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“I know but-” His bottom lip stuck out in a little pout. “It’s because of Mrs. Evans. She won’t let me draw in class.”
Now, were it any other excuse, Chess would’ve called him out on it. She wasn’t a fan of blaming teachers for her child’s misdeeds and failures. But this was a genuine issue.
For the longest time, Chess and Jay’s teachers had been frustrated with Jay’s behavior in school. Though he was generally smart and likable, he was a handful during class hours.
He was inattentive in class, and always got in trouble for sleeping, making noise, or distracting other students. His grades often fluctuated wildly too; sometimes he was at the bottom of the class and sometimes he was at the top. No one understood what was going on with him.
A teacher suggested that Chess should have him checked out for learning disabilities, which she did. Their physician had diagnosed him with mild ADHD. There was medication that could calm him down, but Chess had turned that down because she didn’t want to mess with his brain chemicals while he was still growing.
Fortunately, the doctor had figured out that Jay’s main issue was that he couldn’t concentrate on just one thing at a time. If you wanted him to listen to you, you had to give him something else to do. In his case, it was drawing. As long as you let him draw as you spoke, he was listening to you. This had worked marvelously, and Jay was currently at the top of his class in most subjects.
But apparently, this was no longer the case.
“Who is Mrs. Evans?” Chess asked. “Is she new? I thought Mr. Bernard was your teacher. ”
Jay explained, “But Mr. Bernard got sick so Mrs. Evans has been teaching us.”
“Why didn’t I know this?” Chess frowned. “Didn’t your school tell parents?”
“They gave us letters to give you.” With a sheepish look, Jay confessed, “But I spilled juice on mine during break and forgot to tell you.”
Chess sighed because of both Jay’s carelessness and the school’s determination to remain in the Middle Ages. If she’d received a simple email or even a text message, she could’ve dealt with this issue before it became a D.
“Okay, I’ll come to school later today and talk to Mrs. Evans.”
Jay’s eyes lit up. “You’ll tell her to let me draw?”
“I’llaskher to let you draw,” Chess corrected. “But I’m sure she’ll agree.”
Jay smiled in satisfaction.
Chess stood. “Now, let me see if Aunt Senia will drive you to school because Mommy is late for work.”
She moved from the dining area, down the hallway, to stop in front of her sister’s room. She gently knocked on the closed door. “Senia?”
There was no response.
Chess knocked again. When she still didn’t get a response, she carefully opened the door.
Despite it being morning, Senia’s room was shrouded in darkness. Black drapes covered the large windows keeping out dawn’s rays. The only source of light was the unearthly blue light coming from the monitor of her computer.
Senia, who was seated on the swivel chair that faced the monitor with her back to the door, didn’t hear Chess come into the room. How could she when she had on noise-cancellation headphones and was rapidly typing on her keyboard?
Chess didn’t even bother calling out her sister’s name. She crossed the room to gently take off the headphones from Senia’s head.
Startled, Senia turned in her seat. When she saw it was Chess, her face relaxed into a smile. “It’s you.”
Though Chess and Senia had similar facial features and were both dark-skinned, that was where their similarities ended. Even when Chess was wearing heels, Senia towered over her. Senia was tall and lithe, like their father, and could’ve made it as a runway model if she wasn’t into computers. Meanwhile, Chess had taken all their mother’s curves; big boobs, wide hips, sizeable ass… the works. Funnily enough, they both envied each other and wished they had the other’s body.
“What are you doing?” Chess peered at the monitor. All she saw were maps, dots and numbers that she couldn’t understand. “Are you still looking for that guy?”
“Yeah, still looking.” Senia turned back to the computer and resumed tapping away. “But I’m about to find him.” Her expression grave and determined, she added, “He can’t hide from me. No one can.”
Senia’s job was… complicated. Asking her what she did often drew a complicated explanation that involved high-level legalese mixed in with some math and computer language that Chess’s simple brain had a hard time processing. So Chess had just given her the job title of ‘Cyber Bounty Hunter’.
In short, if one needed to find someone, then Senia was the person to hire. The only people she had difficulty finding were the Amish, and that’s only because of their aversion to electronics. But the moment they signed up for email or even just purchased a digital TV, it was over for them.
Within days, Senia would know where they lived, who their parents were, how many siblings they had, how much they spent each month, their movie preferences, which places they liked to eat, which supermarkets they visited, who they dated in middle school, who they had feuds with, who they were cheating with…
