Chapter 02. It's Always The Bullies...
"JJ I've been meaning to call Keelies school all morning and get to the bottom of why my daughter all of a sudden feels the need to miss class. She fooled me pretending to be sick this morning."
"She pretended to be sick?" JJ repeated in disbelief as she flipped close the magazine she had laid out on her leg as she sat in her favorite sofa chair when she came over to visit.
"Mhm." Penelope mumbled loudly from the laundry room so her best friend could still hear her. "She made me look bad in front of Derek! Oh JJ, I was so embarrassed!"
The blonde let out a giggle imagining Pen's mortified expression when she found out her daughter was pretending.
"Jayje." Penelope whined. "It's not funny." She brushed a strand of hair from her face and sat the laundry basket down onto the counter.
"I'm sorry, it's just-"
"The kids have me figured out by taking my kindness for weakness, while they know their father can smell bullshit a mile away?"
JJ inwardly smiled and gave Penelope a nod.
She flipped her off.
JJ bellowed over in laugher, shocked at her best friends gesture. Oh man, if Pen was flipping her off, this indeed was a serious touchy matter.
"Okay okay. All jokes aside. What's this really about?"
Penelope stopped folding her husband's T-shirt and walked around the counter over towards JJ.
"Since when have you heard that Keelie didn't want to go to school?"
JJ thought about it for a moment then shook her head. "Never."
"Exactly. Keelie Morgan doesn't miss school."
JJ quietly sipped her tea.
"My daughter might be a sarcastic little shit,"
JJ interrupted with a giggle again, knowing that Derek has used that term more than often about their child, proud that she took up after him.
"But she loves school, and everything about it." Penelope finished.
"I still remember that time the poor thing was purposely trying to fail a class just so she could go to summer school." JJ added.
Penelope nodded. "Uh huh, so you get my point. My daughter has taken drastic measures to attend school, so why the opposite today?"
After awhile, JJ shrugged. "So you guys never found out."
"Nope. She was too upset with her father to give us an explanation." She reached for her cell phone.
"Who are you calling?"
"The school."
"Pen wait," JJ stood abruptly with her mug in hand.
Penelope lowered her phone.
"Maybe we can disguise ourselves as teenage girls and infiltrate her circle of friends."
Penelope looked at JJ as if she had grown 5 heads and JJ started to laugh.
"I'm joking." Her eyes teased.
Penelope rested her fingers on her forehead and blew out air as if she were relieved. JJ playfully pushed her as she walked by to the sink to dump the remains of her afternoon tea.
Derek had just walked through the front door of his five bedroom house. He toed off his boots and loosened his belt buckle, ready to plop down on the couch to catch up on ESPN, when invisible wind blew his wife into the living room.
"Sit down Derek, we need to talk." She said in a clipped tone, indicating something had pissed her off.
"Okay." He said slowly. "What's up?"
"Apparently our daughter has been absent 4 times this month."
Derek's eyes popped out of its sockets. "Who? Aaliyah?"
Aaliyah Re Ann Morgan is their oldest daughter. She's a sweet girl thats the perfect combination of her parents. She's beautiful and spends a substantial amount of time in the gym. But she's a bit of a bubble head, and more worried about her appearance or where she stands on the social ladder at school rather than caring about her grades.
Towards the middle of her senior year of high school, Aaliyah got involved with a knucklehead football player, -the kind of guy Derek warned her about most of her life-, and having the naive DNA trait from her mother, she fell 'in love' and wound up pregnant.
"That would be understandable." Penelope answered. "But no, I'm talking about Kee."
"Hey." Keelie announced as she bounced into the living room eating a push pop ice cream.
Both parents gave her a death glare and Keelie felt a sinking feeling in her gut.
"Whoops, my mistake. Why don't you two continue whatever conversation you were having while I slink away quietly camouflaging with the walls."
"Park it!" Derek pointed to the couch once he unfolded his arms that were folded on his chest.
Keelies shoulders slouched and she did as told.
"Kee is it true, that you missed 4 days of school?"
"Yes." She said in a low voice. "But it was you that signed the notes."
