Of course Jill wasn't in school the next day, though Francie had no idea what was going on. She'd been instructed by the detectives not to talk about anything, and this was not going to be an issue for her.

"Honestly, I'm so sick of it, I don't care if I never talk about it again," she said to Veronica and Tyler during the morning break. "I guess I'll know more tomorrow? Or after school. And the fact that she's not here doesn't even make anything better, anyway," she said as they walked by a group of boys who were grinning at her.

"How's it going, Francie?" one of them called.

"Looking good, Francie," another one added.

They all turned and watched her pass.

"Go to hell," Veronica called cheerfully, giving them the finger over her shoulder.

"Aww, what's the matter, Cortez, jealous?" one of the boys called to Veronica.

She just waved her finger in response as they kept walking.

Francie sighed.

"You going to be okay?" Tyler asked.

"I'll live," she responded, hugging her friend before she went into her classroom.

She'd told Chester about Jill and her father last night, and when she met him for lunch, she was looking forward to a nice, Jill-free time for the first time in ages, to maybe just talking about Prom and other fun things.

She was therefore very disappointed when she heard a bunch of boys catcall her as she was walking toward him across the courtyard.

"Hey Francie, way to shake it!"

"Show us that body, Francie!"

And there was general whistling and hooting.

Francie felt exposed and ashamed and dirty.

She was in tears by the time she got to Chester, and couldn't help but collapse in his arms, even though she knew everyone was watching her, dammit.

"I don't know what to do anymore," she sobbed. "I feel so gross." She put her arms around his neck and cried.

Chester held her tight and let her cry for a minute, just saying, "Shh, shh, I love you, Francie," every so often.

"Right, then," he finally said. "Enough of this shit."

Francie was so surprised she sat up, forgetting to cry. Was Chester saying he was through comforting her?

"We're taking care of this right now, okay, my love?" Chester stroked her crazy hair.

"What? How?" Francie asked, sounding like a confused child.

"I think I have a way," Chester said grimly as he rose.

"What are you going to do?" Francie asked as he grabbed his crutches and walked away. "Chester? Chester!"

Chester approached the group of boys, who were still snickering.

"How's it hanging, Wozniak?" one of them asked. "Can we help you with something?"

"Maybe he needs help crawling back out of his girlfriend's huge snatch," someone else said. He then held up his hand for a high five from someone else.

"She's one hot fuck, though, isn't she?" said a third boy, grinning at Chester as though they shared a joke.

"Yeah, about that," Chester said, a small smile playing about his mouth. "All you guys have screwed my girlfriend, is that right?"

"Not just us, bro, a lot of those guys, too," said the first boy said, gesturing.

Chester turned to look, and saw that it was Antonio Ribeiro and his friends.

"Hey Tony!" he called, gesturing with his crutch. "Come here for a sec, will you? Yeah, not just you, all of you."

Tony and his friends came to where Chester and the first bunch of boys stood, curious. By now most of the courtyard was watching Chester and the group, which had grown to nearly thirty boys.

Veronica and Tyler had joined Francie at her table and were also staring raptly.

"So I just want to get this clear," Chester reiterated, again with that same smile. "All of you guys have nailed my Francie over there?"

"Over there, over here, at a party, at the park, wherever," someone spoke up. All the boys laughed, including Tony, who chuckled.

"Whatever," Chester laughed. "As one of you said, she's one hot fuck, isn't she?"

By now the courtyard was so quiet his voice could be heard by everyone.

Francie buried her face in her hands, and Tyler and Veronica each put a comforting hand on her back.

"You got that right," was the general consensus.

"Well, here's the problem, guys," Chester continued, his voice getting even louder. "Francie was what you'd call a very chaste girl until all this started, you get my meaning?" At the blank looks, he elaborated. "She was a virgin, you get it?"

"And now, somewhere in this merry-go-round of banging that's been going on, Francie's caught a really gnarly STD called Lymphogranuloma Venereum," Chester went on, his voice becoming grim.

The silence among the group of boys was sudden and loud.

"Oh yeah, you should google it, it's horrible. Anyway, it's such a bad STD that they have to do contact tracing on it? You know what that is? The CDC has to get involved and do a map of everyone she's come into sexual contact with, okay?" Chester looked around to see the impact his words was having.

"We used a condom," someone called out.

"Doesn't matter," Chester responded cheerfully. "This is so contagious that mouth to mouth or hand to genital contact can transmit the sores and lesions. And I'm sure you didn't put the condom on right away, did you, chief?"

Sores and lesions?

The other kids standing around the courtyard listening made a collective sound of disgust.

"I don't have any sores and legions, I don't have that shit," someone muttered.

"Probably not yet, it takes a few months for it to get that bad," Chester went on. "It starts with abdominal pain, diarrhea, painful bowel movements, swollen lymph nodes, all that good stuff."

More silence.

"Anyway, the CDC needs your names for the contact tracing, cool?" Chester said, pulling out his phone.

Everyone took a step away from him, as if they were all seven years old and Chester had cooties.

