"Go away, Keith," Gloria told the black-haired junior. She stood between Keith McDowell, Annoyingly Persistent Reporter, and Sabine, who cowered behind her.
"But it's a story! The people have a right to know!" Keith demanded.
Right at the start of lunch break, he had barged into the classroom and had gone straight for Sabine's desk. Guess they could not keep Sabine's return to school a secret.
Gloria glanced about the class for help. Saki was not present that day - a phone call at morning break revealed that she was ill in bed. And the boys were not reliable.
"Look Sabine's still adjusting to school," Gloria said, "Why don't you give her some space for now?"
"But she's been to court!" Keith exclaimed. Where had he heard of that? "The people need to know why." Can he not come up with a better reason than that cliche!?
"So what? I've been to court too..." Oops.
"You've been to court?" Keith repeated her statement, "When?"
"At their trial..." What was she getting herself into?
"At Ms Weiss and Ms Baker's trial?" Keith asked. Good news: Keith lost interest in her friend. Bad news: Guess who was his new victim. "Can I interview you about that?" He raised his pencil to his notepad.
"Yeah, sure," Gloria agreed uncertainly as she stepped from Sabine's desk, leading Keith away from his former prey. Her brown-haired friend took the opportunity to sneak out of the class with her lunch box.
Gloria returned to her desk and leaned on it. "What do you want to know?"
"Why were you at court?" Keith began.
"They wanted me as a witness to Sabine and Connie's characters." She was not about to tell him that she was also called to testify about what happened on the night of the fund-raiser. That would invite even more questions, which required more answers, which would bring more questions, and so on, until he had the naked truth. Literally.
And she did not want everyone in school to know the details of that.
"And why were Ms Weiss and Ms Baker at court?" Keith asked.
"They had given me alcohol," Gloria replied.
"Gave you alcohol? Is this related to the time when you got drunk and unconscious?"
"Yes." Gloria dropped onto her seat.
"But isn't court too serious for something like giving you alcohol?" Keith probed.
Oh oh. "Look, they were giving alcohol to a minor. That is a serious offense." Please do not dig deeper, please do not dig deeper...
Keith looked at her for a moment. Then he asked, "Despite that, it looks like you're still friends with Ms Weiss."
Sigh! "Yeah, it's not really her fault. Connie bullied her into spiking my drinks."
"How did they spike your drink?"
Oh no! "I'm not sure." Well, that was the truth... partly.
"Where did it happen?"
"At a dinner, a buffet dinner." That was going the way Gloria wanted to avoid.
Keith paged through his notes. "Let me get this straight. You were at a dinner. They put alcohol in your drink. You got drunk. Then you fell unconscious. Right?"
Gloria nodded.
"What happened while you were unconscious?"
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