In the Image of Grace (18 page)

“Sit,” he demanded.

We listened and all sat on the couch.

“You girls haven’t been behaving like the proper
young ladies you were raised to be. You’re really pissing me off,”
our supposed father snarled.

“What, do you want us to act clone like?” Clarissa
snapped.

Reginald, that’s what I’m calling him from this point
on, made a grunting sound and shook his head up and down. “I
figured you girls knew. Mr. Carl told me you have been paying him
visits, but he did not mention what he told you.” He grunted and
let out a deep breath. “I don’t know what to do with you
girls.”

“You’re just peeved because we’re trying to find
answers and we figured everything out on our own. When were you
going to tell us Reginald?” I asked with my voice seething.

“You need to shut your goddamn little mouth,” he
growled pointing a finger in my face. “You will address me as
father.”

“You’re not even our father,” Clarissa screamed
standing up. “The only way you even got us was because you raped
our mother and stole her genetic makeup.”

Reginald walked right up to her and looked down with
a nefarious grin. “You are misinformed. It was her idea to use
herself.”

“Did you do away with her after she had Elizabeth?
Did you kill her because she was in the way of your grand scheme of
things, of your precious science,” Clarissa shrieked with a
brilliant red face.

Reginald reached up and slapped her right across the
face. Clarissa stood there in total shock holding her cheek with
her eyes glazed over by moisture. “You girls will obey me. I
brought you into this world I could easily take you out!” He said
in a low threatening tone.

“Just kill us now because we will never obey you,” I
exclaimed getting up off the couch. “You are an evil psychotic
heartless bastard of a man.”

He whipped around in my direction with a look in his
eyes like he really was going to kill me. In one large stride he
had his face in mine. He took his large mitt of a hand, grabbed me
right under the chin and squeezed my mandible, lifting me off the
ground. He brought my face to the level of his. “You girls think
I’m joking, no more bullshit.” He let go. I dropped to the ground.
My jaw ached from his grip. He then glared at Isabelle warning her
not to do or say anything. Reginald left the room and then a couple
minutes later left the house. We were left alone once again in our
own prison.

The bus took forever to get to school. That morning
traffic was quite awful. The air outside had quite a chill. It
seemed that winter would soon be upon us. I think I was able to
even see my breath on the bus. When we did reach school it looked
like something was going on outside of it, like a parade or
something. The sidewalk was crowded with a flood of people which
spilled over onto the school lawn. As we got closer I could see the
yellow jackets of the school security guards spattered about.
Everybody on the bus rushed to the windows to see what was going
on. For a moment I thought the bus would tip due to all the weight
being on the one side. There were cops along the sidewalk standing
in defensive poses. I thought perhaps some awful crime was
committed or something. Then what I really noticed were the
cameras. There were television crews everywhere and reporters
standing with their microphones. I looked on the other side of the
street and it was lined with all the TV vans with those big
satellite antenna things on top.

“What the hell is going on,” Clarissa whispered into
my ear.

“I think I know what is happening,” Isabelle said in
my other ear.

The three of us were holding onto one of the bus
poles, standing near the back door to the bus. My stomach started
feeling very queasy. Isabelle nodded at me like she knew exactly
what I was feeling. The world had found out the truth about us.

The bus screeched to a stop in front of the school.
The doors opened. The three of us didn’t move. We let all the other
kids off first. My stomach was flipping and flying all around.

“Maybe we should just keep going,” I said, which
sounded like a very good idea to me.

“I think they’ll find us wherever we go, now that
they know,” Isabelle concluded.

I sighed knowing Isabelle was right. The bus driver
looked back and glared at us.

“C’mon,” I said stepping off first. I thought for a
moment nobody noticed us arrive, but that lasted only about three
seconds before we were spotted.

