Naked in School
Freedom to be Free
Chapter 21 - The Program Starts. Again
At the OSA headquarters office in early August, Ross Gerberin stopped into William Garcy’s office. Garcy was his counterpart in the agency, Gerberin being the compliance director and Garcy, the school operations director.
“Hey, Bill,” Gerberin greeted Garcy, “got something you can do for Enforcement.”
“Hi. Heard they dropped your kidnapping charge. That was good news. So what’s up?”
“Yeah, my charge was dropped. Since I never told the agents to take those kids into custody, they couldn’t call me an accomplice. But that DA is really pushing to get my agents convicted, like she did to the four agents involved in last year’s nudist park attempted detainment. Well, I want those two kids to pay for our difficulties with that county. They did serious medical damage to my men and it’s likely that their appeal of their conviction won’t work. The Program starts at those two kids’ high school this fall term and I want you to arrange to put them into the Program for a month, Bill.”
“Their school records have declarations of religious exemption, Ross. We can’t do that, plus they have no Program infractions to justify a Program punishment.”
“Fuck that, Bill. Have your coordinator there—what’s his name, Werthur?”
“Don Werthur, right.”
“Just have him get rid of those declarations. Besides, religious exemptions aren’t accepted in this area—it’s not like over there in central Pennsylvania. And infractions? They failed to participate in their former school when they were selected, and then, in their interviews with my agents, they failed to respond to the questioning. Those actions of theirs call for a strong punishment. So on the first day of school, have Werthur put them in the Program. And if they resist, I’ll have enforcers standing by.”
“Let me check ... okay, the first day of school is August 25 but the first Program week isn’t scheduled until September 12. That’s when the Program begins at that school.”
“No matter; this is a punishment participation. It’s to be all month, to the end of September.”
“All right, then. On your authority?” Gerberin nodded. “Send me a written request and I’ll let Werthur know.”
“Thanks, Bill. I’ll send you the memo.”
He left the office.
The second Monday of August brought the dreaded, but expected notice from the school that the Program was to begin on the second Monday of September. As had occurred in prior years, the Ritters were spending two weeks plus at Pine View, while Drew and Connor stayed home; soccer tryouts and team practices began on that same Monday. In each student’s orientation packet, there was a welcome letter from the principal, schedules of various types, club and sports notices, drama and band performance details, and parents’ information about the Program.
“Looks like the same kind of stuff about the Program that they sent back at Etown, sweetie,” Drew said as they looked the papers over. “Nothing about any Program assembly. Call kids’ names during home room after Period 1, just like we figured. Random selections and... interesting... not twenty seniors each week, it’s twenty-four. Ten juniors and six each sophs and fresh. Forty-six kids. That’s, um, like fifty in 2500 is 2 percent. Two out of every hundred kids naked. They’d all be targets for damned sure.”
“So true. They’d stand out for sure.”
“I’m so glad we’re gonna do the Project, we’ll get maybe thirty to forty naked kids per hundred, judging by Sherrill’s latest numbers.”
“I hope it goes up to half—maybe when the rest see what’s happening, they’ll join in. And here’s a consent form and a waiver of liability too; looks very similar to the ones from Etown. Hey, let me call Jay and see what he thinks of this waiver.”
Jay wasn’t impressed.
“I strongly advise not signing anything. Waivers like that are extremely common, but that doesn’t mean that the courts like them. For schools, the officials have a duty to students to provide a safe environment, so if it turns out that an injury resulted from the failure to properly supervise students, then the parents can sue regardless of the existence of a signed waiver. But why take that chance?
“There’s an additional factor here in Maryland too. State law maintains that such waivers can be invalid if one party has grossly unequal bargaining power over another, which is certainly the case of a school over a student. Maryland courts have ruled that waivers like that—they’re actually contracts—would put the weaker party at the mercy of the stronger one’s negligence.
