Becca Trooper's Worst Day Ever

Becca Trooper

“Oh, my god, did you see what Tess posted on Snapchat last night?” Becca wheezed to her friends. They were all sitting at the back of the classroom, a reward from Mr. Oswald for good behaviour.

Tess’ face reddened with embarrassment and like sharks smelling blood in the water, the other girls leaned in to listen intently to the fresh gossip.

“She was supposed to send me a picture of the bag after Oskar had stopped by her place,” Becca went on, “but she'd posted it on her story.”

Tess hid her face in her hands. “I deleted it right away, but I was so stressed the rest of the night! If Jess had seen it, she’d gone straight to mom.”

“At least we’re ready for the party,” Gemma beamed, “I heard that Ottoman and his friends are going to be there.”

Oskar was Angie’s boyfriend. He and his best friend Markus were having a house party at Oskar’s. His brother, Ottoman, was still living at home for another gap year. He’d been in 13th grade when they started in 11th.

Excited looks of mischief passed between them at the thought of hanging with older boys. For two years, everybody had had a crush on Ottoman. Especially Gemma.

Suddenly the door to the classroom swung open and slammed against the wall. Two police officers, a man and a woman, walked in. The woman was wearing a dress-shirt tucked into her pants, while the man was dressed in full police-gear, carrying a holstered weapon on his belts.

Becca had never seen a real weapon before. A few years ago, the police had started carrying weapons in their cars at all times, and it had created an uproar in the community. Up until that point, there had been no armed police in their town.

Halstad was a rural town located in the mountains outside Bjorgvin. It had sold off a lot of its land to some company to farm or develop or mine or whatever. As a result, the city was well off now.

Everyone in the classroom sat frozen.

The policewoman silently handed a note to Mr. Oswald, while the policeman pulled out a paper and started reading names from it. Becca and her friends were all listed. For each friend he named, Becca gave a questioning look. Tess shrugged, Angie shook her head in confusion, Gemma rolled her eyes in annoyance.

“You will accompany us to the police station at once. For those of you still under eighteen; we have called your parents and they’ll meet us there.”

The officers collected their phones as soon as they entered the station. Becca was surprised to see so many of her schoolmates there. It looked like they’d taken people from every class in their year group. This must be some drill or something.

After waiting in the sterile interrogation room for what felt like hours, a woman finally entered and sat down before her.

“Becca.” The policewoman had a key-card hanging around her neck. It said her name was Sara Bland. “We’ve taken you into custody because we know about what has been going on at your school.”

“Oh, yeah?” Becca smiled as if listening to a child lie about how fast they could run.

“We’ve taken over eighty students from Halstad High, not because we want to punish you, but because we want to find whoever is supplying you all with drugs.”

All humour disappeared from Becca as blood drained from her face.

“After we brought you in,” Sara Bland went on, “we went through your lockers. And we found the drugs hidden there.”

What?

“Where is my mom?” It was all Becca thought to say.

“Calm down, Becca,” Sara Bland put her hand up to stop her, “you’re not in any real trouble. You’re only the consumers; the customers. We want to find the suppliers. All we need is for you to give us the passwords and codes for your phone.”

“What is this?!” Becca forced herself to speak, “You’re the police. My parents' taxes pay your salaries! Your job is to protect and serve, not harass high-school kids!”

“You’re over eighteen, Becca, so technically, you’re an adult.”

Becca felt as if she’d been thrown in ice-water.

Did this old hag think that she could intimidate her into giving up Oskar and Markus just to save herself? Angie would be devastated! Was Angie in one of these rooms now? Were all the girls? How could they fit over eighty people in their tiny police station anyway? This whole town was basically a gated community, a suburban dream. Becca wasn’t even sure they had a jail here, let alone a prison!

“I want to speak to my mom.” Becca’s voice was quivering.

“If you don’t comply, we’ll arrest you for possession." Sara Bland informed her calmly, "Like I said; you’re over eighteen, so this will all be on your record.”

No! Nobody around here had a record! And Becca had plans! If she got a record, then she’d never get into the university she wanted! She had to clench her hands into fists to stop them from shaking. It felt like her whole world came crumbling down.

“I want to speak to my mom!” Becca cried out. “Now!”

“As soon as you give up your passwords.” Sara Bland stared blankly at her.

This went on forever. That annoying cop kept pressuring Becca to unlock her phone, but she couldn’t just do that! Her phone was her life! She had everything on there!