All of a sudden there was a full on rush for my
sisters and I. I could barely get three feet. There were people
holding cameras, shoving microphones in our faces, people were
screaming things and the ones holding the microphones were asking
questions, but there was so many coming from every which direction,
and there were people holding up those big fuzzy microphone
thingies or whatever they are. The three of us all stood back to
back. Soon we were totally surrounded. I lost my sense of direction
because I didn’t know which way to go to get to the school.
Clarissa grabbed my hand. I grabbed Isabelle’s and Clarissa just
kind of plowed through the crowd.

“Excuse me,” she screamed even though it seemed like
nobody heard her or perhaps just didn’t listen.

All those people just wanted was a bit of us. I heard
parts of what people were screaming or asking. Clones, the first,
special, how does it feel. It was mass chaos outside. I really
wanted to be in the school building. I really wanted Jeremy. I
wanted him to come and scoop me up out of the madness, but even if
he was in the crowd somewhere he probably couldn’t get through all
the reporters and camera crews.

A couple of cops rushed to our aid and started
swatting the reporters away. Next a couple of the school security
guards in their yellow jackets made their way through the crowd and
led the brigade. We made it down one of the sidewalks that led up
to the school. One of the security guards opened up the doors and
we were ushered up the steps and inside. Once inside, the dull
light of the school hallway felt comforting.

“You girls okay,” one of the cops with a crooked nose
asked.

“Yeah, physically,” I said.

“We’re okay,” Clarissa answered giving the cop a more
appropriate response.

Right after the cop asked if we were okay everything
froze at that moment. We stood frozen in the entry way to school.
Everybody who was in the hall at that exact moment also froze in
place staring in our direction. Nobody said anything or moved or
even pointed a finger. All I could feel was my heart beating in my
chest and an overwhelming amount of anxiety filling my body.

Then somebody snapped their fingers and we were back,
walking down the hall to the office and people were talking and
pointing and saying things like; “Oh my gosh that’s them,” and “I
have a class with the one. She seems pretty normal,” and others
whispered things into their friends’ ears. I then heard a couple
different people shout out Clarissa’s name. I looked at Clarissa.
She was actually smiling. At that point she didn’t seem to mind the
attention that much.

I then heard, “Oh my God Charlotte,” and saw Jeremy
running down the hall shoving some twerpy kid aside. His hair was
flapping everywhere and his face was filled with concern. He didn’t
seem to notice we were walking with cops and security guards and
ran up to me, picking me up, squeezing me as tight as humanly
possible. He then dropped me to the ground and took my face in his
hands and gave me a kiss.

“Get outta here kid,” the one cop said swatting
Jeremy away.

“But, she’s my girlfriend,” Jeremy proclaimed
defensively.

People were stopped in the hall just watching us and
watching Jeremy slip in another hug.

“Go on,” one of the security guards with chipped
teeth demanded.

Jeremy looked at the ground in defeat. “I’ll go to my
locker and come back,” Jeremy said as he was being swatted away by
another school security guard.

We were led into the main office, all the secretaries
and teachers that were in there stared as we were led through. We
went into the principal’s office. I didn’t know why, it’s not like
we could have been yelled at for being clones or something. I
couldn’t help but feel like we in trouble. I felt like I was at the
police station all over again. The cops left and the school
security guards stayed near the door. We were on lockdown all over
again. While we waited for somebody to show up the three of us
looked out the principal’s office window. It looked onto the street
where everything happening was. News reporters lined the streets in
news reporting stances, holding their microphones mid chest and
putting on a serious yet pleasant face. Cameras guys and crews
meandered all about, regular citizens and bystanders stood around
trying to see what was happening. On the sidewalk people were
holding up handmade signs. I couldn’t read them earlier because of
all the commotion, but I could get the gist of a few of them from
the principal’s office. I was blessed with fantastic eyesight. Some
read things like; They’re not natural, Only God gets to make our
children, No clones, and then some along the lines of clone
invasions, and then there were a few positive ones, but I was
pretty sure they were from our Xtial friends because those signs
said things like; They will save the human race, They are
perfection and so on and so forth. It was all so crazy. It was like
all of a sudden the whole world was instantaneously informed.