“Also in this state, courts have ruled that since parents have the responsibility to make decisions pertaining to their children’s welfare, decisions which are supposed to be in the child’s best interest, the existence of a signed liability waiver might not prevent a parent from recovering damages in a lawsuit. Parents must make decisions on behalf of their children in areas including health, education, and religion, and these particular waivers could prevent the parent from protecting their child’s interest in the first two of those areas. So no, don’t sign them. There’s no penalty or limitation attached to school participation if they’re unsigned, like sports participation waivers. Unless those are signed, the child can’t play. Long-winded explanation, right? That’s a lawyer for you. But you got the message.”
“Sure did. Thanks, Jay. Say, you guys going to the resort this coming weekend?” Connor asked.
“I’ll be there; Delia’s there with Wilma and Tracy this week but I had to be in the office.”
Connor texted Frantz about the Program waiver forms and Jay’s response and told him that he and Drew would bring them out that weekend.
Soccer tryouts were done and practice had begun and Drew and Connor once again got caught up in their team activities. Connor had developed and adapted a number of agility exercises which were becoming very popular with the team because he had set them to several current popular music tracks. And he was leading the team members in strength and endurance drills too.
Drew, now reconnected with the junior and senior members of the girls’ team, with whom she had scrimmaged with at the resort early in the summer, was learning the team’s set plays and working out with them. She had noticed that, for the current season, only one sophomore had made the varsity cut, so she reserved extra time to work with the JV girls to try to improve their skills so some could move up to varsity next season.
There were two non-league scrimmages set for the week before school began; the second was on Saturday, so Drew and Connor didn’t go to the resort that weekend. School would begin in several days.
Tuesday arrived, the first day of school. The day would be sunny and a little cool, a sign of fall’s approach. Perfect riding weather, but the trip to the school was quite short. The teens headed out to the motorcycle.
“Well, off to school, first day,” Connor said as he rolled out the bike. “Great perks, being an athlete and a senior. Got really convenient lockers too, one in the school and one at the field house gym, and our class schedules are set to allow practices and games.”
“I like what you’re doing with your conditioning program, sweetie. You learned some good stuff doing the soccer camp and the agility drills you put together are really clever.”
“Yeah. Work well with a large group too. Okay, let’s go.”
Connor parked the motorcycle in the motorcycle area of the student parking lot and he and Drew hopped off.
“It’s interesting to see that a fair number of kids here ride their bikes to school,” Connor observed, looking around at the other parked bikes. “Let’s store our riding gear in our school lockers instead of stuffing everything into the trunk and saddle bags.”
“Okay, good idea. First day, new school,” Drew said. “At least we spent a day last spring going around to classes here. And I’m thrilled at the size of the Project now. The texting tree has almost 900 members! I hope that they all will get nude when the time comes.”
“Sherrill says that she’s sure that they will. Damn, she’s really become a great field commander. And Wilma is a good tactician. And you, Drew, you’re our strategist.”
“And you, sweetie? Where do you fit in?”
Connor laughed. “Foot soldier,” he responded.
“No, shock troops, more like,” Drew chuckled.
They went into the school and stored their gear in their lockers, then went off to their first period class. Ten minutes into the class, Drew and Connor were paged over the PA system.
“Drew Harper, Connor Martin, please come to the school office.”
Connor looked at Drew. “Wonder what that’s all about?”
“Dunno, but I have a bad feeling,” Drew muttered. “Get premonitions. I think it’s why my soccer sense is so good. I can sense some things about to happen.”
When they arrived at the office, a man was waiting there behind the counter.
When they entered, he went to the counter and asked, “Harper and Martin? Are you the ones we paged?”
“And who might you be?” Drew asked. “Why were we paged?”
“I want you to follow me to my office...” he began, but Drew stopped him.
“I don’t know you. I know the principal, my assistant principal, and my counselor. I don’t know who you are.”
“I see that you’re going to be difficult, miss. I’m Mr Werthur and the federal Program coordinator. Now I insist that you come with me.”
Connor spoke up. “Not on your life, mister. We’ll have nothing to do with you and your Program.”
“I insist, kid; I can make your life very difficult...”
