[Kokopelli25]

CHAPTER 15

Ellie was close to tears. What had she been thinking, breaking into her old school to run around naked? It seemed like a year ago that she had started on her ill-fated adventure. What had been calm and private was now public - how many people had seen her standing naked in the window? Or running down the hallway? And poor Mr. Jackson - she had no idea if he was okay or injured, but...shit, did he recognize her?? She had been a student in his music class, but had known him since before that because of his friendship with her father. He had even been over to her house a few times for dinner with her family, and he had just seen every detail of her body, exposed and up close! Ellie hadn’t even considered whether any of the students might know her. She had figured out it was the band returning from some trip that caught her at the school, and while she hadn’t been in the band, she probably knew a few of them, at least those who were freshmen back when she was a senior.

Without warning the back door flew open, startling Ellie. She had been crouched behind a school bus and quickly crawled under it in case they were coming out to search for her. She could feel something slick on her breasts and stomach; a small part of her mind realized there was some sort of oil under the bus. Normally she would be grossed out by the thought but right now she couldn’t care less. The door to the school was open - she had her way back in, if only whoever it was would move away from it. Maybe they’d come out and search, and when they weren’t looking she could sneak back in, hide in the locker room and search for the keys later. Maybe they’d be forgetful and leave the door unlocked. Maybe they’d take pity on her and let her in, or bring a jacket out to her.

“Whoever you are, that was pretty cowardly, knocking down Mr. Jackson and running away!”

Oh, God, they were blaming her for the accident! Ellie wanted to yell back to whoever the student was to say it wasn’t intentional and that she hoped he was alright, but she was scared they would be able to tell where she was and drag her naked and resisting out from under the bus.

“Are you going to show yourself? You could at least own up to it!” Ellie was frozen - she didn’t doubt for a moment that if she gave herself up that they’d parade her in front of everyone still at the school. It would be horrible enough to be seen by so many strangers, but the instant one person recognized her, everyone in her hometown would know. She would never live it down.

“Fine, be that way! He’s going to be okay, by the way. Mr. Jackson - he’ll be okay, no thanks to your naked ass!”

The student turned away and went in and slammed the door. Ellie suddenly had second thoughts about her decision and almost crawled out and ran after her, almost knocked on the door and almost begged to be let in to find her clothes. But she didn’t. She couldn’t overcome her embarrassment or the humiliation of begging while she was naked in front of strangers (if she was lucky they were strangers). And when the moment passed, somehow Ellie knew that she could try all she wanted, but it wouldn’t matter - the doers were locked and no one would be coming back out to take pity on her.

She waited a few more minutes and slowly crawled out from under the school bus. Ellie didn’t want to be stupid and not check - there was always a chance. She ran hunched over to the back door, and slowly, quietly, tried the handle but it wouldn’t budge. She risked pulling harder on the door, but nothing.

She was locked out of the building with no keys and no clothes, half a mile from her house. She had her phone with her, but no one in town she could call, no close friend she could confide in. She knew she could get into her house, but it was the loss of her dad’s school keys that terrified her. Well, that and however many people had seen her naked.

She looked at her phone and saw it was already 5:45am. She recalled that last week it started getting light out around 7am, which would at least give her enough time to get home.

Except Ellie had forgotten that differences in longitude and time zones meant sunrise in her hometown was almost an hour earlier here than it was where she went to college…