The next couple of days went fairly quietly. Or at least as quietly as they could with reporters from the local networks going around town and essentially doing survey work. From what Molly and I saw on the news, much of what they were doing were asking local people on the street what they thought about the election. Few people ever supported Hireman on camera, and those that did, tended to do so for reasons not related to Molly or the Animatrix Serum. When asked on that subject, they either reversed their decision or feigned ignorance.
One network had actually interviewed Hireman at one point, and proceeded to grill him on why his campaign had focused so much on Molly and made an issue out of something that officially should have already been settled. Hireman insisted that his efforts were for the good of the district and that Molly truly was a threat to the students. He also added added that most of the fault for the heated atmosphere of the campaign was on Tabby's shoulders for refusing to recognize "the truth" as Hireman put it.
"It's attitudes like that that are the problem," I gave a low growl as I looked at the screen, "Deciding on something and then preaching it like religion."
"I doubt he's going to make many friends with this sort of thing, George," Molly commented, "He's repeated most of the same nonsense he's pulled in the debates. The people here know were aren't mindless animals enslaved to our instincts."
I only sighed and looked down.
"It's not just us that this applies to," I commented after a moment.
"You mean Amy and Marcella?" Molly asked me.
I nodded. Amy's statement to the newspaper did ultimately attract attention. Some good and some bad. The good was that Hireman's use of the security camera footage from the school for his latest attack had blown up in his face. Technically, corruption charges could have been leveled on him for the breach of privacy, but the excuse that he truly felt there was a legitimate threat that needed to be monitored like a hawk watching a mouse, saved him from any legal troubles. It was killing him in the polls though.
When the campaign was first announced and through the first debate, Hireman held a fairly commanding lead. However, since the lead was built on the fact that he was the incumbent that everyone knew and that he had pulled a cheep trick to start off the campaign, things closed rapidly. And for a while after the second debate, the polls showed that the two were neck and neck. Sometimes Tabby was ahead and sometimes Hireman was ahead, but never by enough to truly call a winner. But as the campaign went on, and Tabby began to get the hang of things, she began to build a firmer lead. It was still fairly close, but now enough in Tabby's favor to show that she would be the winner.
And realizing that he wasn't going to get a victory, Hireman returned to dirty tricks with the security camera footage. And now that attack was done, and with Amy's statement to the press, the polls were going even further in Tabby's favor. In fact, Tabby's present lead was at 55% supporting her campaign, 40% supporting Hireman, and 5% undecided or not voting in the poll. That was good news for Tabby, but I feared it wouldn't be good for Amy or Marcella.
And over the course of the past few days, I had seen some rising tensions that were indicators of the personal problems that they were facing. Wanting to avoid there being a fight on the High School's front steps, I had taken to standing watch near the front doors as the students went in and as the buses arrived and left in the mornings. On the first day, Amy and Marcella arrived separately and from different directions. They'd meet up and go in together. On the days after, I noticed that Amy and Marcella came in together from the same direction. That could mean there was some family disturbance or something, but since I couldn't prove it, I couldn't do much. I also noticed that a fair number of students gave both a wide birth at times. Some seemed to be understanding, and I thought I heard one as quietly as possible ask Amy for her number... but they seemed few and far between some of the looks the other teens gave her. Thankfully, no fights or real bullying had broken out so far.
"The same attitude that makes Hireman hate us for our fur is the same attitude that makes a lot of the "culture warriors" hate homosexuals," I answered, "It's a game to exercise petty hatreds, or an excuse to beat up people..."
"Not to mention that several of them turn out to be hypocrites," Molly quipped, "Didn't one anti-gay, "family man" preacher get caught cheating on his wife with a guy?"
I nodded, "Another good reason to be wary. Making that statement took a lot of guts... especially when I think she and Marcella graduate next spring and can leave. The current race doesn't affect them. But she did... and some lunatic or some group of lunatics could easily decide to make her a target. If they can't beat us up, maybe they'll turn to hatred far older the R.A.M. and go after someone who is far smaller."
"They might give Marcella fairly wide birth," Molly commented, "remember that while her mundane species is much smaller then humans... she is still the same size as a human. She could do greater damage to anyone who would try to bully her then a mundane cat could."
"Maybe... but how many people do you know that are driven to mortal terror by a House Cat?" I questioned, "If things truly go bad... whoever is bullying them will assume that they can still take Marcella."
Molly didn't immediately answer.
"We can't let that happen," I then finished, "we can't let Amy or Marcella get hurt because some bully decides to bully them because Amy's come out of the closet as it were. Officer Barnes and I can keep an eye on things while we're at the high school... especially while things are calm and we're not being called anywhere. But..."
"You two can shift school policy or open your own classes," Molly nodded, "I know. I wish I could help you, but the kids I teach are too young to understand beyond telling them that bullying is wrong..."
"They're too young to understand what sexuality is," I sighed, "the times when they've learned that we're married still raises "ewws" and "yucks". Boys are icky to the girls and girls are icky to the boys."
"That'll change in time," Molly could only sigh.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The next day started off quietly. Molly and I dressed, ate breakfast, packed lunches, and made our way in to our respective jobs. Again there were no troubles as the kids came in to school and I was able to return to the DARE office where things were quiet.
