I spent the time finding out that, while I couldn't change the color of my nails directly, I could change enough of the pigment in the skin underneath to make them look almost any color I wanted except blue. For some reason I couldn't do blue very well. It just made my fingernails look like someone had smacked them with a hammer.
When I finally escaped from Math I, I dumped all the books I wouldn't need into my locker and ran out to the parking lot to meet Neeka. I beat her there and had to wait for her.
"Get away from my car!" She called as she walked over.
"What?"
"The next thing I know, you'll be perched on the hood ornament, humping the chrome off it!"
"Hey, you started it! Can I help it if your car is a good fuck? Angie certainly thought so."
"She sure did, didn't she? Well if anybody is going to be screwing this vehicle from now on, it's going to be me!"
"You've been thinking about it, haven't you?"
"I sure have. After watching the two of you, and especially after your little adventure at lunch, I'm up for it."
"Well, I wish we could go to some nice out of the way garage, so you and your date could have a torrid afternoon of depraved auto-eroticism..."
"Oh, you didn't say that! My God, what a horrible pun!"
"Jealous! By the way, we need to take a new friend shopping."
"Oooo, shopping! OK, whose credit card do we use?"
"Hers, I guess." I pulled my flat and mostly empty wallet out of my bag. I hadn't looked in it for days. There hadn't been any need and I didn't expect the measly few dollars I carried in it to reproduce or anything. As I opened it a bright flash of gold caught my eye. I didn't have five dollars in there, there certainly wouldn't be anything... I snatched it out of the sleeve and held it up to the sky so it could shine in the sun. I held in my hand a gold credit card with my name on it. I didn't need three guesses to know who was responsible for this.
"Are you just now finding that? Do you know how long ago she got that for you and stuck it in there?"
I was speechless. If someone had handed me a check for a million dollars I could not have been more stunned. With everything Bambi had done for me, giving me a credit card must have seemed to her the most trivial of details, not really worth mentioning. But I had never had one before. Yvette had one, but after Dad left she used it only on special occasions. She could never be sure we would have enough money to pay the bill when it came.
I certainly never thought I would have a Gold Card. I didn't even know what the credit line had to be before they issued them in that color. It must be... thousands!
"At least," Neeka said. "I think it's $5000 and goes up from there. Platinum starts at $10,000 and goes up you don't want to know how high."
"Five thousand dollars! I'm holding five-thousand dollars? Holy moly!"
"Watch your language!"
"Hunh?"
"You never had one before? You know how to use it, don't you?"
"Sure! You just swipe and..." I wasn't real sure about the rest. I'd seen it but I'd never done it.
"Unhunh. You know it's not money. It's just a promise to pay the money when the bill comes in. And Bambi will be the one getting the bill, which will itemize everything you charge on that card in neat little categories with store names and dates and everything."
"Oh. Sure. I knew that." I didn't. And she knew I didn't. But she was my best friend and wouldn't rub my nose in it. Not too awful much. Five Thousand Dollars. She trusted me with a credit card good for Five Thousand Dollars.
"You're hopeless," Neeka said. She got right in my face and put her hands on my cheeks. "She knows she can trust you," she told me in slow measured words, "with the lives... of her children. You proved yourself worthy of that trust. This..." she tapped the card in my hand, "... is just plastic."
"Gee, you sure know how to fuck up a good time!" But I took her point. The card was beneath mentioning as far as Mom was concerned. She trusted me with far more important things than her money. That's why she had never bothered to tell me when she slipped it into my wallet. She just assumed that I would find it when I needed it.
"So OK, we can go shopping," I said. "I can buy a few things that I need that don't cost a lot."
"And?"
"And? And... and I can buy something for Mom while we're out, too!"
"There you go! You'll catch onto this 'daughter' business yet."
She was right. It was still very new to me. I never would have thought of buying something for Yvette. She would have grilled me about where I got the money and implied that I had whored myself for it, even outright accused me of it. I shuddered. Those memories would take a while to fade.
"I'm sorry, Sam! I shouldn't have said anything."
"No, it's OK. I forgave her. I can't forget, but I can make better memories to put on top of those, until the good ones hide the bad."
"Good plan. Who's this coming? Is that Coach Simpson?"
I followed her gaze toward the Gym. There was a girl walking toward us across the parking lot. Her short auburn hair looked like it had just lost a battle to a brush. She wore a white cotton blouse that could have used some starch and the touch of a hot iron, and a khaki skirt that was just a little too long for current fashion or the great set of legs she had. She was carrying a ratty canvas bag that had probably held liniment or something until a half hour ago. She was smiling. It was the smile that made her look so different.
