Punch!

Chapter 4: The Girl Takes Charge

Chapter 4

The Girl Takes Charge

The laughter was dying down. Suzette stepped into the room a little further, trying to appear confident, even in front of a group of rowdy teenage boys.

Blue eyed boy rubbed his temples. "Suzette, please leave."

He was annoyed with her. That was obvious. "I'm not leaving just yet, because now I have even more questions."

He rubbed his lips together. "Well, we're not going to answer them."

Suzette spied an extra batch of folding chairs in the corner. She mustered as much speed as she could and scooped one up. She unfolded it smack dab in the middle of the circle. Gracefully, she sat down. "You're not getting rid of me that easily."

One of the guys, who looked to be the shortest one there, spoke up. "Are you seriously this mad that we stole your precious history club time?"

"The History Buffs." Suzette was quick to correct. "I was mad, but now I'm more interested in this club." 

"You can't join this club." The voice came from the one boy who hadn't spoken yet. He had bright orange hair and some wicked freckles. 

"Why's that?" Suzette asked, even though she had no intention of joining.

"Is it an apology you're looking for?" Blue eyed boy broke in. "If so, I'm sorry for stealing your time. This meeting was an emergency, we needed to meet as soon as we could. Your time was the most convenient."

Suzette decided to play them some more. "Okay, I'll accept your apology on one condition." She waited until all of them were holding their breaths. "You need to tell me what kind of club this is, since the knitting thing was obviously a cover up."

The air was dead for awhile. The frizzy haired boy eventually spoke. "We can't tell you."

Suzette was getting more and more curious by the second. "Are you doing something illegal?"

"Not exactly." The short one said, but was quickly shut up by blue eyes' stare. 

Suzette suddenly felt a surge of confidence, and it was real this time. "Well if you guys aren't going to tell me, maybe I'll ask the principal if he knows anything about this secretive group. Or better yet, I could tell the police that I'm suspicious you guys are doing some illegal drug!"

Blue eyes sighed. "You don't give up, do you?"

A look of shock fell onto the boys faces. The red head leaned over. "You're not really going to tell her, are you Reed?"

Suzette was pleased to put a name to the face. "Yeah Reed, are you?"

Reed paused and rubbed his eyelids. "I don't know."

Suzette crossed her arms over her chest and leaned down in her chair. "I can wait."

Reed looked in the direction of the frizzy haired boy. "Peter, do you have a piece of paper?"

Peter nodded and revealed a notepad of yellow lined paper from under his seat. He tore off a sheet.   "Here."

Reed folded the sheet in half. "Anyone got a pen?"

"I have one." The shortest guy reached into his pants pocket and threw a pen, complete with teeth marks, in Reed's direction.

Reed caught it expertly. "Thanks Louie." He placed the piece of paper on the wall and began to write, but quickly shook his head. "She's not going to be able to read this. My handwriting sucks." He admitted. "Smith, your handwriting's good, right?" Reed was pointing at the red head with Louie's chewed up pen.

Smith pursed his lips. "Sure, yeah. What do you want me to write?"

"The address." Reed tried to be quiet, but Suzette could still hear him clearly.

"What address?" She was growing impatient.

"Just wait a second." Smith was writing furiously. For a few moments, all Suzette could hear was the scraping of the pen against the tough paper. Eventually, Smith lifted his head up. "Here you go." He placed the paper in her open hand.

"You want to see what this club really is? Be at that address Saturday night at 8 o'clock." Reed spoke quickly, as if to throw her off. "Now get out."

Suzette knew he was trying to be forceful, but there was something in his voice that seemed gentle. Suzette didn't dwell on it too much though, within a few minutes she had said her goodbyes to each individual boy now that she knew their names, and was back in the parking lot.

She was about to swing open the door to Ivy's car when she unfolded the paper and glanced down at Smith's clean and precise handwriting.

253 Port Avenue

Suzette swallowed her sinking feeling. 253 Port Avenue was in one of the roughest parts of St. Augustine. 

What had she gotten herself into?