Penelope gasped and Derek put his hands on his hips giving Penelope an incredulous look.
The tables were now turned.
"You tricked me!" She blurted out while pointing her finger. "You said you wanted my autograph."
Derek had to hold back his laugh for this wasn't the time for joking. But he had to admit, Keelie got her mom good with that one.
Reaching for his wife's shoulders and giving it a tight squeeze, Penelope got the hint that it was Derek's turn to take over.
Blood drained from his daughter's face once he stepped in front of her and that made him want to voice a big whoop of excitement. Their daughter might have it figured out that she can play her mother to her advantage, but Derek would be damned if one of his kids thought they could fool him.
"It would be very wise of you to stop preying on your mother." He held his daughter's eyes with his as he spoke calmly.
All Keelie could do was nod in agreement.
"And on the days when she did attend school," Penelope added. "She was cutting classes."
"Cutting?" Derek turned back around to face his daughter. "You don't cut classes." He had a quizzical look on his face.
"Exactly!" Penelope yelled from behind him as if they solved a mystery.
"Kee. What is going on?" He pleaded.
His daughter looked down in shame before looking back up making eye contact with both parents.
She sighed. "A couple of kids at school have been giving me a hard time. And some days I just don't feel like dealing with it."
Derek heard every word his daughter said, but something about her body language didn't match it.
Keelie averted her eyes from crossing paths with her father and looked to her mother who surprised her by sitting on the end of the coffee table near her with a ticked jaw.
"It's always the bullies... or the jocks... or the preps... The nerds aren't all that friendly either!"
It was clear Penelope had went into her own world having a flashback to her teenage years in high school.
Keelie and Derek both gave her a strange look.
"How long has this been going on?"
"My whole life." Penelope answered.
"Baby girrrrrrl." He waved his hand in front of his wife. "Are you with me?"
Coming back to the present, a scarlet color painted Penelope's cheeks and she nodded.
"Kee."
"I don't know, awhile."
"Sweetheart, how come you didn't say anything?"
"Why? So you can go all FBI mode and kick in their doors and tackle them?"
"Well..." Derek contemplated on the idea.
Penelope swatted at her husband's knee, to think that he even consider that thought.
"Sweetie, we would have called for a parent teacher conference..."
"That's even worse! That would embarrass me in front of everyone. This is high school mom, I'm a big girl!"
"Are you?" Derek cut in. "Because avoiding school and cutting classes, so you don't have to deal with a certain someone isn't quite something a big girl would do."
Keelies eyes got wide. Her dad basically just called her a punk.
Before Derek could backpedal what he just said, Keelie stood from her sitting position.
"I appreciate you two being concerned and wanting to help, but I have homework that I'm behind on that needs to get done." She headed for the stairs without a glance back.
Penelope watched her until she disappeared from sight while Derek was taken aback that she dismissed herself.
"Can you believe that? Our daughter being bullied?" Penelope moved and sat down correctly in the sofa chair. "She's a mini you in the flesh, I thought it would be her to be doing the bullying."
Derek gave his wife a pointed look before falling back onto the couch and doing some thinking.
"You know sweetness, believe it or not, ya baby boy wasn't always muscles and macho."
Penelope gasped.
"I had my share of being bullied too."
"No way! Not my hot stuff."
Detouring the attention off his confession, Derek went back to the situation at hand. "What are we going to do about this? She's obviously uncomfortable at the school..."
"And apparently doesn't want you to run up on the victims and arrests them." Penelope joked.
"Parent teacher conferences only drawl attention."
"And that would embarrass and definitely make matters worse."
"How so?"
"Honey, everyone knows that once a teacher knows, you're now considered a snitch."
Derek silently motioned for her to go on.
"That will only get you shoved into a locker with chalk up your nose, and chewing gum in your hair."
Derek stood up and gently grabbed onto his wife's wrists pulling her from her chair down onto him as he sat back down so she rested in his arms.
"Baby girl, I wish I had been there to protect you." He said softly as he rubbed her back.
"Ah well, I wish had been there for you too handsome."
He kissed his wife on the forehead and they both chuckled at themselves.
TO BE CONTINUED...