Passport
"Where is it?" Spencer exclaimed, tearing apart his kitchen.
"Hey, Spence," Freddie said as him, Sam and Gibby walked into the apartment. "Um…what are you doing?"
"Trying to find my stupid passport!" Spencer said, rummaging through a drawer.
"Oh that's right, you're going to Italy to visit Carly and your dad next week," Sam said.
"Not if I can't find my passport!"
"You can just borrow mine," Gibby offered.
"Gib, you can't just loan out passports," Freddie explained. "If Spencer got caught trying to use someone else's passport, he would be in serious trouble."
"Yeah, and I am not going back to airport jail!" Spencer said.
"Not the funnest jail," Sam agreed, sitting down on the couch.
"Hey, you know what we should do tonight?" Gibby said as Freddie sat down next to Sam, putting an arm around her. "We should make origami!"
"Origami?" Freddie frowned. "Um…isn't that a bit…odd?"
"Oh, well sorry for trying to bring some culture into the group," Gibby snapped.
"I'll origami you," Sam mumbled, texting someone on her Pearphone.
"And anyway, Sam and I have dinner reservations tonight," Freddie said.
"And I'm not invited?" Gibby said indignantly.
"Well…it's sort of a date," Freddie told him. "But we can all go out to dinner tomorrow night. You free baby?"
"Huh? Oh yeah, sure," Sam said, not looking up from her phone screen.
"You texting Carly?" Freddie asked. "Tell her I say 'hey'."
"It's not Carly," Sam said, quickly putting her phone away.
"Whoa, you text other people besides Carly?" Gibby said.
"I have other friends!" Sam frowned, throwing one of the couch cushions at Gibby, causing to fall back and trip over the coffee table.
"Hey! Unzip that couch cushion and look inside it!" Spencer said as he began yanking books off the bookshelf. "My passport might be inside it!"
"Kay kay," Gibby said weakly, rubbing his head.
"You've been texting ever since we left school," Freddie said. "If you aren't talking to Carly, then who are you talking to?"
"Um…you-you remember that chick Dana? From prison?" Sam said.
"You mean the one who tied me, Gib and Carly to a wall and threw things at us?" Freddie recalled bitterly. "Yeah…I remember her. I didn't know you were still friends with her."
"I'm not," Sam sighed.
"Then why are you texting her?" Freddie frowned.
"She-She's still sort of mad that I beat her up with my butter sock, saved you guys and ruined her smash party," Sam explained. "So for the past two week she's been texting me saying that 'I'm gonna get it' and that her and her little group of prison girls are gonna make me pay."
"Wait, she's threatening you?" Freddie exclaimed.
"Hold on, what?" Spencer said, looking up from the jacket pockets he was looking in. "You're getting threats from a group of prison girls?"
"Yeah," Sam shrugged. "But whatever, they're probably all talk."
"Who cares!? They're still threatening you!" Freddie said. "Sam, this is serious! Who knows what those girls are capable of?"
"Nothing more than I am," Sam pointed out.
"Yeah, but you-you wouldn't do what they might do," Freddie said. "You've straightened out; they haven't."
"Yeah, I don't like this," Spencer said seriously. "I'm gonna call the cops right now and-"
"No!" Sam said. "That's-That's just crazy. I told you, Dana and her backup gang are nothing. I can take care of myself. Especially with this baby." She pulled her butter sock out of her bag.
"It looks bigger than usual," Gibby commented.
"That's because there's two sticks of hard butter in there now," Sam grinned.
"Baby…please, you're not invincible," Freddie said.
"You're calling me weak?"
"No, I'm calling you human!" Freddie said. "I know you're tough and can beat up practically anybody, but if these girls really want to hurt you…What if they call in more of their prison friends? Or come after you with a real weapon that could destroy your butter sock?"
"They're not gonna-" Sam started.