Their voices had been getting louder and that brought the principal, Dr Petersmith, out of her office.
“What’s this disturbance... oh, I remember you... Drew, is it? Coach Adcock showed me some videos of your soccer playing. I’m looking forward to seeing you play for the Gophers. Now, what’s this commotion about?”
Before Werthur could reply, Drew said, “This person had us paged. Now he told us to go to his office, that he’s a Program official. We have religious exemptions and won’t have anything to do with Program people.”
Petersmith turned to Werthur. “Explain yourself, Mr Werthur.”
“Ah, it’s a private matter. Can we go...”
“No. Right here. Explain.”
“OSA national has determined that these two students are Program violators and must be punished by spending a month in the Program. I ordered them to follow me to my office where they are to strip and begin their punishment.”
Drew and Connor reacted, “No way!” ... “Absolutely not!”
Drew went on, “We have religious exemptions from the Program. The declarations are in our file, forwarded here from our last school.”
“There is no such declaration in either of your files,” Werthur said.
Connor stared at him. “Our guardian has date-stamped copies of all of our transferred school records and that exemption declaration is included in her copies. If the school copy is missing, I accuse you of tampering with school records. Dr Petersmith, isn’t that a crime? Okay. Drew and I will write out another declaration right here and sign it. Under the First Amendment, we have the right to freely observe our religious principles.”
“Maybe you did in Pennsylvania, kid. That doesn’t fly here,” Werthur stated. “Now, the federal rules state that the principal has no authority over Program punishment matters, so if you refuse to come with me, strip, and begin your punishment, I’ll call in our enforcement people and they’ll see that you comply.”
“I’ll need to see you in my office, Mr Werthur,” Petersmith said coldly. “Right now. There will be absolutely NO enforcement of any federal rule that says that I have less than full authority in my school, understand?”
“C’mon, Drew, let the turd stew in his own shit, sorry for the language, Dr Petersmith, but I’ve had it with these cretins. This isn’t the first time they’ve caused a problem for us. We’re going back to class now. Let’s go, honey.”
On the way back, Connor told Drew, “We’ll stop at the lockers, sweetie, and get the riding leathers. If enforcers come, they’ll probably have their usual Tasers. When I got hit last time, I noticed that the dart part was less than a half-inch long. It’s long enough to go through most clothes, and even if the point comes close to the skin, I read that it can still disable. I did get a jolt through the leathers and hoodie when I got hit. Let me run out to the bike and get our padded riding gear. We’ll wear that under the leathers. That should be plenty thick to stop the darts. While I’m getting the gear, call Jay and tell him what’s happening here.”
The enforcers showed up at their classroom at just after 1 p.m., during Period 3. Two men entered the classroom and asked for Drew and Connor. The teacher indicated them.
“Miss Hampton, those are criminals and we’re not going anywhere,” Connor said.
Kids in the classroom gasped at that and the teacher asked, “What do you mean, criminals?”
“They’re attempting to take us without our consent. Kidnapping’s a felony, last I heard. These jerks are so-called Program enforcers for the Naked in School Program,” Drew responded.
That caused a commotion in the classroom and the teacher told the two men that they must leave the classroom; she’d call the police resource officer if they didn’t leave. They left.
“What’s happening, Miss Hampton, is that the Program official at the school here told us this morning that he’s punishing us for not participating in the Program in our last school, where we had an exemption,” Connor explained. “What they’re doing now is so illegal that it’s mind-boggling. Thanks for sending them out.”
“Okay, Connor. But I’m certain that they’ll be waiting for you after class,” she said and he acknowledged that.
They were waiting; the teens could see them watching the classroom door, so they crouched down and slipped out under the cover of a group of kids who shielded them from view. And the halls were so crowded with rushing kids that Connor and Drew were able to evade the two men and got to their fourth period class unchallenged. There, they told that teacher about the enforcers and he said that he’d kick them out if they came into the room.
“We’ll have the showdown out at the parking lot, most likely,” Connor told Drew. “They’re probably gonna watch for us at the student parking lot. Hey, since the football team has practice after school; let’s go there instead.”
