Chapter 126 – Time to Think – Silver Brooks

As much as I dreaded the suspension homework Ms. Sampson dumped on me it turned out to be pretty easy. It was mostly just review materials that I was tutored on long ago. I managed to complete the assignments before the weekend was over with. It left me with a lot of free time during the rest of my suspension.

There were a few constructive things I could be doing with this time. I mostly spent it trying to improve my artwork. Without my cell phone, computer, and other electronics, my recreational choices were limited. Artwork was the main hobby I could enjoy even while grounded.

This time spent without my cell phone and computer made the experience different for me. One of the main reasons I got heavily involved with art was because of my group. At first, the decorated masks were something that only a few people in our group had. Once I developed my skills enough, the masks became a defining feature of our group.

I worked hard to provide masks to each member of Naomi’s gang. It wasn’t just a matter of coming up with a design and slapping it onto the mask. It was about coming up with imagery that I felt heavily reflected on my friends. Sometimes they’d request something different or come up with their own design, like Casper.

Usually they stuck with the design I gave them. It made the development process a very interpersonal task for me since it required learning more about each member to choose the design. Receiving one of my masks represented initiation into our group culture these days.

With a role that meaningful I felt like there was some expectation for the artwork to actually be good. That’s why I always viewed my artistic success through the lens of how my girlfriends reacted to it. Everything I made, no matter how insignificant the sketch or how large the canvas, ended up being posted to our ChatCat.

This time spent in quiet solitude at home made that impossible. There was no one to show, no device to upload my artwork to. It made me confront my skills on a personal level now that I was left to judge my creations for myself. I was forced to think in a way that I wasn’t used to and it drove me to improve.

That Monday of my suspension I was determined to use one of my mother’s art books. Both of my parents were out of the house for work. It was easy to sneak into their bedroom and pull out my mother’s book on human anatomy. Normally she didn’t like me going through her stuff but I planned to return it before she came back home.

My desk was close enough to my bedroom window that I didn’t need to turn on the overhead light to see the sketches in my notebook. It was an unexpectedly nice and sunny day for the middle of December. My headphones were on and I was listening to some low volume music as I drew practice sketches in my notebook.

Was this what suspension was supposed to be like? I was actually enjoying myself. It sucked that I couldn’t hang out with my friends, but this wasn’t so bad. This didn’t feel like a punishment at all. Being stuck in an empty detention room at school would be infinitely worse. I was actually grateful that this was my punishment instead of that.

While practicing drawing in my notebook I decided I’d try putting some of my new skills to the test. I wanted to draw a more realistic human figure, but I wasn’t sure how to begin. I randomly began sketching the rough outline of a humanoid form. I absentmindedly put an overcoat on the form and started drawing a person shrouded by a hood.

It wasn’t until I started drawing the mask that I snapped out of my stupor and froze. I was subconsciously drawing the Killing Cat. Her image was hard to forget. I couldn’t help but to pencil in her eyes, giving them a burning look to illustrate the glowing effect. She had bloodied knives that she held in both hands like claws.

This was an obscene drawing, given everything I had personally witnessed. I couldn’t stop myself at this point. I added more and more detail to the sketch, giving it a lifelike feel. The more I improved the image of the Killing Cat, the more I remembered flashbacks from that night. Before I knew it I was drawing a body beneath the Killing Cat, surrounded by a pool of blood.

“Sylvie!” My mother said as she burst into my room.

I jumped in my seat and dropped the pencil onto my desk. I spun around in my chair to face her.

“Didn’t you hear me calling your name from downstairs?” She asked. “I asked you if you wanted anything to eat.”

“No, I… I didn’t hear, I…”

My mother looked over at my desk and started to walk in.

“Are you working on schoolwork?” She asked.

“No, I…”

She lifted up the anatomy art book and casually inspected it.

“I was planning to return that!” I said in a preemptive defense. “I didn’t steal it! I was only borrowing it from your room.”