"Yes, Sue Simpson. 13 going on 26, OK?"
"Gotcha. Have I told you yet today that you are the nicest person on the planet?"
"Thank you kindly. You are a magnificent judge of character," I told her. "Hi, Sue! You're just in time. I'd like you to meet another friend of mine. This is Neeka Morgan."
She looked at me like she wanted to hug me when I described Neeka as 'another' friend. She held out her hand to Neeka.
"Hello, Neeka. Pleased to meet you."
"Hi, Sue. I'm pleased to meet you, too. Any friend of Sam's is certainly a friend of mine."
"Well thank you, but I'm not really..." Neither of us let her finish the sentence. We both closed in on her and each grabbed a hand.
"Yes." I said firmly.
"You are." Neeka finished for me.
"Whatever else you may consider yourself to be..."
"... you are our friend."
"And we hold friends..."
"... very dear."
Faced with two stubborn girls who would accept nothing less than her acknowledgement of them as her friends and peers, Coach Simpson capitulated.
"Thank you. Both of you. I never thought... I never hoped. It's good to have friends."
"Darn right, girl. Now let's go to the mall!"
We were just sorting out who would sit in the almost non-existent back seat of Neeka's compact car when I saw a very plain, older-model car pull up to the curb. "Why don't they just put 'Police Detectives' in big red letters on the thing?" I said.
"What's the matter?" Sue asked.
"Nothing. Just some business associates of mine. This will only take a minute. I'll be right back."
I left Neeka to try to explain to Sue what I meant by 'business associates', and why they would be driving such a blatantly unmarked police car and I walked over to have a word with Gail and her partner, Frank.
They stayed in the car, which was fine with me, since being seen talking to a couple of police detectives on school grounds would have been difficult to explain. I was just taller than the car, so I had to lean over a little to see inside. This made my loose top slide forward, showing off my substantial cleavage and allowing my bells to ring as they swung in the afternoon breeze.
"Hi, Gail. How are you today? This must be your partner."
"Hi, Sam," she said, then she turned to her partner who seemed to be having trouble keeping his eyes from falling out of his head while staring at my boobs. "Say hello, Frank. And try not to drool on the seatcovers."
"Hello, Frank," I said, politely. When he couldn't find his tongue, I added sweetly, "I didn't know they were letting Neanderthals on the force, now. I'm sure your tribe is very proud of you."
Gail cracked up laughing. She had on a really severe gray skirt and jacket, so I figured she had been spending a lot of time in meetings and doing news interviews and could use a good laugh to break the tension. I also didn't mind yanking the chain of the man who sent her out as bait while wearing clothes calculated to hurt her or get her hurt.
Frank frowned at my breasts. As far as he was concerned, I didn't have a face.
"Hey!" he said. "You got no call..."
"Don't I? You sent your partner out in a pornographic excuse for a jogging outfit to be bait for a sadistic bastard who'd already ruined several young women. Have you thought for a second what would have happened if it had been her instead of me that the bastard drugged and hauled off to butcher?" I was laying it on a little thicker than was really called-for, but I had been carrying a grudge against Frank and I wanted to get it out of my system.
Frank looked stunned, guilty, and confused. I suspected that only the guilty part was new to him. Gail looked at me like she wanted to adopt me on the spot. I'd already figured that these two weren't together out of mutual respect. It was pretty clear to me that, unlike in the movies, some partnerships never grow beyond the minimum level of tolerance.
Gail attempted no apology for Frank. She seemed smugly happy to have someone else be indignant with him for a change.
"Gail, how are you holding up with the suits and the media?"
"You're something, Sam." She said. "You really are. You spend hours in a homemade torture chamber and you're concerned about me having to explain how I pulled off the biggest bust of my career. Shut up Frank. You got credit on the report. It's more than you deserve.
"Anyway," she continued, "I wanted to check on you, to see how you were doing... after. I called your number and your... Mom told me you were... still at school? I'm sorry. This is too weird. You're in High School?"
There wasn't any easy way to break it to her. I decided to be blunt.
"I'm eighteen years old. I'm a Senior at AHS. I used to be on the Varsity Cheerleading Squad. And I'm on the way to the Mall with my friends to do some Shopping. I have to have an older friend drive me because I don't have a license. Not even a Learner's Permit."
