Searching for Hailey Bradshaw

Chapter 12

By the time she made it back to her bedroom later that night, Hailey felt worn and defeated. She walked through the doorway and went straight to her bed, plopping down on the mattress with a groan.

Tony and Sasha were still sitting cross-legged on Sasha's bed with a pair of textbooks open on their laps as they studied. When Hailey lifted her face to glance at them, she wasn't at all surprised to discover them both gawking at her.

"That's it," she announced. "It's official. I'm legally changing my name to Heidi."

Sasha sent her a sympathetic look. "What happened?"

"I'll tell you what happened. I just spoke to every member of Daniel's family over the phone. And I was there to tell him the truth too. But I couldn't after that."

"You want me to tell him?" Tony asked.

But before Hailey could decline, Sasha snapped, "No. Hailey can't tell him yet."

Tony jumped and glanced at his girlfriend in surprise. "Why not?"

"Because," Sasha said sternly, transferring her pointed look from Tony to her roommate. "Hailey has a bad past with guys knowing what she is. She needs to find out a couple things about this reporter before she can be completely honest with him. So, just, let her will deal with it, okay."

Well, maybe she's dealing with it the wrong way, Hailey wanted to retort. Closing her eyes, she tried to block out the world and she contemplated what to do about her little white lily of a lie that had bloomed into a raging ivy-climbing weed. But the sound of Tony quizzing Sasha for a history test interrupted her fretting.

"Okay, here's a sample essay question," Tony said.

"Alright," Sasha told him, stretching her neck and then her arms as if she were preparing to run a race, rather than answer a question. "I'm ready," she finally said.

Grinning, Tony cleared his throat. "Explain the term 'No Taxation Without Representation ' and how it relates to the Boston Tea Party."

Sasha just started at her boyfriend with a blank look. Then she said, "Huh?"

"Explain the term—" Tony started again, but Hailey had had enough.

"Oh, come on," she told Sasha. "That one's easy."

Both Sasha and Tony glanced at if her as if she was a freak alien. Sighing, she set down her own biology textbook. "Look at it this way," she started. "Back in the 1760s before the Revolutionary War, England was our mother country, right?"

Sasha and Tony nodded simultaneously.

"So, being our mother, or our parent, they were spending all this money sending military troops over to America to act as our protectors, not to mention the fact that they needed to pay back all the money they'd spent on fighting in the French and Indian War, which had taken place on American soil, don't forget."

"Okay," Sasha said. "I'm with you so far,"

Hailey nodded. "Therefore," she started. "England thought America owed them. In other words, it would be like when you were still in high school and your parents dished out all this money to pay for your prom dress, plus they also fed you and kept a roof over your head and so on. Since all that expense was draining their pocket book, they sudden decide they need compensation. So, what would you have done if your mom had announced out of the blue, 'You have to pay me five bucks for every meal you eat in my house'?"

"I'd say, no way," Sasha instantly replied, sounding insulted. "She didn't even ask me about it first."

"Exactly," Hailey agreed. "England put out all these acts, like the Stamp Act, which made America's pay tax on paper documents... you know, things like wills, newspapers, permits, and so forth. Then they came up with the Townsend Acts, which taxed everything that was imported into the colonies. And America was like, 'Wait a second. We should have a say-so in what gets taxed and what doesn't.' And that led to the 'No Taxation without Representation' slogan. Americans wanted to be able to discuss what got taxed and what didn't."