The passenger window of the vehicle lowered to a little over halfway down, and a friendly but unfamiliar voice asked, “Hey, kid, do you want a ride to school? It’s pretty cold out there.”
Cody looked into the dark vehicle and into the person’s eyes that were locked on him. It was an older man that had a smile on his face.
“No thanks!” Cody yelled with a puzzled look on his face.
His legs started working, and he walked fast toward the end of the street. The driver didn’t say anything more. The dark window rolled up easily, and the sinister-looking vehicle slowly drove off into the distance.
As Cody turned the corner onto Franklin Street, where his school was only a few blocks away, he thought to himself, “I can’t believe that just happened.”
With butterflies in his stomach, he had flashbacks of things he had learned a while ago about strangers. He remembered safety classes he took only a few years back that local police officers gave at his school. The first thing he was taught when he was younger was to just say no and run as fast as he could if a stranger offered something.
Then his mind replayed what had just happened to him just moments ago. Crazy questions and thoughts filtered through his head like, What would have happened to me if I decided to get in that sharp-looking car? Would I ever get to see my mom or sister again? Aren’t I a little too old for a person to try and kidnap me? What if the man was just trying to be nice? An unexpected tear slowly dripped down his cheek and fell to the now snow-covered sidewalk. An uneasy feeling took over the boy’s body.
Passing Watergate Avenue, the final street before his school, Cody ran the rest of the way to school. He needed to tell someone right away what had happened.
CHAPTER III
School
Not really knowing what to do, Cody hurried straight to the main office and asked for the assistant principal. Seeing how excited and distraught Cody was, the secretary said, “My goodness, kid, what’s wrong?”
Trying to catch his breath, Cody explained everything that had happened and that a stranger had tried to pick him up on his way to school. Cody could tell that the secretary didn’t really believe his story and wasn’t really paying attention to him.
The secretary replied, “The assistant principal is not in yet. At least, you’re okay and nothing happened. This really isn’t too big of a deal, but we will tell the assistant principal your story anyways.”
Not wanting to hear that, Cody stormed out of the office. He was utterly annoyed with the lady and went to the side of his school where his friend Zach was eagerly waiting.
His friend was wearing a gray-and-red winter jacket, a ski hat, and gloves. Zach was Cody’s best friend for many years. The two were only a month apart in age.
“Where were you, dude? I have been waiting for you,” Zach blurted out.
Still with a butterfly feeling in his stomach, Cody replied, “Someone tried to pick me up on the way to school!”
Zach looked at Cody with a lost expression on his face.
Not really knowing how to respond to that, Zach said, chuckling, “What? What do you mean someone tried to pick you up? Like kidnap you? You’re in seventh grade, dude. You’re almost a teenager.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Cody angrily replied even though he thought the same thing when he was walking to school.
Zach straightened up and appeared more serious. Trying to read the confusion on his friend’s face, Cody proceeded to tell him the details, including what the assistant principal’s stupid secretary said. He tried to describe the car to Zach the way he remembered.
“The car was black and had chrome on it. I don’t know what kind of car it was, though,” explained Cody.
Afterward, Zach said, “We should go to the police and tell them everything.”
“No, not right now. School is about to start. Let me think over the day, and then I’ll decide what to do,” said Cody.
It made Cody relieved that his best friend actually believed him and wanted to do something about it. The first bell rang, and both of them walked to class anxiously.
As they walked, Cody asked Zach one very important thing, “As my best friend, can you please keep this quiet and not tell anyone? I don’t need everyone making fun of me about this. Please promise?” Hearing how serious his tone was, Zach replied, “I promise, dude.”
They both entered the classroom and went in different directions. When Cody sat down, he realized that he had forgotten to take off his layers of clothes and saw his classmates all staring at him with a few giggles filling the room. His face started turning red, and he slowly removed his layers of warm items as the teacher just stared at him impatiently.
Cody glanced at Zach across the room and saw his friend just put his head down. The teacher began calling out attendance.
First period was just homeroom for the students, and it was only a half-hour long. Zach and Cody had been separated and assigned different seating because they would always disrupt class by talking to each other during attendance. It didn’t help that Zach was also the class clown either.
Minutes seemed to pass quickly, and the bell rang. It was on to second period.
The day dragged on. Class after class, crazy thoughts ran through Cody’s imaginative mind. Thoughts like wishing he had written down the license plate number of the black car and wishing he had gotten a better look at the man’s face.
The boy would find himself doodling on his spiral notebook throughout the morning. The black car itself kept repeating in his mind down to every detail that he could think of. Why was the man offering Cody a ride to school? He remembered the beady eyes glaring at him just above the dark window. Cody never got a real good look at the man.
In third period, Cody’s English teacher, Mrs. Woodberry, caught him in a dead, preoccupied moment. “Mr. Roberts, can you please tell the class what Charlotte and Captain Jaggery’s important conversation was about in chapter 3 in this past weekend’s assigned reading?” said Mrs. Woodberry.
The seventh-grade reading assignment for that quarter was the book The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. Caught off guard, Cody stuttered, “I’m sorry, could you please repeat the question?”
Some kids in the class laughed and called him an idiot under their breaths. The teacher yelled at the students that were being annoying and focused back on Cody.
“Please pay attention more, and then I won’t put you on the spot, Cody,” the teacher explained.
“Sorry, Mrs. Woodberry, it won’t happen again,” Cody tried to say with sincerity.
Trying to stay focused for the rest of the class was too difficult for Cody, though. He ended up thinking even more about the event that happened to him that morning on his walk to school.
Two more classes went by, and a much-needed break was in sight. Cody’s head was spinning in a million different directions, and a headache started to form. Cody prayed that it didn’t turn into one terrible huge headache. The boy had a bad history of headaches, and the heavy ones were excruciatingly painful.
In sixth grade, when he was on a traveling baseball team, Cody was hit on his helmet with a baseball on a wild throw while running to first base. He suffered a concussion that day. It was after that the headaches started randomly.
At lunch, Cody sat with his buddies Frankie, Seth, and of course, his best friend Zach. Cody knew that Zach had kept his word and not told anyone. He had a way of reading his friend.
While Frankie and Seth argued who the greatest home run hitter of all time was, Cody just quietly ate his packed lunch and didn’t say anything. Zach joined in on the conversation but knew deep down that his friend was very distraught. Zach stared at Cody, trying to get him to say anything. Cody didn’t say a word.