Excitement and sadness visited the Blake RorySpain Middle School, where Mary Joyce attended. This last weekend the gymnasium was broken into and set afire. Gym period was changed to study hall in the cafeteria.
It was reported that Mrs. LowSam had taken a leave of absence since there was no place for gym class to be held. Mrs. LowSam was very much missed.
Mary Joyce called her house once, but she wasn’t home. Weeks passed. The gymnasium building was being repaired, but very slowly. Word was that it may not be completed until the next school year.
Winter had officially arrived. It was time for Christmas break. Many evenings, to shop and to meet friends, Mary Joyce went to work at the mall with her mother. On arriving and leaving, she often glanced at the dumpster and thought of the time she believed she glimpsed Bigfoot.
The weather gradually turned warmer. And still the gymnasium was not completed.
Two days into spring break, Beth was tagging along to the mall with Mary Joyce. The days were longer now. It was a good hour before pitch dark and an hour or so before Mrs. Bandwilly was to finish work at the beauty salon.
Mary Joyce, feeling restless, convinced Beth to walk with her around the mall. This took them to the dumpster where Mary Joyce had seen Bigfoot.
Walking around the corner in the direction the animal had come, maybe in the same footsteps, the girls neared the dumpster. Being light still, neither girl was afraid. The blue-white light high up on a pole in the middle of the parking lot flickered on, where just below was parked the Bandwilly’s family car. Not in any hurry to go back inside the mall, the two friends leaned against the fender of the small car and watched the sunset colors fade from pink to grey.
The oddest and most unexpected thing happened next: Mrs. LowSam appeared at the dumpster, and was crawling behind it. “You sure it‘s Mrs. LowSam and not Mr. LowSam?” Beth asked.
Beth had been watching a pair of boys bicycling across the parking lot. And so, she hadn’t seen the figure crawl between the dumpster and mall wall.
“Come on, let’s go talk to her,” Beth shouted from over her shoulder─giggling mischievously.
“Mrs. LowSam, is that you?” asked Mary Joyce as they approached the overflowing dumpster.
“What?… Oh, girls, how are you?” the teacher said while scrambling out from behind the dumpster. “I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m doing here.”
Mary Joyce and Beth, both wide-eyed, glanced at each other, trying very hard not to break out in a fit of laughter, because of course they were wondering what she was doing camped out behind a dirty old dumpster.
She caught her long hair into a high pony tail and continued, “I guess I’ll have to be honest with you two.
In short, I’m the one all along that’s been interested in Bigfoot. Mr. LowSam is the skeptic, not me.”
The big, metal dumpster was smelly. So, Mrs. LowSam wrinkling her pug nose, walked away from it, motioning for the girls to follow. She kept glancing at the wooded hillside.
“Last week I think I may have seen the animal. I haven’t been able to sleep since then. So, I decided I’d just hide here and wait for the thing. I think it comes here to scrounge for food.” She finally stopped talking.
Excited, Mary Joyce lit nonstop into questioning the woman. Beth, however, just couldn’t get into the subject of Bigfoot. She’d walked to the corner of the building where the two boys on the bicycles had stopped and waved for Beth to come.
Mary Joyce whirled ‘round to call Beth. In the turn, she struck Mrs. LowSam’s elbow which caused something to fall from her pocket and clatter onto the asphalt.
At their feet was a silvery handgun. Mary Joyce’s mouth fell agape. She recognized the weapon as a
small frame revolver, perhaps a Smith and Wesson like her father’s.
“Oh dear! Oh dear! What ever must you think?” Mrs. LowSam sputtered after snatching the gun up and tucking it back into her pocket.
“Why do you have a gun?”
“Mary Joyce, dear, I need to talk to you. It isn’t really as bad as it looks,” she said while bending down at the dumpster to retrieve her forest-green backpack from behind it. The silver gun again slid from her pocket and clanged to a spinning stop at the corner of the dumpster.
Beth was walking back to them when she raised a hand in greeting to a security guard coming toward her just ten or so feet behind Mary Joyce and Mrs. LowSam. They turned in unison to see why Beth was waving. Mrs. LowSam, as her face drained of color, quickly but carefully nudged the small gun completely under the dumpster with the toe of her gym shoe.
“Ladies,” the friendly guard said, touching his hat in greeting. He walked on by.
Mary Joyce knew the man, for often her mother asked the guard to escort her to her car on nights she had to stay late, making the cash register tape balance with the money in its drawer.
“Let’s go inside and I’ll buy us all an ice cream cone. We can talk, then.” Mrs. LowSam bent again, presenting her wide posterior, but this time not in fun. She retrieved the gun and put it in a zippered pocket of her backpack. “Let me take this pack to my car.”
The girls followed their gym teacher, both wondering what sort of story would come of discovering this respected instructor, packing a gun behind Broadway Mall.
... to be continued next Monday
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