Richardson? You talked to him today, right?” Val finally asked without looking up from her work.

“I did. I want to say that things went well, but Ms. Sampson is still as suspicious as ever. He asked me about her connection with my parole officer, Angel.”

This caused Lilith to turn her attention from her work.

“Angelica Morelli was on that list the Occult Club had after all,” Lilith said, “She’s guilty too. Everyone that was on that list is.”

I faced towards Lilith.

“Speaking of which, I noticed that that list somehow found its way to the Immortal Diary website. Was that you’re doing? The artwork too…?”

“I couldn’t just let it go to waste!” Lilith said in her defense, “The Occult Club was sitting on top of information that people needed to know about!”

“We talked about acting rashly like this. Hell, you even talked to the Occult Club about it yourself.”

“You’re misunderstanding the point I made to the Occult Club.” Lilith said, “I never disagreed with the fact they were publicizing information. That was my plan in the first place. I disagreed with the method they were doing it. No one knows who is behind the Immortal Diary.”

“Does it even matter?” Val asked. “The website has little uptick in the way of visitors.”

“You might not be happy to hear about the person that asked me about the website.” I said.

“Who was it?” Val asked.

“Erica,” I said, “She and Zoe unraveled the mystery behind Megan’s video. I don’t know what their plans are, but the knowledge about the link is out there. If I can go by Erica’s reaction then I think a few other people know about it also. It’s impossible to know how popular it will become right now.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at me in silence. This was the development that they had probably been waiting on. The website had just been sitting there with few visitors, but now it was like a roller-coaster approaching the top of a hill. It would only pick up speed from here on out. The first domino had fallen.

“Erica…” Val said to herself, “What did she say about it?”

“She couldn’t believe it. She was beside herself because she thought she knew the vice principal well enough to not believe the story. Yet, she couldn’t help but believe.”

“That’s good!” Lilith said, “If even she believes it then everyone else will!”

“I’m afraid you might be right.” I said to Lilith, “This could grow out of our ability to control very quickly.”

Val put her pen down to give the conversation her full attention.

“That’s what was planned.” Val said in a firm voice, “Our main role was to make this information available to the public in a way that wouldn’t risk our personal safety. That role is finished. Now we can only wait and see how this develops among the student population.”

“Ms. Sampson definitely isn’t taking things well,” Jay noted, “She’s been hung up about the detective ever since he took up an office of his own inside the school. It looks like this whole thing won’t go away as quickly as she hoped for.”

“That isn’t all,” I said, “According to Erica, Ms. Sampson believes everything that’s happening now was coordinated by Ms. Logan. I don’t think she knows about Malorie’s diary yet, but she will likely blame Ms. Logan.”

“Good, good…” Val said softly, “It almost makes it look like Ms. Logan had some sort of dead man’s switch when she died. If Ms. Sampson is so focused on Ms. Logan then now is the perfect time for Malorie’s story to go big.”

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“That we fan the flames.” Val said.