After the final bell, the two left the classroom and headed for the athletic area. And then they saw Werthur standing near the exit door there. He noticed them and make a phone call.
“Looks like they were staking out the school doors,” Connor muttered as they went over to the football practice field.
Drew and Connor knew a number of the coaches and assistant coaches of several teams; they had met them during the school’s athletic program orientation week when the fall sports teams held their tryouts and the football head coach had recruited Connor as a student coach for agility and conditioning training. Drew went over to the assistant coach who was leading the practice.
“Coach, this is something really weird, but we’ve got a few guys chasing us who are with the Naked in School enforcement group. They have no legal authority to do what they’re doing—basically they’re trying to kidnap Connor and me. They’re coming out here, we’re sure, and they use Taser guns, so watch out. We’re gonna fight them if they try anything physical. Please don’t let anyone interfere, they can get hurt.”
“Jeez, Drew, you sure?”
“Wish I weren’t sure... oh, looks like four? Jeez, it’s four guys. Okay, Connor, what’s the drill for four?”
“Still no message from Jay?”
“Nope. We’re on our own here,” Drew answered.
“Play it by ear, then, honey.”
Two of the men approached and one demanded that Drew and Connor go with them, while the other two hung about thirty feet back, watching.
“Not going anywhere,” Connor answered. “I suggest you guys get lost. Touch me or get aggressive, you’ll pay. If you try anything, I’ll cripple you.”
The guy laughed, “Sure you will. Turn around so I can cuff you.”
He pulled a pair of handcuffs out of a pouch at his belt while the other guy with him pulled out a Taser and pointed it.
“Okay, that’s legal assault and battery,” Connor said, raising his arms to the sides, above his head, making a vee to his body, as he got close to the guy who was speaking. “You want me to surrender? See, hands are up; I’m not armed. What do you want with us?”
“We’ll transport you to our facility for detailed questioning and a psychological exam.”
“In other words, taking us without our consent. Kidnapping.”
“Listen, kid, we’re in charge, you’re not. You’ll go with us voluntarily or we’ll tase you and carry you out of here.”
“That’s all I needed to hear,” Connor grunted as he brought his cupped hands down hard to either side of the man’s head, striking him over the ears.
The double-ear strike momentarily stunned him and shocked him into motionlessness as Connor threw a punch into the man’s solar plexus, doubling him over, and then kicked him in the left knee. He was wearing his heavy riding boots, and the blow wrecked the man’s knee joint as his leg folded back the wrong way. Meanwhile, the second man had fired his Taser at Connor, but with Connor’s rapid movement, only a single dart impacted his side, only to get tangled up in the leather fabric of his riding gear.
Connor glanced around to locate his next opponent, only to see a smug Drew standing over the second man, the Taser guy, who was face down on the ground. And the two other men, about 25 feet away, were down too, their own Tasers lying on the ground. And he saw yellow balls scattered on the ground everywhere around them.
The coach was looking at Drew in undisguised awe.
“Holy shit,” Connor heard him say. “How the fuck did she do that?”
“Hey Connor,” Drew called to him. “Their handcuffs will be useful here,” she said as she took a pair out of the pouch of the guy at her feet.
She secured the guy’s wrists behind him and jogged over to the other two men. Connor shook his head hard and went after her. They found the cuff holsters and trussed the two up. Connor noted that there were huge welts on the side of each man’s face.
“They’ll need medical help,” Drew started to say and then they heard the sound of approaching sirens. “Ah, someone must have called.”
Consciousness was returning to the four men, who began yelling in pain, and Connor’s victim, whom Connor hadn’t cuffed, was clutching his knee and cursing up a storm.
“Warned you, dummy, didn’t I?” Connor growled at him as the coach came over to Drew, who was busy retrieving her lacrosse balls.
“Drew, I don’t believe what I just saw...” he started to say as a few officers came running up.
“Call came in about a possible kidnapping in progress,” the first officer said. “What happened here?”
