Chapter Thirteen

"So, where do I start first?" Her voice wavering.

She scanned the room, but nothing was out of the ordinary. She walked to the filing cabinets and began to open them one at a time. The first drawer had a few file folders in them. They were all swimming records and old workouts that Coach Doare had retired. The rest of the drawers in that cabinet were full of all the swimmers' files that Coach Doare had over the years. The second filing cabinet had worksheets, schedules and other teaching assignments that were unfinished. So far everything was what a normal coach kept in his office but Arriana was not about to give up finding something. A man who is supposed to be a role model for kids should not have a sword in his office. Not to mention, there was a passage in their school handbook stating that it was against the policy to have weapons on the premises.

It's just a prop, Arriana. Just a prop. Yeah, that's it.

A million different things were running through her mind. She did not know where to begin to sort them out. The third filing cabinet would not open.

"Locked? I wonder why only this one is locked. Now, if I were Coach Doare where would I hide the key?" Sighing heavily, she knew the answer. "I'll bet it's in one of his damn pockets. I could break into it or forget about it for now. Of course, if I break into it he'll know for sure someone was in here. That's the last thing I need."

Arriana decided to forget about the locker and headed for the desk. It looked normal enough. Papers scattered around, pictures of Coach with different people, pencils, pens and a calendar. She began pulling open all the drawers. Nothing out of the ordinary just some books, notebooks and more worksheets for swimming and teaching. Arriana was beginning to get frustrated.

I saw what I saw right? Coach did have a sword. I know I saw a sword!

She thought she was losing her mind but Arriana was absolutely sure that Coach Doare was up to no good. She slammed the open drawer shut and sat back in the chair looking around the small room. Her temper flared as she glared defiantly around the small office. Had she just wasted time and ran the chance of getting kicked off the team?

The closet. Of course. Why hadn't I thought of that in the first place! If someone were to hide a huge sword in a small office where else would there be besides the closet?

She smacked herself in the forehead while jumping up and practically knocking over the swivel chair. Inside she saw jackets, bags, some old sneakers, empty hangers and boxes. She groaned, afraid of another dead end. The boxes looked like the kind of boxes used to store papers in. Arriana pulled one down and saw a date on it, May 18, 1992. Figuring there wasn't much in it she took the top off and inside was what she thought there would be, papers. There was a college diploma and all sorts of certifications, newspaper articles and the likes. The diploma was for Marc William Doare.

Why would he stick his diploma in a box with a bunch of crap?

Digging through more of the papers and articles, they appeared normal enough. Just things clipped from newspapers that meant nothing to Arriana. She put the box back feeling like a total blockhead. Arriana put the box back and began searching deeper into the closet when her hand brushed what she had been looking for. Gasping she grasped the handle and pulled out the sword. It was unusually light, not what she was expecting at all. Looking at the blade, her face fell and felt like a brainless twit. She hit it off the side of the closet and heard a dull thud. The blade was plastic. She then remembered seeing a book in the top drawer of the desk, 'French weapons through the ages'.

"Well now I know what Coach was reading in the hallway, the latest French book for us to do a report on. Wow, do I feel like an ass. I know Coach better. I should have known he wouldn't have a real sword."

Arriana put everything back where it was and headed out of the office and toward the pool. Once she got back on deck she looked around for her coach, but he was nowhere in sight. She sulked to her lane and slid into the cool water.

"Zack, was Coach Doare down here yet?" She asked her lane mate.

He motioned to the dark alley behind the pool. "Yeah but he didn't stay. He went upstairs."

"He didn't say what he was doing?" she asked puzzled.

"Does he ever?" Zack snorted.

"No, I guess he doesn't. I wonder what he's doing." She thought out loud.

"He's probably making sure the busses are ready. We do have to leave in half an hour."

Zack looked up at the clock.

"Oh, yeah we do, don't we?" Arriana almost forgot about the big rematch that day.

"Where have you been anyway?" Zack looked at Arriana with concern flooding his face,

"You still haven't done the workout and you've been acting weird the past few days."

"I had some things I needed to get done. I'll start now just don't tell Coach I was so late, please," Arriana pleaded with him.

"You know you're lucky I like you Arriana." Zack flashed his perfect smile.

Even though she never saw him in the boyfriend way, he was a great looking kid. His sandy blonde hair was short and his sweet, baby face made him look younger than what he was. She couldn't help but smile. He had such a reassuring aura about him that it always made her feel like everything was going to be okay.