“Hmm…” She said and sat the book back down.

Her eyes wandered towards my notebook and I defensively covered it up. She pulled me back in my seat so that she could see what I was drawing. Her face wrenched into a grimace and she ripped the page out. She crumpled up the sketch loudly and tossed it in the garbage bin beside my desk.

“Don’t draw such disturbing things.” She said in an unemotional tone. “You can keep the book for today. You obviously need the practice.”

“It wasn’t… I was just… I…”

She walked over to my bed and sat down on it. This was an unusual scenario since she often criticized my room and usually avoided staying inside for long. She slapped a spot on the bed next to her, beckoning me over. Now this was very odd behavior. It was obvious that she wanted me to come and sit beside her, but why?

I assumed this meant I was in a massive amount of trouble. There had to be something she was going to lecture me about or threaten me over. Nervously, I got out of my seat and made baby-steps over towards the bed. When I slowly sat down beside her she put an arm around me and rubbed my arm. I stayed completely motionless, not sure how to react to this change in character.

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“I talked to Holly today.” She said.

“Today…?” I asked in confusion, “Isn’t Holly at school today?”

“She is, but apparently she has her own counselor’s office. She called me earlier while I was at lunch.”

“Why?” I asked, completely puzzled by this line of conversation.

“She wanted to give me the results of a favor I asked for on Friday before she left. She was able to give me a report on your school grades ahead of the next report card.”

“What…? I didn’t know she could do that…”

“She said she had no trouble talking to your teachers about it. Since I was the one that made the request they gave her the information she needed without any problems.”

“And…?”

“I learned that you’re doing better in school than I anticipated.”

“Ha!” I shouted in a triumphant shout of victory as I stood up.

“Sit back down,” She said, waving off my excitement, “Don’t celebrate too much. Don’t forget you just got suspended and grounded for sneaking out.”

I sat back down but kept grinning proudly. It was rare that my mother admitted she was wrong about anything. This was a joyous occasion.

“If you weren’t always sneaking out or sneaking other people in then I could lighten up on you. But after what happened a few days ago… It’s better if I keep my eyes on you.”

“Do I still have to go through with all the extra tutoring?” I asked.

“Yes, but not as frequently. There’s no sense in wasting money if you’re doing fine in school. I also asked Holly if I could hire her to tutor you again. She seems to be one of the better tutors and you’re similar in age. She’s probably more familiar with the curriculum you’re working on than someone older.”

“I think she’s tutoring other people these days. She told me she does babysitting also. It may not be possible to book her again.”

“She already agreed to it.” My mother said. “We had a long conversation about this, and about how student home life impacts school performance. There was a lot we disagreed on, but I’m willing to capitulate that I may have been somewhat hard on you.”

I had half a mind to sarcastically call out her ‘somewhat’ remark, but refrained from doing so. We were having an important moment right now and we had few of those together lately.

“I just want you to know that I don’t hate you.”

“Thank you.” I said, silently cursing myself for not holding back my sarcastic tone.

“I’m being serious.” She said. “I know you probably think I do from time to time, but I don’t. I’m hard on you because I care about you. I care about your future. I want to make sure that you can function independently of me and your father and not wind up in jail.”

She rubbed my arm again and I had a swell of mixed feelings. This was probably the closest we had been to each other in years. At the same time though, I felt like we were only having this conversation because Holly talked to her. She’d never talk to me like this on her own initiative. I knew this was part of Holly’s ‘job’, but I wished this could’ve happened more naturally.

“I understand.” I eventually said. “I don’t mean to cause trouble for you or dad on purpose… Sometimes my thrill-seeking gets ahead of my rational mind. I know I’m a bit of an airhead but I’ve been improving in some areas, I think. Last year I don’t think I would’ve handled suspension this well. Now I used it to improve my artwork.”

“Good.” My mother said. “Maybe focusing on your hobbies will help teach you some self-discipline. You can borrow any of my art books if you need to. It’ll help you expand beyond the limited scope of your graffiti art.”