“These jerks need ambulances,” Connor told him. “They tried to kidnap me and Drew here, but it appears that she stopped them. Jeez, Drew, three of them? Who’s the shock troop now?”
One of the cops called for medical aid while the first began to question the bystanders. The assistant coach gave some orders to the kids on the team.
“Listen up, Gophers! Keep quiet now, till it’s your turn. Don’t talk among yourselves until the officers get a chance to question you, okay? Everyone, down on the turf now, everyone six feet apart. Do it!”
“Thanks much, Coach,” the officer said. “That helps us a lot. Let me record your statement now. Please state your name and describe what you saw.” He spoke into the recorder, “Statement taken at the Glen Burnie High School football practice field, 3:56 p.m., August 25. Go ahead, sir.”
“I’m assistant football coach Rod Grainger. I was directing a football practice when two students here, Drew something and her friend, um, it’s Connor, I think, yeah, Connor, came out from the school building to the practice field. They told me that they thought that several men were coming to forcibly detain them to take them away. Someone here with a cell phone must have heard the guy, the closest one, the one clutching his knee, say something like they would take them somewhere to question them and do a psych exam, and called 911 to report it.
“Then I heard that guy say that unless the two kids went voluntarily, they would tase them and carry them away. Then that other guy on the ground near him pulled out a Taser and aimed it at Connor. When the knee guy tried to cuff Connor, Connor just did some quick moves and put that guy down so fast, I almost couldn’t follow his moves. But the closer Taser guy fired the thing at Connor. It didn’t hit anything, since he didn’t seem to be affected.
“But the amazing part was the girl, Drew. Everything was happening so fast. While that guy was trying to cuff Connor, one of those guys lying on the turf about thirty feet away had aimed his Taser at her. She saw him raise it up and I saw the little lights on it come on—guess they’re to aim it—and she threw a goddamned lacrosse ball at him as he must have fired the thing, I think I see the dart ends lying over there. The other guy had pulled his Taser out too and was aiming it at her. I think that she threw about five or six balls at them. One or more must have hit those guys’ heads hard enough that they got knocked out. All in maybe ten-fifteen seconds. Then she dashed over at Taser guy number one, who was reloading his thing, I guess—he was snapping a cube thing into its front, when Drew plowed into his chest with her shoulder and I think, slammed the heel of her hand into the guy’s temple. And he went down too. That was an amazing thing to see.”
At that point, Connor had finished with his own statement and was listening to the coach finishing up. He looked over at Drew and she gave him a thumb’s up as she was with another officer recording her own statement. An ambulance pulled in then and a few minutes later, a second one arrived, and the EMTs ran over to check the injured enforcers. A few of the football team members also gave statements; several had been close enough to hear the threats made to Connor and they mentioned the threats.
Connor went over to Drew as she was finishing her statement.
“...and I saw the two, um, backup guys, I guess they were, aiming their Tasers at me. I didn’t know how far they worked, but wasn’t taking any chances. I have a strange hobby; I like to throw things. I’m a shark at darts. Bocce too. Pretty much any object that can be thrown. So to keep from getting Tased, I threw some balls that I had with me at those guys and the one guy did shoot at me; the darts hit but didn’t stick in my leathers. Maybe I was too far for the darts to stick. They’re lying over there. That’s when I saw that Connor was still busy taking down the first guy and the second was doing something with his Taser. I didn’t know if it misfired or what, but I couldn’t leave him standing, so I took him down. That’s pretty much what happened. Those are Program enforcers and they’ve been after us all summer, apparently, mainly ‘cause we got religious exemptions back at our old school in Pennsylvania.”
Another patrol car arrived and a man in civilian clothes emerged and began speaking to the officers, who were wrapping up their statement-taking; then they began securing the area for the crime-scene technicians. And finally Jay returned Drew’s call as that new man approached her. His whole bearing screamed “cop.”
Jay was saying, “Sorry I missed your call; I was in court all day and cell phone use is banned there, of course. What happened—is this about the Program official claiming that you have no exemption?”