After many minutes of anxious waiting the principal
Mr. Santiago showed up. He was with Ms. Kudlow. The school
psychologist as she told us. She was a tall woman with shiny
chestnut hair and a fitted pant suit.

Nobody sat. We all just stood there looking at each
other. I don’t know if the principal even knew why he had us in
there. Did he want to know something? Was it for our own
protection? Did they want to make sure we weren’t going to go nuts?
I mean what do you say when you find out your students are clones.
I’m sure they probably weren’t even sure if the claims were true or
not, but what was one to say to us?

Mr. Santiago started talking first. “All right girls,
most obviously everybody saw the news, were on the internet, or
read a newspaper. The word is out and everybody wants to have at
it.” He had his hands splayed in front of him while he was
standing. For a second I thought he was going to break out into
dance. It would have been interesting too because he was a large
man. He looked like he could have been a linebacker or something.
“Do you girls feel comfortable going to class?”

My sisters and I looked at each other and all kind of
shrugged. We had not an idea about anything.

“You could take a pass today if ya need to,” he said
putting his finger tips together like he was making a little
chapel.

“Girls, we all know this is probably a lot for you to
handle. Do you want to go and talk?” Ms. Kudlow asked with fake
sympathy. “So you know, if you girls need anything we will all be
here for you.” She gave us a big cheesy grin. One I would imagine a
coach would give his players, like a go get ‘em team kind of
grin.

The three of us said nothing. We let them do all the
talking. Clarissa looked at her shoes. I stood with my hands shoved
in my coat pocket and Isabelle bit her nails, which I had never
seen her do before then.

“Do you girls want to go to class?” Mr. Santiago
asked.

“If during the day you feel overwhelmed or need to
talk you could come to either of our offices,” Ms. Kudlow said with
a little nod.

“I guess we’ll go to class,” I said speaking on
behalf of my sisters and I because really, where were we going to
go, home. What was there?

“All right girls,” Mr. Santiago said. “Take it
easy.”

He made it sound like we were diseased, or sick, or
going away forever, or something. I gave him a thumbs up and we
were back to battle the hallways. Luckily the bell already rang, so
for the most part everybody was in class. The only bad thing though
was we were going to have to go in to class late. I guess I was
going to have to get used to the staring because I was pretty sure
that the story wasn’t going anywhere for a while. The first cloned
children is a pretty big thing. Clarissa and Isabelle went off to
their classes and I went to go to mine. I went to turn down the
hallway when somebody popped out at me.

“Jesus Christ,” I yelped out surprised.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Jeremy said grabbing me
by the hand.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”

Jeremy shrugged. “I said I’d come back.”

“Thanks,” I said. I needed the support. I think I
actually needed somebody to push me to class because I was having
second thoughts on going.

“You could always skip,” Jeremy suggested picking up
on my vibe. He then reached up and pinched my chin.

“I might as well get it over with. If I don’t go
today I’ll have to go tomorrow and I’m sure they’ll still be
staring tomorrow.”

“Gotcha,” Jeremy said walking me in the direction of
my class. “I’m here for you, whatever you need. Okay.”

“Yeah, I know.”

We quickly arrived at my class.

“Front door service,” Jeremy said.

I kissed him, let go of his hand and opened the
classroom door. I turned the knob and looked over my shoulder at
Jeremy. “Thanks,” I told him.

He responded with a wonderful smile. I pulled open
the door to the classroom. I took a deep breath and walked in.
Automatically everybody, including Mrs. Brown turned and looked at
me. I pulled my sweater sleeve over the heel of my hand and gave a
little wave. I wasn’t sure what else I was supposed to do. I could
hear my own footsteps as I walked to my desk. No other sound was in
the room. I threw my bag and coat on the ground and took a seat. I
tried to look forward at the board, but I could feel all the
eyeballs in the back of my head. I turned in my seat, so I could
look over the whole class.