Just a wild and crazy guy (Heather)

You discover your boss is involved in illegal activity. Tell the story using dialogue as much as possible.

That Alt Tab thing drives me nuts.

When you walk up to someone at their computer, and their left thumb and forefinger slink over to the Alt Tab keys to change screens – you KNOW they’re hiding something from you.

For me, it’s like a declaration of war. I HAVE to find out what they’re up to.

Big Bob is the principal at our school. Both times recently when I’ve walked in to talk with him about the field trip I’m taking with some of my year 10 students, I saw his hand do the Alt Tab thing. Bob, what are you covering up? I knew I’d have to take special action to catch the screen he was intent on hiding.

Big Bob has salt and pepper hair, cropped short. He’s a bit jowly and has that jovial you-can-count-on-me-for-anything air about him. He seems to be popular with the staff and kids. He has a devilish streak that goes down well with people.

– Except that somewhere along the line his deviltry started getting me a bit worried and I began keeping a closer eye on him. But really it was the Alt Tab thing that got me into the closet on the wall behind his desk.


That’s where I am right now. As I lie in wait in the closet in Big Bob’s office, I review my mental rap sheet on his offences.

The first item on the rap sheet is practically not worth mentioning. “Hey, Bob, I saw you taking home those little under-sized fish,” I said to him in the staff room in a comradely fashion, the day after spotting him fishing at the beach while I was enjoying some free time in the café nearby. I can’t say taking home little fish bothers me one way or the other, and I thought it would be fun to have a little joke with him about it.

Bob laughed and responded in kind. “Hailey, you caught me in the act. But what the heck, it doesn’t matter because I don’t have a licence anyway,” said he unabashedly. We all had a chuckle.

Here in the closet, I flex my ankle a few times to keep the circulation going. I consider the next item on my rap sheet. Speeding. I decided that I liked that in a school principal. I’ve just bought my first ever car (co-owned by myself and the bank) and I’m a bit of speed freak myself. I figure it’s nice to see an old guy of forty plus feeling his oats.

The day after I clocked him, I nailed him in the staff room again. “Hey, Bob, I followed you doing 150 on the Calmar Road last night.”

Bob grinned in a conspiratorial manner. “Guilty as charged. But wait till you try to tail me in my BMW – you won’t get close to me!”

One of the other guys in the staffroom eyed him warily. “Bob, how is it you can afford two hot cars on a principal’s salary?”

“Ah, it’s good to have a wife with an inheritance.” We all had a good chuckle, though Janice, his wife, doesn’t look like the inheritance type.

This whole question of the two-car thing (plus a very elegant nice house on two acres, I might add, with a luxurious pool and sauna) brings me to Rap Sheet Item #3. “Hey, Bob,” I said the day after I’d dropped by his house to deliver the proceeds from the weekend raffle. “I swear that’s good old Mary Jane I saw growing in your back garden.”

To my over-attuned eye, I thought Bob looked a trifle annoyed on this occasion. The camaraderie appeared to be over. “Nah, just a bit of spider flower that Janice is growing,” he said, and walked off.

This event may or may not contradict the next item on my rap sheet, which happened a couple weeks ago when I was making coffee in the staff room. I overheard him talking to Bill, the phys ed teacher. I’m sure I heard him saying his new crop was in and he’d be happy to sell him a gram or two.

Now, I have to admit this also didn’t bother me. ᾈ chacun son gout, as the French say in their great wisdom. Vive la liberté. You’re a wild and crazy guy, Big Bob, I thought.

But around that time the whole thing with Big Bob began to dip into the dark side a bit for me. A couple of times I spotted him having covert conversations in the schoolyard with one of the older kids who’s well-known around the traps as a dealer. I mean, he could have been talking about the kid’s exam results, but something in the way they both were lurking in the shadows made it a little suspicious. I thought about the two nice cars and the big house.

Back to the rap sheet, and me pouring sweat in Big Bob’s closet. The last item on the rap sheet got there yesterday when Peggy and Marie, two of my year 10 girls, drew me into the change room and silently pointed out a tiny lens loosely poised over the one of the mirrors. My senses all went on high alert.