Drew put the call on the speaker and told the nearby officer that the call was from her lawyer.
“You’re on speaker now. A police officer is listening. What happened is that the Program official claims that our school records had no exemption document and besides, he said that he wouldn’t honor an exemption anyway. Eva has a date-stamped copy of it showing that the school received it, so the official must have tampered with our school records. Anyway, the Program official said that because we refused to participate back in PA, they were punishing us by making us be in the Program here for a month. We refused, obviously, so the official called in the enforcers and four of them showed up. They tried to pull us out of a class but the teacher chased them out. Then they tried to kidnap us after school. Connor and I fought them off. Here’s the officer.”
“I’m Detective Sergeant Romano, sir. You are...?”
“Jay Robbins, Sergeant, Drew’s and Connor’s attorney. Are they all right?”
“Yes, sir, they appear to be just fine. Can’t say the same for the perps, though. Four adults armed with Tasers and these two teens wrecked them. Actually, it appears that Miss Harper here accounted for three of them.”
“Did Drew tell you about an enforcer incident earlier this summer, where two of them attempted a kidnapping then? Those two are in prison awaiting trial.”
“Jay, that was in my statement. Sergeant Romano wasn’t there when I gave it.”
Robbins told the sergeant about the prior incident.
“So it appears that the OSA people won’t let go of this,” Robbins told him. “The county DA is making a special effort to try to curtail the agency’s lawbreaking activities. I’ll let her know about this latest incident; I’m sure you’ll hear further about this. You are arresting the four, correct?”
“We have enough eyewitness statements to support an attempted kidnapping charge, sir,” the sergeant answered.
Meanwhile, Werthur was on the phone with William Garcy, his supervisor.
“When I had them called to the office, the two teens refused to comply and mentioned their religious exemptions. I had pulled the copies that were in their files, but apparently they have additional physical copies of the exemption declarations that were date-stamped by the old school and this current one. I could be criminally charged now with records tampering, you know.”
“There’s no proof that you did it,” Garcy told him.
“But while one could claim a filing error for a single doc, when two disappear, both involving a closely related case, tampering would be very hard to deny. Another thing. When I called for an enforcer pickup, two teams responded.”
“Gerberin said that he’d do that. The two kids put the first team he had sent in the hospital, so he wanted to make sure that wouldn’t happen again.”
“Well, sorry to disabuse you about the success of that plan. Right now, all four enforcement agents are on their way to the hospital. Those teens put the agents down so quickly that from where I was watching, I couldn’t see any real details of what happened. One second they were standing there, apparently talking. Then the Tasers got deployed and aimed. Ten seconds later, all four agents were on the ground and not moving. And then the cops showed up and were interviewing everyone—oh, the whole football team witnessed the thing. Now word will get spread around by all those witnesses about how four Program enforcers were so easily overcome by a boy and girl. That means we’ve lost the threat of outside compliance enforcement when we start the Program here.”
“I’m sure that you’ll find a way to be sure that the kids cooperate. All right, thanks for the report. Keep me informed of any further developments.”
They signed off and Garcy contacted Gerberin, who became livid with rage at hearing this news.
“Did he say how a boy and girl could fight off four professionally trained security men armed with Tasers? Did they have a lot of help in overcoming my agents?”
“He said it was just the two of them. You know, this was at a football practice and the entire team was there watching. Imagine what would have happened if the subjects had gotten them to help. Taser darts against football pads? Those players would have pounded your agents into the ground.”
“Are those kids immune to Tasers, then? The boy was hit last time and it had no effect.”
“He was too far to see details. Bur he said he saw three of them aiming, then they went down.”
“Shit, they’re trained to aim and shoot as a single action. Give the target no chance to react.”
“You might want to get your regional supervisor to find out where they were taken and get him over there for some damage control. And have him contact legal before he makes any statement. Given how that county’s DA has reacted before, I suspect that your agents again will get hit with attempted kidnapping.”
Gerberin disconnected, simmering with anger and vowing to find a way to punish those teens.
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