"Sam, he's right," Spencer said. "You need to call the cops and-"
"No way," Sam said firmly. "Besides, you don't think calling the cops on this crazy chick would make her even more angry? And anyway, Dana's been texting me for two weeks already and she hasn't done anything! I know her; she's just angry and chiz right now, but in a few days she'll find an abandoned car, steal it, and be all happy again and forget about me."
"Sam, I don't think-"
"Baby, come on, just drop it, okay?" Sam said. "Please?"
Freddie sighed in defeat. "Okay."
….
A few hours later, after Freddie had dropped Sam off at her house after their date, Freddie returned to Spencer's apartment.
"Hey," he said. "You find your passport yet?"
"Nope," Spencer said, dialing a number on his Pearphone.
"Who you calling?"
"The cops," Spencer said. "To tell them about Dana threatening Sam."
"I was just about to do the same thing," Freddie said. "She's probably gonna be real mad at us, but I don't care. I'd rather have a mad Sam that a hurt Sam…"
"I know," Spencer said. "Here, I'll put the phone on speaker so you can hear."
"Hello, Seattle Police Department," a voice on Spencer's phone said.
"Hey, I need to report some threatening text messages that have been sent to a friend of mine," Spencer said. "The threats are coming from a girl named Dana…."
"Hackman," Freddie finished.
"Dana Hackman?" the police officer said. "Hang on…she was just brought in here by a patrol officer about twenty minutes ago."
"Really? Well that's great!" Spencer said. "At least she's off the streets. But is there anything you can do about the text messages she has been sending?"
"Yeah…just give me a minute though," the officer said. "If you want to file and new accusation against her I'll need to pull up a new report. Her and some pals of hers are in here right now for assaulting another girl, and-"
"Wait, wait, wait!" Freddie said, his eyes widening. "Another girl…was-was her name Samantha Puckett?"
"Puckett…Puckett…yes," the officer said. "That was her. The officer who brought Hackman and the others in had to pull them all off of her."
"Well is she okay?" Spencer asked hurriedly.
"A little beaten up, but nothing too bad," the officer said. "She's down here at the station right now answering some questions, but-"
"Come on," Freddie said as Spencer quickly hung up his phone. "We got to get over there!"
…..
"Hi, um, we need to get Sam Puckett right now," Freddie said urgently to the first officer he saw at the police station as him and Spencer rushed in.
"You her family?" the officer asked.
"Um…sure," Spencer nodded.
"Oh, okay. Right this way," the officer said, leading Freddie and Spencer to an interview room.
As the officer opened the door, Freddie saw Sam sitting in a chair, her face scratched up and a definite shiner sprouting around her left eye. Her arm was wrapped up with gauze and she was clutching her stomach with her other arm.
"Sam!" Freddie exclaimed, running in and wrapping his arms around his girlfriend. "Are you okay? What happened?"
"How-How'd you two know I was here?" Sam frowned.
"That's not important," Spencer said quickly.
"Dana and her friends did this to you?" Freddie frowned. "Did-Did they break into your house or something?"
"Um, no," Sam sighed. "After you dropped me off, I started sort of craving a smoothie, so I decided to walk over to the Groovy Smoothie. And that's when Dana showed up…"
"Baby, I told you, you shouldn't mess around with her," Freddie said gently.
Sam didn't reply.
"Is your mom coming?" Spencer asked her.
"Yeah, she's on her way," Sam nodded.
"When she gets here, we should get you to a hospital to get checked out," Freddie said, looking at a nasty cut on her forehead. "Did you hit your head? You might have a concussion."
"No, I'm fine," Sam sighed. "Besides…you should see Dana and the other four. I heard an officer say that they're gonna have to go to the hospital before they get shipped off to prison. I told you I could handle myself."
"Sam, look at you!" Freddie said. "You're all scraped up! And if a police officer hadn't come in and broken this whole thing up, who knows what could've happened! I just wish…I just wish you'd just realize that even you need to be protected sometimes and can't always take care of yourself."
Sam looked down at her lap. "But…that's how I've always been. I've always taken care of myself with this sort of thing."
"I know," Freddie said gently, taking her hand. "But now you have me."