"Shit! See? She's a child!" Frank said belligerently. "I don't care what you say, she's just a kid!"
That was exactly what I wanted to hear from Frank.
"Excuse me, Gail," I said. "This won't take a minute."
I vaulted over the car and did a turn in mid-air, landing on my feet next to Frank's door. I reached in through the window and grabbed the lapels of his cheap suit and snatched him through the window without giving him a chance to undo his seatbelt. I dropped him on the ground and reached down and undid his belt. I grabbed his trouser cuffs and yanked his pants off in one jerk. I took the pants to the back end of the police car and, putting my hip against the side and one hand under the chassis; I lifted the car a foot off the ground and tossed Frank's pants under the rear tire. When I dropped the car it wobbled for a few seconds before it steadied. It all took less time to describe than to do and I was out of sight of everyone but my police friends the whole time except for jumping over the car.
Gail was out of the car instantly when she saw Frank go out the window. She caught the last bit of me picking up the car and trapping his pants under the wheel.
Frank sat on the asphalt in his dirty-gray cotton briefs with his mouth open so far I could see down his throat. He crawled over to his pants and tried to pull them out from under the wheel. It was pointless. The fabric would tear before he could get them out. He tried to pick up the car and almost gave himself a hernia. He sat down holding his pants with one hand and glared at me. I ignored him.
"So, I'm glad you're going to get some recognition for this." I told Gail, who was almost as stunned as her partner at what she had just seen. "When you have some free time, I'd like to talk to you some about what it's like in the department and how you got to be a Detective and stuff. I really appreciate the work you do, especially considering what you have to put up with." My glance at Frank was redundant.
I could have been speaking Swahili for all that she was getting of what I was saying. She was far more interested in watching Frank squirm on the hot asphalt.
"She... she..." Frank babbled. "She took my pants."
"You're lucky she didn't take your dick, too. Now do you believe me? This girl really can do what I said. She's the one they call The Dragon."
I knew a cue when I heard one. I got down on all fours in front of Frank; put my face right up to his and turned it on. He turned much whiter than his underwear and slammed his head against the car trying to back away from me. I shut it off and stood up.
"At least he quit looking at my tits," I told Gail. "You sound funny. Are you sure you're OK?"
"Yes... No. This is just..."
"You're weirded-out because I'm a teenager."
"Look, I thought it was a cover, you know. But when I talked to your Mom, she was just so... normal about it. You're a schoolgirl who can bend iron bars and pick up cars."
"I also run very fast, jump very high, kick like a bombshell..." I bent over Frank who was still sitting on the ground "... and I am positively, absolutely the last person on the planet that you want to piss off!"
I picked up the car again and Frank snatched his pants out from under the wheel a split-second before I dropped it. I was amazed at how easy it had been to do. I thought I might have been able to flip the car over if I tried. I wasn't tranced, but I was mad, so my adrenalin was flowing pretty good.
Frank scrambled into his trousers and stood a respectful distance away. Not that he could have got away if I decided to snatch him naked. It was clearly a new thing for him to show respect. He looked uncomfortable, like there was something he thought he should be doing, but he couldn't remember what it was.
Gail went back and got in the driver's door. Frank was eager to leave, but I was between him and the car, so he waited for me to get out of the way. I decided I shouldn't leave things with Frank on this note. I didn't think we'd ever be friends, but I didn't want to make him an enemy. I crooked a finger to him and he shuffled over to me and bent down to put his face on a level with mine.
"Frank, I want to illustrate something for you," I told him. I took his hand and put it under my top and pressed it against my breast. He looked shocked, but pleased. Then I reached between his legs and took hold of his testicles through the thin material. His pleased look faded quickly.
"What we have here is mutual trust. You don't hurt me, and I won't hurt you. If you're mean to me, or Gail, then what's going to happen to you won't be very nice." I squeezed slightly to make my point. He froze for a second and then stroked my breast as gently as I have ever felt.
"Good! I see you understand. We have a very intimate relationship. You have your hands on my tender places, and I have my hands on yours. You be nice, and I'll be nice."
He stroked again and I let go of his testicles and squeezed his cock instead. A small smile crept onto his face as he realized that I could be as nice as he wanted me to be. He took his hand away from my breast and I released his cock. We had an unspoken agreement of sorts. I held out the hand I had gripped his testicles with for him to shake and he did so without hesitation. He wasn't afraid of me now, but he respected me quite a lot. I opened the door for him and he got in the car.