I suppressed another snarky response to that. We were never going to see eye-to-eye on art, but she wasn’t wrong. My style was still limited compared to hers.

“I was really planning to return the book before you got home.” I said. “I didn’t expect you to get off work so soon.”

She stood up.

“I’m not actually off work. I’m just between clients right now. I have another meeting in about half an hour. I was just stopping by to check up on you and give you the news.”

I stood up off the bed too.

“I already ate and I think I have everything I need. I should be fine.”

“Okay then.” She said and started to walk away. She turned back quickly. “Oh! There’s one more thing. Since you’re doing better in school now I’ll give you this back. Don’t make me regret it.”

She reached into her purse and pulled out my cell phone. She tossed it over to me and I barely managed to catch it. She left the room without saying anything else and I sat back down on the bed. A feeling of relief filled me now that I could check up on my friends. I wanted to know how they were handling suspension as well.

My inbox was full of messages from my friends who all wanted to check on me also. I had the biggest grin on my face the entire time I was responding to them. Some of them shared pictures with me and I shared a few pictures back to show them my love. Seeing all this reminded me of how lonely I was without them.

After eating dinner and taking a shower I returned to my bedroom to pick up where I left off. I relaxed on my bed and joined in a conversation my friends were having on ChatCat. A few of them didn’t get suspended and updated me on everything going on at school. There was still no word from Naomi.

I heard tapping at the window while typing out a response to one of my friends. It sounded like someone was trying to come in. I was planning to send Casper away. After that conversation with my mother I wasn’t going to sneak someone in so soon, especially after getting my cell phone back.

I went over to the window to spare Casper the pain of hitting her head while crawling in again. Only, when I opened up the curtains I saw that it wasn’t Casper opening the window. I fell back in shock and horror, dropping my cell phone as my butt hit the floor. The Killing Cat opened the window and stepped inside.

She was dressed in the same black overcoat and black hood that I saw her in last time. She didn’t have her knives with her this time though. She immediately went over to my bed and reached underneath it. She pulled the Nyx doll from under the bed where I had it hidden away. She turned it over and opened up a lid at the bottom of it.

“Wait! What are you doing?” I asked.

Wordlessly, she reached into the bag she had with her to pull out two regular batteries. She switched out the old battieries with the new ones and placed the doll on my nightstand.

“Really…?” I asked dubiously. “You came here just to change out the batteries inside the doll? I didn’t even realize it was out of power… ”

Apparently she wasn’t here just for that. She immediately began pulling something else out of her bag before I even finished speaking. It was a large, rolled up sheet of paper. She unfurled it to unveil a map. I was so bewildered by this entire thing that I just stared at the map in quiet contemplation. I didn’t know what to say.

The map wasn’t just some random building, I realized. It was a local community college. With it, she pulled out a collection of images, all of them from the campus of that school! This was unreal! They didn’t look like photos taken off the web. These images were too focused. On top of that, they were all daytime photos. She had to have taken these in person without her Killing Cat getup.

This little display wasn’t over. She pulled out a list of names, with some of the names marked out in red. She pulled out a collection of photos, all of them of women on that college campus. I started leafing through them and realized that these were all images of the same woman, just on different days and in different clothing.

It didn’t take me long to put things together from there. This was her next target. Furthermore, a quick scan of her list told another story. There were marked out names on that list that I had never even heard of before. Apparently the Killing Cat was busier than anyone knew.

“This person…?” I started to ask, “She’s a killer?”

The Killing Cat nodded without looking away from the material laid out on my bed.

“You’re showing me all this but I don’t know why. Whoever this person is, whatever she’s done, I can’t help you. I’m grounded… Unless you’re saying that you have something else in mind.”

A red light glowed brightly on the Killing Cat’s mask, indicating a smile. She put her index finger in front of this smile and turned towards me, as if smiling cheekily.

What was that supposed to mean?