Page 42 of Take Me Slowly: part 2
I grinned. She'd had more to drink than I did, which was probably a good thing given we were about to enter a school.
"We're not breaking and entering, are we?" I asked.
"Nah." Whitney reached into her bag and pulled out a set of keys. Before she put one in the lock, she turned off the alarmsystem with a code, tapped into the screen beside the door. "See, all good, eh." She pushed the door open and stepped inside, leaving us to follow.
The whole place was quiet and dark, our footsteps echoing on the floor as we walked toward the front office.
Whitney pulled out another key and unlocked the door before flicking on the light.
"They keep them organised by years," she said. "You'd be two years below me." She stepped over to a wall of shelves, each with its own box labelled with past years. There must have been thirty years of boxes here, with room for another decade.
She pulled out one and carried it over to a table. Sliding off the lid, she set it aside and started to rummage through the contents.
"They keep all sorts of random things in here." She pulled out a yellowed flyer, announcing a school dance for the older kids in the school.
"I'm starting to feel old." Fiona squinted at the flyer before putting it back down on the table.
"Here we go, class photos. Grade five. Grade four…" Whitney put them to one side before saying, "Okay, here we go." She held up an envelope, opened one end and tipped it up, letting the photos slide out.
"It's me." Fiona caught up one and held it for us to see. She had pigtail sticking up to either side of her head and a huge grin on her face.
"Awww, so cute," Holly said. "Hey, there's a class photo." She eased it out from under the others and we all gathered around to look.
"That's me." Fiona pointed. "And that's Holly. There's Connor, hiding behind everyone else like he doesn't want to be seen."
He was adorable, with short hair and a scowl on his face. Right beside him, I recognised Riley. He was looking at something in front of him, not at the camera.
"That's Coral," Fiona said softly. She pointed at a little girl sitting right at the front, wearing a purple T-shirt with a unicorn on it. Her hair was up in a braid and she was smiling, sitting beside another girl.
"Holy shit," Whitney whispered. She looked from the photo to me and back again. "That's definitely you. Same face shape. Same hair colour. Same eye colour."
I had to agree. If I wasn't Coral Clarke, I was the spitting image of her. But there was more to it than that.
"I have photos of me at around that age and I look the same," I also whispered. "Except in those photos, I'm not smiling." This little girl looked happy. Like she had no idea what was about to happen to her.
"I think that settles it," Whitney said. She took out her phone and took a photo of the class photograph before sliding it back in the envelope and putting it back in the box.
"What do we do now?" Holly asked. "Do we tell everyone?"
"I think I'd like to wait for the DNA test to come back first," I said. "If we show people that, they might think we're reaching. Just because she looks like me doesn't mean sheisme."
"I think that's a good idea," Fiona said. "Once you have proof, we can explain things to everyone. Don't worry, we've got you." She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. "Whatever happens, we'll be here for you."
I squeezed her back. "Thank you. I don't know what I'd do without you three." Or my four boyfriends.
"Saturday nights would be a lot less interesting." Whitney slid the box back into place and turned off the light. "We should get out of here before someone comes."
"I thought you said we weren't breaking and entering," Fiona said, following the rest of us out of the office.
"We're not. That doesn't mean we should be here," Whitney said. "They don't usually like teachers sneaking around the place in the middle of the night on a Saturday." She locked the door behind us and re-engaged the security system.
"Tell them you were preparing for class on Monday," Holly said, half joking. "They'll think you're conscientious."
Whitney barked a ha. "They know me better than that. I love my job, but I wouldn't be here on a Saturday for no reason. Especially Saturday night. Especially when Morgan Hardwick is in town. Speaking of him, we should get back to the pub. He usually plays a set when he's around."
"The country singer?" I asked. He was ridiculously famous. According to the gossip pages on the Internet, he had a house around here somewhere, but I didn't realise it was in this town. Or that he performed at the pub.
"Hell yeah I do." Whitney hooked an arm through mine and another through Fiona's. Walking like that, we made our way back to the Frosty Brew, ready to have some fun, even though my head was still spinning from looking at that photograph.