She felt her chest threatening to cave in on itself from how hard her heart was beating. What would her parents say when they found out? The thought brought fresh tears to her eyes.

Her parents had blue-collar jobs. Her dad was a mechanic, he worked on all the town's luxury cars. Her mom was a house-cleaner in Vinje, one of Halstad’s richest neighbourhoods. Luckily, they’d pooled together their money to build a separate school for themselves, so Becca never had to meet any of her parents’ ‘bosses’ in the hallways.

Going to university was her only chance to get away from those annoying idiots. But if she got anything on her public record, her life would be over! She’d have to live here forever and be constantly reminded of how her mother did their laundry for a living.

She was so tired. She was tired and scared. And she wanted this to be over! She just wanted it to be over so she could go home.

“Fine.” Becca said sullenly, “my password is 420420.”

“Thank you.” Sara Bland sighed and promptly exited the room.

As soon as that horrible woman was gone, the walls stopped closing in on her, and a thousand thoughts went through Becca’s head.

She didn’t have anything in her locker. She wasn’t stupid; she’d moved it to a locker in the boys locker-room. It already smelled so bad in there anyway, nobody would notice. Tess and Gemma had kept their stash in their lockers at work at the gas-station. Nobody smelled anything but gasoline there.

But Angie, she kept Oskar’s stuff in her locker; hidden behind her potpourri and candles. Her locker was basically a shrine to their love.

Oskar couldn’t keep any of it himself. His parents had come to Halstad as teenagers. The language barrier was the hardest for them to overcome; they still made him read their mail for them. Despite this, they were now thoroughly integrated in the community; they’d worked their way through school and everything. If Oskar brought shame to their household, it would not be taken lightly.

Angie’s parents were both lawyers. She wasn’t eighteen yet; they’d get her out in no time! They’d probably barge in yelling at everyone. Listing laws and rights about privacy and how they needed good reason to take their phones. Even then they’d need permission to search them.

Oh my god, that b–

Sara Bland walked back into the room. 

“Hey! You need a warrant to search my phone!” Becca pointed a finger accusingly at her. “And where are my parents! I have the right to call them!”

“I’m releasing your from custody, miss Trooper. Your parents are in the waiting room outside.”

Cecilia Vakstad

Governor Vakstad had been forced to clear her schedule for an urgent meeting with the Chief of Police. Seated between district attorney Bernard Jenkins and her assistant, Jessica Dunham, Cecilia found herself wondering what had required her presence at a police briefing. Halstad was a quiet town of relatively small size, surely the police could handle their own tidings.

Breaking up the old barfight or shutting down the occasional house party. Sometimes, during summer, the kids would gather at the local swimming spot after dark to share whatever booze they’d managed to steal from their parents. Cecilia’s own adolescent memories made her smile to herself, but someone loudly clearing their throat brought her back to the present.

The Chief of Police was standing before them with two people beside him; a man and a woman dressed in civilian plainclothes while wearing a badge around their necks.

“Hello everyone,” Chief Haroldsen cleared his throat again, “I know it’s early and we all have a lot to do, so I’ll just get started. For months we’ve seen a rise in drug-related crimes in our town, and so we put together a taskforce. Lieutenant Sara Bland, who’s been leading the operation, has made steady progress in finding out how the drugs has gotten into Halstad. But last week her team ran into a fork in the road. Sara?”

“Thank you, Chief.” Sara Bland stepped forward to address the table. “Early on in our investigation, our officers were alerted by one of the teachers at Vinje High about the constant smell of marijuana in their hallways. This led us to reveal a network of dealers operating during school hours.” 

“Following the advice of Detective Andersen, Halstad Police Department’s lead narcotics agent,” Lieutenant Sara Bland gestured to the man beside her, “we held off searching the school right away. Our main objective was to find the ones bringing drugs into our city, not just eliminate it from the schools.”

“Lucky for us, they all use Snapchat to communicate, so infiltrating went fairly quickly. They were all eager to share the contact, but arranging a meeting proved harder to do. These kids are not as dumb as we thought; someone has taught them caution. They delete their account and make new ones every day. We find the new accounts; they get spooked and round and around it goes.”

With the wave of her hand, Lieutenant Bland urged Detective Andersen to take the floor. 