"All the kids, come in?" Officer Barnes asked as I arrived.
"And safely," I nodded.
"Good to hear," Officer Barnes replied.
Officer Barnes knew my reasoning for wanting to make sure no harm came to Amy or Marcella. And surprisingly, the secretary that seemed to find fault with everything Officer Barnes or I did seemed to support the idea as well. That was a big relief.
"Anything major scheduled for today?" I asked.
"Nothing official, and no one's called about some of the reporters arriving at the schools unannounced," Officer Barnes shrugged.
"Outside of the first two, who went to the Elementary School first, they've all focused on rehashing the polls our town paper has been running," I commented.
Officer Barnes only shrugged in response.
"Did any of them call with any requests for security during an interview on their own... or...?" I wondered after a moment.
"No, nothing really of that nature," Officer Barnes answered, "I think Hireman's actually invited him for some sort of press conference or something... but given that the interview they've already done with him didn't make him look good... I don't know what he'd be able to say or if it's even true."
I could only manage a shrug when there came a knock at our office door. Officer Barnes and I both turned to see our "favorite" secretary coming in. This time though, she looked like she was on official business and not trying to "bust" us for something.
"Good morning, Officers," she spoke in a tone that was far more professional then angry and practically controlling ones she'd used before, "I trust I'm not interrupting anything..."
"No, just morning conversation," Officer Barnes answered as he took a sip of his coffee, "Is something up?"
"Nothing, yet," the secretary answered, "though there will be something around lunch time."
That got my ears perked. Was something going on that she was actually warning us about.
"Several of the reporters that have been covering the present school board elections want to run a sort of "human interest" story on what the students... particularly the seniors who are either eighteen already or will turn eighteen before November... stand on these issues."
"And they're to arrive around lunch time?" I asked.
"Yes," the secretary nodded, "they've all promised that their questions won't be long and that answers can be limited to simple sentences at the longest... but they could cause a potential disruption. It is the principal's request that you provide some security and keep students not eating their lunch moving along."
"We can do that, ma'am," Officer Barnes answered politely.
"Please try not to growl at anyone if they voice something you don't like," the secretary finished and went out the door.
"I got a bad feeling about this," I sighed
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dealing with the reporters, however, turned out to be the easy thing of the day. Officer Barnes and I met them at the front doors and began to lead them toward the High School's main lunch room. As we went, we passed a small group of teens going in the other direction. Something seemed rather shady about something. And their leader, a teen male glanced in my direction and gave some sort of confident gesture to the others when he saw that I was going in the other direction from his group. Something was not right with him, but Officer Barnes and I were otherwise occupied at the moment.
"Pretty interesting that they have you two here for all of this," the lead reporter commented.
"We're actually assigned here when we're not responding to some other call in the schools," Officer Barnes answered and opened a side door to the lunch room.
The reporters then made their way in and began to go through the students that were there, eating their lunch. They asked their questions briefly and quickly, and for the most part, the students didn't do too much in the way "attention getting". Most of those who did that had just finished lunch and were simply eager to give the peace symbol to the cameras, even if the news crews would edit that out. Getting them to move along was more then easy enough.
They had just begun to finish with the students there when I heard what sounded like a large crash coming from down the hall. Screams followed shortly after.
"What is it?" Officer Barnes asked nervously when he noticed my ears twitching.
"I don't know, but something's wrong," I spoke, and turned to head out, "can you keep an eye on the reporters?"
"Give two roars if you need backup," Officer Barnes answered.
I nodded and rushed out, moving as fast as I could on two legs. As I passed the office, the secretary stuck her head out.
"What is all that?" she demanded.
"I'm going to figure that out now," I answered as I ran past, "it isn't from the main lunch room. I think its the student center."
I could hear her following as fast as she could in her heals. But as I got closer, I could hear some of the exact screams echoing out of there.
"Get her! Get the fuckin' queer witch!"
"MMMMEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!"
"Ow! Fucking cat!"
"Fuck 'er pussy!"
It was an attack, at least on Marcella, and likely Amy as well. I was met by a teacher coming out of their room as I reached the door to the student center. I made my way through the door to find the room trashed. Tables were knocked over and chairs were thrown about the room. Two teen males had gripped Marcella by her arms while a third had ripped off her shirt. Thankfully for Marcella's dignity, her longer fur managed to cover up her nipples, mostly. Both teens holding her had claw marks on their arms and chests, and one even looked like Marcella managed to sink her teeth into his shoulder.
Amy was unconscious, or at least seemed to be unconscious, on the floor with another male teen and three female teens kicking at her.
"Fuck her!" one of the two teens holding Marcella urged the one that was currently running hand over one of Marcella's fur covered B cup breasts, "Fu..."
Marcella hissed at all of them, but that wasn't what got them to stop. That was my arrival and grabbing the molester by the back of his neck.
"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!" I announced my own presence.
The others broke and ran, almost instinctively. Marcella fell to the floor, but moved quickly to Amy's side.
"STOP AND GET ON THE GROUND!" I roared and leaped after them.