"What? You all slept with her, who knows who gave it to her? But you probably all have it. And I haven't even told you about the treatment," Chester said.

"What's the treatment?"someone called out.

"Well, it starts with a biopsy of your lymph nodes and an invasive penile swab," Chester said, making a swirling motion around his crotch. "The rest depends on the results, but the whole thing takes about six months.

"Oh," he added, as if it were an afterthought, "of course anyone else you slept with, like girlfriends or whatever? Will have to be included in the contact trace, and they'll have to be treated, too, okay? So we'll need their names as well."

Everyone took another step away from Chester. He was starting to look like a nucleus in the middle of a cell.

"Would you mind spreading out right there?" Chester asked, moving the boys apart. "I want Francie to be able to see me."

By now, even the library had emptied as everyone came to watch the spectacle in the courtyard unfold. Pretty much the entire senior and most of the junior class was watching.

"I never slept with her," someone said.

"Me either."

"I didn't either, I just said it because you guys did."

There was lots of muttering in agreement as everyone backed up, leaving Chester standing in the middle of an ever widening circle all alone.

Chester looked around after a minute to find he was alone, with everyone looking at him.

"I guess you're the only one who's had sex with Francie the Body," Tony said in his deep voice. He laughed. "So I guess we know where she got her STD, then, hm?"

Chester shook his head, stepping out of the circle himself.

"I haven't slept with her, either," he said. "We've only been dating a few months, and she's not that kind of girl."

Everyone was staring at him in shock.

He put his phone back in his pocket. "And she doesn't have an STD, you sonofabitch, and you know it. I just said that to make all of you assholes tell the truth for once in your miserable lives. Please don't spread this kind of miserable gossip about the girl I love anymore."

And he walked away without another word, back to where Francie was waiting for him.

Spontaneous applause broke out among the onlookers, and Chester, ever the showman, bowed in every direction as he walked, smiling hugely as he did so.

"My hero," Francie murmured, pulling him in for a huge kiss. "Want to come over after school and find out what's going on with Jill and her father?" she asked after.

Chester nodded. "Will you call me your hero and kiss me like that again?"

"You betcha."

Sure enough, the detectives were waiting at the apartment after school to give them an update, though Francie suspected this wasn't something they usually did. Probably the fact that her father was Pete Santangelo had something to do with the personal service and the house call.

"So? What's the status?" Pete asked, an arm around Daisy and the other around Francie.

"Well, once we got them in custody, they admitted the entire thing," Detective Bustamante began. "Apparently, after Mr. Wozniak began dating your daughter, Jill Wyler complained about it to her father on one of her visits. He recognized her last name and told her that he knew her mother, and filled her head with stories of how she'd treated him badly in high school. And the rest, as they say, is history."

"So Jill was the one spreading the rumors about Francie? She did everything?" Chester's voice was filled with disbelief.

"Yes, it appears so. She manipulated social media and got together with someone else at the school, someone named--" she checked her notes, "--Antonio Ribeiro? He helped to spread the rumors, but he's not criminally accountable for anything. She helped him with a voice recording, I believe."

Francie shook her head.

"And Dave? He--he did the graffiti?" Daisy asked.

"Yes." Detective Chadwick spoke for the first time. "With his daughter's help. She's been a trusted student at the school for years, and she knew how to get in. They came together for five days over spring break and he did the graffiti."

"To think he's hated me so much all these years." Daisy's voice was filled with wonder and regret.

"So what kind of punishment will they get?" Pete's voice was clipped and businesslike.

"Well, I'm afraid that breaking and entering and defacing private property doesn't carry much in the way of punishment," Detective Bustamante said regretfully. "It will be up to the DA, of course. We won't know for a couple of weeks."

"In the meantime, we do know that Jill Wyler has been expelled from your school," Detective Chadwick added. "And both of them have been ordered to stay away from your entire family and of course not to have contact with you."

"I'd like to talk to Jill Wyler," Chester began.

"That's really not advisable," Detective Bustamante said.

Chester bit his lips together, and finally nodded. "Okay," he said. "I'll just yell at her a lot in my head, then."

After the detectives left, Francie said, "It's kind of anticlimactic, though, isn't it? Not to be able to face them and talk to them? To be able to get it out in the open."

"It really is," Chester said in frustration.

"I'd like five minutes alone with that father, I know that," Pete said grimly.

"Oh, Pete, don't go all Latin alpha on me," Daisy said with a laugh.

"I wanted to punch him way back then, cara," Pete complained. "Now I wish I had."

"Chester, promise me you won't say or do anything more to Tony?" Francie entreated.

"What did he say or do to Tony?" Daisy asked curiously.

"I'll tell you over dinner, it was epic," Francie promised. "The whole family should hear."

"Deal. Chester, can you stay? Pete made lasagne."

"I'll check, but I'm sure it's okay."

When they were alone, Chester asked Francie, "When do I get my second 'hero's kiss'?"

"How about now?"

And she gave it to him, right then.