“Yes, so,” he began, “we know that these kids are mostly dealing with weed, but that can escalate to harder drugs if we do not stop the supply. Halstad High has about 1200 students and only 100 of them are confirmed to be a part of the network. Vinje, on the other hand, has only half of that; 600 students, yet approximately 300 of them are confirmed to be involved.”

“We managed to reveal the connections at Halstad High as one Markus Horn and one Oskar Lamin, but they’re at the wrong end of the pyramid. We want to know who they get their supply from at Vinje, so that we can find out who brings the drugs to them. Those are the guys who’s bringing it to Halstad from other cities. If we catch them, then I’m sure we’ll have stopped the influx.”

“Now, we’ve gotten intel from our colleagues in Saltberg about a shipment that will be coming by car from Saltberg to Halstad within the week. This shipment will not only be bringing in weed, but other drugs as well. The way to approach this would be to take both boys in for questioning, but that might spook the guys behind the scenes. Bureaucracy might also slow the investigation to the point that the shipment crosses our borders before we even get a reply. Therefore, I proposed an alternative route.”

Detective Andersen paused as if not sure to proceed.

“Which is?” Cecilia prodded impatiently. 

“We take them all in,” Sara provided, “we send out the cavalry and intimidate them into giving up the people behind this. But we can’t just target the two boys, that’ll let the others know that we’re on to them.”

“We don’t need them to testify.” Detective Andersen added. “We just need access to those boys’ phones so we can find who is behind this. That’ll give them plausible deniability in case anyone wants to ‘call them out for being a rat’.”

There was an unspoken ask for permission here.

Next year was an election year, so Cecilia couldn’t use her sway to fast-track their application for a warrant; she had to be on her best behaviour. But she couldn’t very well permit hard drugs to flood their streets either. She refused to be caught in a scandal just because some spoiled kids had grown bored with the comfort of their parents’ money and thought it'd be fun to play cartel. Did they think this was a goddamn movie? That real life had no consequences? This was Halstad for crying out loud!

She might be able to spin it to her advantage though, granted that nobody found out she’d sanctioned this. Some of the parents would undoubtably try to cash in a favour or make themselves indebted to her in exchange for getting their kids back. Cecilia reckoned they’d all benefit more from a night in the slammer than by getting another ‘stern talking to’, but that was beside the point.

The most important part was to keep the drugs out of their town. People can try and deny it being a gate-way drug all they want, but the truth was that the kids who got bored with it would soon move on to stronger substances. 

“I’d like this nipped in the proverbial bud as soon as possible.” Cecilia stood up from her chair. Her assistant followed silently. “Scare them straight. All of them.”

In the car, Cecilia instructed Jessica, “Call Johnson at Halstad Times, make sure the high-school raids are all everyone’s talking about. He needs to milk that story until long after they bust the car coming in from Saltberg. I don’t want anyone to know or care about it; all focus should be on the kids.”

Ottoman Lamin

“So how long have you been doing this for?” Simon asked from the passenger seat.

The night was cold and dark outside of the car. The streetlights along the road were few and far apart, still they were driving without headlights on.

“About two years, or so.” Ottoman replied curtly.

“What made you start doing this in the first place?” Simon wondered as he looked out on the flat landscape. There was nothing but fields and mountains around them. They saw more cows and sheep than houses.

“Same as you, I suppose.” Ottoman shrugged, “Quick and easy money for a four-hour drive. We live in a small and secluded town, so the risk is low too. Plus, there’s barely any harm in weed. I’m the eldest of three brothers and my parents can’t afford to send us all to university. They’ve said they’d pay half of it for all of us. So, here I am. It only took me two gap-years to save up my half. This’ll be my last ride. But the bosses need a new guy if they’re to let me go. Hence, you.”

“Why wouldn’t you bring your brother in instead of me?” Simon turned to look at over at him, “We’re the same age. Still, you trust me more than him?”

“It’s not about trust.” Ottoman sucked at his teeth offendedly, “I don’t want Oscar anywhere near this shit. He’s a good kid. He does well in school. He’s got a girl and everything. You, on the other hand, are a spoiled rich kid from Vinje High, who I have no trouble putting the blame on. All you need to do is threaten to call your parents and they’ll back off.”

Simon didn’t ask any more questions for a while.

“Why would you even come along here, anyway?” Ottoman asked. He might’ve felt bad. “Don’t you have enough money as it is?”

But before Simon got the chance to answer, they were both blinded by red and blue lights.