CHAPTER 4: LIFE ON THE FRONTLINE

Thibault went to Joe's to grab a bite to eat. When he got there, he saw Peppermint Patty and Franco eating their meal. He decided to get his order first and then go catch up with them. Patty ad Franco caught a glimpse of him but didn't know who he was.

"Hey Franco," Patty said to her boyfriend. "Check out that strange kid over there. Does he think he's about to go to war?"

"He actually looks familiar, Patricia," said Franco.

"You know, now that you mention it, he does look familiar." As soon as Thibault got closer to them, Patty and Franco recognized him immediately.

"Thibault, you're back!" exclaimed Patty. "When'd you get into town?"

"Last night," said Thibault. "I'm pretty much home for Christmas. I go back to military school after the New Year."

"Well we're glad to have you back if just for a short time," said Patty.

"Care to join us?" asked Franco.

"Sure, why not?" Thibault sat down and joined Patty and Franco. Marcie and Hans walked in at that moment.

"Hi, sir. Hi, Franco," greeted Marcie.

"Who's new friend?" asked Hans.

"Actually an old friend," Patty replied. "It's Thibault. He's back for the holidays."

"Do I need to rough him up for you, sir?" asked Marcie.

"Relax, Marcie. He's not starting any trouble."

"Actually, I'm glad you're here," said Thibault. "I wanted to apologize to you for how I acted before on the ball field towards you. It was wrong of me to discriminate against you because you're a girl."

Marcie couldn't believe what she was hearing. Was this the same boy who, years earlier, talked about how she wasn't supposed to be on the ball field and even kicked dirt on her, apologizing to her? And he was actually dressed in his military school uniform and being respectful.

"Well, thank you, Thibault," said Marcie. "That's all I wanted from you. Apology accepted."

"So what are things like at the school?" asked Peppermint Patty.

"Well, for the most part the school is okay," said Thibault. "A lot of the kids are nice, except for one of them and two of his friends. His name is Deidrick and his friends are Leroy and Bones. Deidrick is the worst of the trio, though, because he is the son of the Colonel who runs the school."

"So he's pretty much privileged, eh?" said Patty.

"That would be the mother of all understatements, Patty," Thibault replied. "He's pretty much stuck up and snobby. He'd make my ex Patty's friend Violet look down to earth by comparison."

"Wow, that bad?" asked Marcie.

"Pretty much. Anyway, the rest of us kids have been discussing what to do about the whole Deidrick problem and how to put him in his place without getting in trouble ourselves. We may have to sink to his level to combat the issue head on."

"What exactly does he do to you guys?" Peppermint Patty asked.

"On a good day, he forces one of us to make his bed and shine his shoes. That's the least of what he forces us to do. Then he'll get a kid to do his homework for him, otherwise suffer consequences by a late-night blanket party."

"A late-night blanket party?" asked Marcie.

"He'll have his friends hold each end of a blanket, while he beats a kid with a bar of soap wrapped in a towel. It's very painful. I'm lucky that hasn't happened to me, yet. Or he'll make someone scrub the floor with a toothbrush. And not just some random toothbrush, that kid's own toothbrush!"

"Sounds to me like that kid needs his landscape rearranged," said Patty.

"Well we all agreed that after Christmas break, we'd talked to the major about what Deidrick was doing to us. And if the major wouldn't, or couldn't do anything about him, we'd take matters into our own hands."

"Wow, sounds like you have a bit of trouble on your hands," said Patty.

"Anyway, what's been going on with you guys?" asked Thibault.

"More like what hasn't been going on with us," said Patty. "Well as it turned out, during the Homecoming game a couple of years ago before the one this year, Chuck didn't lose us the game as I originally thought, but it was Lucille pulling the ball away from him. She convinced me that it was a force of habit. But as it turned out, she planned it just to humiliate him in front of a crowd. She somewhat succeeded and I didn't help matters either. But how it was found out that she conspired to humiliate him was during this year's Homecoming dance when video footage shot by the previous Homecoming Queen with help from Marcie here surfaced at the dance of her talking about her scheme with Violet. And even worse, she forced Chuck's own dog to help her as he was the official that year. She told Snoopy to look the other way otherwise she'd hurt him and even give him to a cat who lives next door to Chuck that's pretty vicious. I know firsthand how vicious that cat is, because I was mad at Snoopy about giving me that info on a dog school thinking it was an elite school, if you recall.

"Anyway, after the footage was played, everyone was upset with Lucille, but no people more than Chuck and myself. Chuck especially severed ties with her and hasn't spoken to her since. I was angry because she lied to me about her intentions. But almost everyone had stopped talking to her, except for a few folks. That's when she was recruited by the Serpent Sisters."

"The Serpent Sisters?" said Thibault.

"A female gang in town. Lucille joined up with them as a result of being made a pariah of Sparkyville. They have been doing some crazy mischief around town. And even worse, they destroyed the remedial school you went to before leaving for military school."

"So they were behind that? When I got home, I saw police patrolling the grounds there. A kid told me a gang had trashed the place."

"Yep. And I even suspected them of egging Marcie's house on Halloween. But they denied having anything to do with it. Lucille just recently told me that a leader of a rival gang said it was rogue members of said rival gang. While the Serpents did egg and toilet paper other houses in a different neighborhood, they were never near our neighborhood."

"A lot's been going on since I left, eh?" Thibault replied.

"To say the least," said Marcie. "And Lucille is still in that gang right now."

"Things have been quiet lately, though," added Peppermint Patty. "But we think the Serpents may seek out that rogue set of kids who were behind vandalizing our neighborhood, eventually."

"I'm kind of sorry I missed the excitement," laughed Thibault. And for the rest of the afternoon, Thibault, Patty, Marcie, Franco, and Hans caught up on everything that's happened in town and what Thibault's been up to at the military school.

NEXT CHAPTER: MUCH-NEEDED EVIDENCE