Parker - Stacy’s senior year

"But…" Neil began.

"You remember Pete."

Neil could only nod glumly in agreement, recalling the beating he had suffered last year. Stacy had no shortage of friends on the football team. "So," he said finally, "You said we had her where we wanted her."

"Yes, I did," Gary agreed.

"How?"

By now, the two boys had reached Gary’s car, a large, black Pontiac. Gary unlocked the doors before answering.

"If she’s cheating now on a math test," he explained, "she must be in trouble with her schoowork. She’s always gotten top marks in math."

"Yeah?" Neil was still confused. "So?"

"So," Gary continued patiently, "It’s a pretty safe bet she’ll cheat again. There’s an English test coming up next week, and I don’t think a little cheat-sheet will be of much use to her. You have to have read the material." He started up the car and began to pull out of the parking space. Neil thought this over as Gary manouvered the vehicle out of the school parking lot and onto the road.

"So," he asked finally, "What do we do about it?"

"I’ll tell you when we get to Sharon’s place," Gary answered, "We’ll need her for what I have in mind."

Sharon was Gary’s friend and sometime girlfriend. Neil was never really sure about their relationship - he knew that they went out and that they occasionally had sex, but he also knew that Sharon did the same with at least a couple of other guys. Gary, however, didn’t seem to mind, so Neil had decided to take things at face value. He had even made something of a pass at Sharon at a beach party last summer, but had been rebuffed. He was philosophical about it; Sharon wasn’t really his type anyway.

The girl in question appeared in the doorway, answering their knock. A year younger than the two boys, Sharon was short and heavy, with large breasts and curly, brown hair. Any suggestion of cuteness, however, was quickly dispelled by her hard face and small, piggy (Neil thought) eyes. If there was any beauty there, it was definitely in the eye of the beholder. She was smoking a cigarette as she answered the door.

After a quick greeting (and an obligatory "hello" to Sharon’s mother - propped up, as usual, in front of the television), Sharon led the two boys down to her basement bedroom, locking the door behind her (Sharon’s parents were "progressive", and felt that she needed her privacy). Neil accepted a cigarette and flopped down into a chair while pulling a lighter from his jacket pocket. Gary, who didn’t smoke, just leaned up against the dresser. Sharon lay down on the bed and propped herself up with a pillow.

"So," she asked, flicking some ash onto the dirty shag carpet, "What are you guys doing here? I thought you had math with Edgar until 3:00."

Neil grimaced. "We did," he answered, "Until he kicked us out."

"What?"

Gary took over the explanation and outlined the sequence of events that had led to their expulsion from the math class. Typically, Sharon immediately blamed Stacy.

"That cunt!" she swore angrily, "Cheating on the test and getting you guys kicked out. She’s really asking for it."

"Yes, she is," Gary agreed quietly, "And I think I know how we can give it to her."

"What do you mean?"

"We know she’s cheating on her exams, right?"

Neil and Sharon nodded in agreement.

"I think that it’s pretty likely she’ll cheat again. I don’t think that she’s had to do it before, so she’s probably way behind in her work. The fact that she’s cheating - and that we know she’s cheating - gives us a hold on her; a way of blackmailing her, but we need more."

Neil thought this over for a few moments. "Like what?" he asked.

"First, we need concrete evidence of the cheating. No one is going to take our word over Stacy’s. That’s where you come in, Sharon. Your dad lets you use his video camera and radio - microphone. We’ll use that to trap her."

"And then what?" Neil was starting to become excited at the prospect of blackmailing Stacy.

Gary fell silent for a moment, looking at his two friends.

"How much," he asked finally, his voice strained and odd, "How much do you hate her? I mean really. How much do you want to see her suffer?"

"Hey man," Neil answered uneasily, "I just want to get back at her for putting me down last year. I don’t want to, like, beat her up or anything."

"Well, I would," Sharon spat out. "I hate the bitch. Always flaunting herself, and prancing about like she owns the whole fucking school. She deserves whatever she gets. I’ll do whatever you want to help get her."

Gary looked over a Neil, his eyebrows raised as if to ask are you in? .

"Aw, fuck it," Neil said finally, "I hate the bitch as much as anybody. I’m in all the way."

"Good," Gary nodded, "Cause when we’re through with her, she’ll be the biggest slut in the history of Greenwood High."

The English exam was being held the following Monday, only five days away, so they had to move quickly. The first step was to get ahold of the exam questions beforehand, a proposition which might have proved difficult but for the advances in electronics technology which had culminated in the computer. Exam papers were commonly written out on school computers and stored in the school network, which allowed for "maximum flexibility within the school bureaucracy regarding application of secretarial assets". Incidentally, it also allowed someone with the appropriate equipment and skills to break into the system and download the required information without leaving any traces of his actions.

Gary, something of a hacker, had broken into the system a number of times in the past with his home computer and modem and was quite familiar with both the security measures and the layout of information within the network. In the end, it took him all of about twenty minutes to download the appropriate exam paper. Neil and Sharon were impressed.

"Jesus," she muttered, "I wish you’d told me about this before I failed my fucking history test last year."

Gary just shook his head. "I don’t think this is the kind of thing you want to do too often. If I go in often enough, they’ll figure out what’s going on. I was saving if for a special occasion." He looked up at his two friends and grinned maliciously. "And I think this is it."

Frustrated, Stacy slammed the book shut. The exam was coming up in just a few days, and there was no way she was going to be ready. She had done her best to catch up on the first two months' work in a couple of days, but it was almost impossible for her even to get through the material in time for the test, much less actually understand it. And there was impossible for her to cheat on this exam the way she had in math. In that class, she had gotten away with writing out a number of formulas and applications on crib notes, but that just wouldn’t work for an English test. There was too much material to read and assimilate, and without knowing exactly what material the test was going to focus on, she was forced to try to learn it all in just a few days: a daunting task at best, and almost certainly doomed to failure. She was going to blow the test for sure!

Stacy slumped back in her chair and stared at her pouting reflection in the desk mirror. It wasn’t fair. How could she be expected to keep up with all of this classwork while at the same time attend all the student council meetings as well as the swim club practices each morning. It was impossible. They just expected too much of her! She felt her large, green eyes brimming with tears; she wanted to be Homecoming Queen so badly, and now…

She was interrupted from her self-pity by the ring of the phone at her bedside. Sniffling, she got up and crossed the room to answer it.