“What do you think it is?” Peggy whispered.

I drew them out into the hall. “Look,” I said quietly, “can I ask you not to say anything for a day or two? I want to do a little detective work before we call in the national guard.”

“Whatever,” Peggy said. “But I’m changing in the toilets after this.”



So that brings us to why I’m crouched in Big Bob’s closet, behind his desk. I don’t have any evidence on the camera thing, but an instinct got me here (that plus the Alt Tab thing that’s happened too often for my liking). I couldn’t exactly pop up to Big Bob in the staffroom and say, “Hey, Bob, I saw the nifty little video cam you installed in the girls’ change room.” Whoops, not a good career move. I’m not sure hiding in this closet is a good career move either, but…well, the office was empty, the halls were vacant and the closet door sat slightly ajar, beckoning. It’s well past 4:00 and most of the staff and students have long since headed for home. I’m pretty sure Bob is at the cricket practice.

So here I am, waiting for Big Bob to come into this office, plop his portly bottom down into his chair and zip into one of his little apps to check out what’s going on in the girls’ change room. I’ve got the closet door closed but I can see clearly through the tiniest crack. I have a terrific view of his monitor.

I don’t have to wait long. Big Bob shows up, throws the cricket ball and bat he’s carrying into the corner and plops down at his desk. He flips on his computer, gets up, walks back to the door and closes it tightly. He twists a key in the lock. I almost stop breathing. He returns to the computer, types in a password, grabs the mouse and does a few clicks. I can see perfectly over his shoulder. Suddenly I’m watching an amateur video and I nearly punch my hand in the air to say, “Hey, Bob. Gotcha!”

But as I switch from the left to the right eye, I quickly ascertain it’s not a video of the girls’ change room. My heart races. There’s a woman tied to a table, screaming her lungs out, and I’m sure that’s Big Bob beside her with a knife in his hand. He turns to the camera for a moment with a look of pure and savage evil on his face. It’s him, all right. My heart is frozen by that look. He turns back to the woman. He raises the knife, ready to slash. She stops screaming, stops struggling, just looks as if her time has come and she won’t fight it any more.

My brain struggles to think. I realise I’m looking at a snuff video. My friendly little marijuana-growing, BMW-speeding school principal is a maniacal killer.

I’ve never been claustrophobic but all of a sudden I know my heart will stop if I stay here one more second. I tuck and roll out of that closet, scrambling straight for the door. I grab the doorknob, but it’s locked, of course. I scrabble with the key. I hear Bob’s chair creak wildly behind me, and next thing there’s a thick arm around my neck.

“I think you’ll just stop right there,” Bob’s voice says, close to my ear. “I’ve had more than enough of you..”

His grip on my throat tightens. I see red patches but the surge of adrenalin that hits me just then surprises me. “Let go, you cretin,” I say through clenched teeth.

“Say goodnight, Hailey, because I’m putting you to sleep. But I’m going to keep you alive so I can film YOU tonight.” He sniggers and shifts his weight to get a better grip. I think, okay, he’s off-guard; it’s now or never.

I stomp a heel onto his instep, then swing in toward him, twisting to bring a knee hard up into the family jewels.

“Ooooof,” he says, and doubles over.

I’m out of his grasp in a flash. I scuttle to the corner where he’s thrown the cricket bat and come up swinging. On my second round-house, I catch him hard behind the ear. He falls like a rock, a swath of blood running through the salt-and-pepper hair.

I lean on my knees, panting, then dash to the door. This time my fingers manage the key and before I can think I’m outside in the cool air of the parking lot. My handbag is where I left it in my car. I lock the doors, drive a few blocks to where I feel safe and then with trembling fingers find my mobile and dial 000.

In a few minutes, my world is going to get wrung inside out. As the phone rings, I get a mental flash of the police, the forensics, the press, the kids, the staff, the parents.

I wish I could Alt Tab out of here.

But I don’t think that’s going to happen. Alt Tab got me here but it won’t get me out.