I caught up with the two that had been holding Marcella as they rushed for an exterior exit. One good blow to the back of their shoulders sent them sprawling along the floor. They gave a slight groan when the finally acme to a stop. Two teachers that had been drawn to the fight came closely.
"Make sure they stay put," I said to both of them and resumed my pursuit, but by the time I made it out, I could only see a pickup truck racing away with the three girls in the bed of the truck. Not able to catch the truck, I turned and went back in.
As I came back in, I'd found that Officer Barnes had arrived. The secretary was with him.
"The last four drove off," I grumbled, "we'll need to use the security camera footage to figure them out."
"Ms. Vin has sat up," the secretary spoke, "said that the males started it... a lot of name calling and that sort of thing."
"What actually started the fight?" I asked.
"One of them grabbed Ms. Tyeree's tail and made some sort of remark," the secretary spoke, "Ms. Tyeree hissed in response and they then jumped Ms. Vin, drawing in others when Ms. Tyeree tried to save Ms. Vin."
They then lead me back to the main student center area. Amy was huddled against a wall, and looked to be in a fair amount of pain. Marcella was crouched next to her, though still topless. I noticed the remains of her shirt on the floor. It was too badly tore up to function as a shirt. The other secretary was also just arriving with a spare shirt with the principal following behind.
Nurse was also there and looking for the moment at the wounds the two men that Marcella had clawed.
"Nothing seems serious," the nurse announced, "it looks a lot worse then it is."
"Good," I spoke first and firmly, "then they can answer a few questions."
"Witch clawed us up!"
Marcella hissed at them again, even while putting on the spare shirt.
"I can't imagine why when it looked like the three of you were about to gang rape her," I growled at all three.
That got them to cower in the corner.
"How did you three get in?" the principal asked before I could even ask a question.
"Hmm..." I turned to him.
"Officer Wayne, these three here are not students here. Old enough yes," the principal answered, "but I've never seen them."
"They're registered here, sir," one of the teachers there spoke up, "but they're rarely IN school. There is always some convenient ranching emergency that allows them to be out of school and do most of their school work from home. And they've had enough of them through two years that it'll be another eight years before they've had enough days in school to qualify to graduate."
"Either way," I cut in, "what they need to explain is what happened here, and why they decided to rape someone."
"We wasn't gonna rape her," the molesting male spoke, "Honest."
"The fact that you'd ripped her shirt off and you had your hands on her breasts and your buddies here were shouting "fuck her" speak against that," I answered.
"We was only trying to show her the right way of things!" one of the two teens that had been holding Marcella answered.
"And every woman loves being grabbed by two men bigger then her and having her shirt forcibly removed," the secretary said sarcastically, "do you know how many school rules you've broken?"
"Not to mention the law..." Officer Barnes piped up.
"And your victims have already outed you as the aggressors in all of this," I added, going by what the Secretary had told me that Amy had said, "so I would like to know why."
"Don't we got rights or somethin'?" the other teen that had been holding Marcella asked.
"Right now we're only going for statements," I answered, "You haven't been arrested, yet."
"Back up is on the way though," Officer Barnes said to me.
"It was all Donnie's idea," the molester spoke, after hearing that more police officers were on the way.
"Donnie?"
"You didn't get him," the molester answered, "said the fag was a freak and the pussy was mental."
"So you came here and bullied the two of them into a fight?" I questioned.
"It was Donnie's idea," the molester said again.
This wasn't getting us anywhere. They weren't going to give much of a statement on what they felt happened, and I feared that I would truly loose my cool after seeing all this. The nurse was now looking at Amy.
"Are they alright?" I asked.
"Ms. Tyeree should be fine," the nurse answered as she turned back, "the blood on her appears to be theirs... likely when she lashed at them to get them off of Ms. Vin."
The nurse then glanced to Amy.
"Ms. Vin, however, has at least one broken rib on each side of her chest, will have heavy bruising on her chest, and possibly a minor concussion," the nurse continued, "though I don't have the instruments to prove all of that."
"Do you know if a lung is punctured?" I asked.
"No," the nurse looked down.
"I'm sorry all this has happened to you two," I said to Marcella and Amy. Amy looked to hurt physically to answer.
"Her parents threw her out," Marcella gave a weak reply, "she's been camped on my family's couch."
That explained why Amy and Marcella were arriving at school together.
"You didn't have to out yourselves," I sighed.
"And see you and your wife end up getting run out of town?" Marcella answered, "besides... they'd probably come after me anyway for being a Maine Coon now... they would have jumped Amy simply for being with me."
"Still... this shouldn't have happened," I sighed again.
"As you told us when you let us know of Hireman's stunt, chaos was coming," Marcella answered.
Looking at the devastated room, I could see that. Amy and Marcella had negated the political chaos threatening Tabby, and had very nearly paid for it in the course of this riot. I then turned to the three that were caught.
"The three of you are under arrest for inciting a riot on school property, assault and battery, conspiracy to do bodily harm, and attempted rape," I said in a low voice and then listed their Miranda rights.
"Got an ambulance on the way for Ms. Vin," Officer Barnes said to me in a professional voice.