"Yeah, I know, Zack. That's why you're such a great friend," Arriana replied smiling back.

She was only able to finish the second half of her workout before it was time to leave. Arriana climbed out of the pool and got the rest of the team set to go. Once everybody had left the deck Arriana grabbed her things and headed to the small alley at the back of the pool. She heard the back door click shut. This startled her since the only way to that door was going down the girls' or boys' locker room stairs or past her. She didn't hear anyone come down either sets of steps and nobody went past her. Could someone have been hiding behind one of the pillars for the entire practice? Arriana dropped her bag and ran towards the door. She had no idea who she was going to run into and did not think about it. She pushed the door open and looked around. Nobody was outside. The only thing that could be seen was the snow swirling violently to the ground and the only thing heard was the wind whipping through the bare trees.

"Hello?" She called out.

The only response was swishing of the wind. She turned and headed back toward the alley to grab her bag and head to the main level. At the top of the stairs she turned to go to the front doors but stopped when someone began calling for her.

"Arriana!" The voice beckoned from behind.

"Coach?" She turned around looking.

"Everybody finish up their workouts?" he asked jogging up to her.

"Sure did," she replied, feining a smile.

"Everyone pumped?" he asked, seeming a bit off today.

"When aren't they? Are you okay? You weren't at practice today."

"Good. Well the buses will be here in a few minutes. Find out what everyone wants for dinner so we can stop on the way back and hand out the granola bars in my bag for everyone to eat for now and yeah I'm fine. You know how I get on meet days."

"Alright, yeah sure." She didn't believe him.

He turned and stalked off in the direction he came from. Arriana just sighed, shook her head and went to where the team was gathered. They were standing in the vestibule watching the snow swirl in the cold afternoon sky while waiting for the busses. Arriana found Coaches bag and pulled out the granola bars, which made everybody liven up a bit more. After she finished handing them out and getting the poll on where everybody wanted to go, she sat down next to Jeremy to tell him about what she found. They had a good laugh over it and relaxed while they waited. Once the buses showed up and everybody had boarded, she found Zoe sitting in their normal seat waiting for her. She plopped down and put her feet up.

"Hey Zoe," Arriana mumbled as she was closing her eyes.

"Hey Arriana. I missed you at practice. Why were you so late?" Zoe looked at her friend concerned. A lot of people seemed to be concerned about Arriana lately. She wasn't sure why, but it must be something about her that made them think something was wrong.

"You wouldn't believe it if I told you." Arriana chuckled as she remembered her dismay at finding the plastic sword.

"Try me." Zoe retorted.

"Well, all right. You saw at the beginning of practice when Jeremy was giving me a hard time and I took him up to Coaches office?"

"Yeah." Zoe said curiously.

"Well we got up there and Coach is sitting at his desk holding a sword," Arriana whispered while letting a smile play at her lips.

"What? You saw him with a sword? What did it look like? What was he doing with it? Are you sure it was a sword?"

Arriana laughed at her friend's craze. "Zoe, calm down. I'm getting there."

"Oh, okay. Sorry," Zoe said bringing her voice to a whisper as well.

"I took Jeremy to the top of the stairs and sent him back to practice while I went to the office. Once Coach left I started going through everything in there. Which he has a lot of crap that need either packed away or thrown away," Arriana said, smiling to herself.

"No you did not!" Zoe didn't believe the story coming out of her mouth.

"Oh yes I did! I started to dig in the closet and I found the sword I saw him holding."

"Wait, you actually found it? Did you touch it?"

Arriana laughed at herself. "Yeah, I picked it up. You're not going to believe this either. The sword was plastic! It was nothing more than a prop for French class."

"Are you serious? You freaked out because of a prop?" Zoe was now cracking up.

"Yeah, I felt like such an idiot," Arriana replied

"Only you, Arriana, only you."

"Yeah I know."

"Did Coach catch you?" Zoe asked.

"No. He never came back. I thought he was on deck but Zack said he had gone up the back stairs to go into the school. You know I wonder what he does when he leaves practice like that," Arriana said, half to Zoe and to herself.

"Maybe he does lesson plans," Zoe said nonchalantly.

"I really doubt that Zoe." She replied.

"Yeah, me to. Hey, do you have any more granola bars? I'm starved," Zoe said, changing the subject.

Smooth Zoe, smooth.