Tess’s Panther
By Flint Keller
Sixteen-year-old Tess Harper worried every night closing Bonworth’s at the Coral Isle Prime Outlet. Walking out with the manager into the dark lot Tess imagined a big black panther appearing. There were yellow Panther Crossing signs just up the road so it wasn’t really just her imagination.
It didn’t help that she had grown up on the outskirts of Scottsdale, Arizona before it was built up and neighborhood cats and dogs were taken nightly by coyotes. Moving to Florida Tess thought would be a relief—no coyotes. But in Naples on the gulf coast just north of Marco Island the great black Panthers were making a comeback. Great.
They parked their cars in the employee spots, a long walk from the door. Lit only by two high yellow lights and surrounded by small hills, scrub brush and some young palm trees, it seemed prime picking ground for a hungry panther.
No one had actually seen a panther in the lot, or even that close, but they had been spotted near by—pictured in the Naples Daily News with quivering haunches and menacing yellow feline eyes. They were to Tess perfect killing machines: worse then coyotes by a million percent.
Tess had moved to Naples with her mother just after the start of the school year. Leaving behind, as her mom had put it, a dead-end-job and a dead-beat-dad. Tess didn’t see how working for Comcast just up the road from the RV park where they rented a trailer was any better than Qwest back in Scottsdale, but her mom was calmer without Tess’s dad always hanging around.
It was working out okay in other ways for Tess too. Some of the girls at Naples High School like Gwen, Laurie and Tissa were stuck-up and didn’t talk to anyone who didn’t wear their clothes, and their hair, and live their exact lives. But there were other girls like Carrie and Mir who became fast good friends.
Then there was Jenk Wilkes. Jenk was new to Naples High too. Jenk with sandy brown hair dangling just above his blue, blue eyes. Jenk who smiled at Tess her first day and warmed her right up.
After, “Hi,” the first thing Jenk said to Tess was, “I have no clue how to do trigonometry, do you?”
Luckily Tess did know a little bit about trig. And after a few study sessions and walking in the halls every day, people considered them a thing. Which wasn’t exactly true: they had being new to Naples High in common and a few classes together and that just gave people ideas. That was okay with Tess, but not with Gwen and Laurie and Tissa. Mostly Gwen. From the first moment Gwen saw Jenks she had had her sights set, ready to dump her current boyfriend Rodd Pittman at a moment’s notice. Gwen who lived in the high brow gated Verona Walk up Collier Blvd., Gwen who wouldn’t be seen shopping anywhere near Bonworths, got what she wanted. And when she didn’t that was trouble.
In honor of the new and growing population of black panthers in the area Naples High had just last year changed their football, basketball and baseball team’s name to the Fighting Black Panthers. New growling panthers adorned the hallways and a huge snarling beast menaced the main entrance. The cheerleaders, Gwen, Laurie, Tissa and a few others in the group with the exact same lives and clothes now wore tight black on game days, painted whiskers on their faces, and growled at people they liked and some they didn’t. Whenever someone in a black suit jumped out and growled at Tess her heart leapt to her throat, constricted, beat, beat, beat before it settled in her chest. Reminding her of things she didn’t like to think about. On game days Rodd Pittman wore a panther suit onto the field and raced around to the cheering of the fans.
Tess kept her fear of panthers well hidden from everyone at school. It wasn’t something you shared. Mir and Carrie knew. They tried to relieve Tess’s fear by telling her that no one had ever been hurt by the panthers; that the population had been slowly growing since they were eleven, but it didn’t really help so mostly they didn’t talk about it much.
Gwen found out about Tess’s fear of panthers. Here’s how: Gwen’s older cousin was night manager at Bonworth’s where Tess worked. At first the cousin merely told Gwen of this girl she worked with who trembled on the way to her car every night. But when Tess’s name came up Gwen realized who it was.
Gwen hatched an evil plan.
Gwen got Rodd to record snarling panthers onto her I-pod and one night she hid in the bushes outside Bonworth’s near Tess’s Corolla and played it over speakers. Tess’s heart rate near doubled, sweet broke out in quick beads on her forehead and her breathing grew fast, then shallow, like she was drowning in a deep black sea. The cousin, next to Tess told her the panthers were probably off in the distance somewhere and felt just a little guilty over Tess’s reaction.
Two nights later Rodd went with Gwen to the parking lot. Gwen had arranged for her cousin to forget something back in the store just as she and Tess were past the mid point in the parking lot and to dash back for it without waiting for Tess. The cousin, in a police interview later, said she “deeply regretted” her decision to go along with the plan.
Left alone in a shadow of darkness Tess stood motionless, unable to move back toward the store and the sprinting manager, or toward her car near the edge of the lot. Growling sounds rose from what seemed all around her, and exacerbated the problem. Her heart worked overtime.
Rodd prowled up over the rise brushed by the dim yellow light from above. Large. Black. Beastly. Yellow eyes flashing.
Tess crumpled to the ground. To Gwen and Rodd it appeared that Tess had fainted, but when they checked she was dead.
Rodd said, “Jeez, we scared her to death!”
That wasn’t too far from the truth.
Tess suffered from a severe form of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This genetic condition had caused a great thickening of one of the walls of her heart, which prompted her occasional fainting and that heavy beat, beat, beating she felt within her chest at times.
Rodd, appearing as a panther on the rise above her, caused Tess’s heart to flutter in very abnormal heart rhythms. The elevated pressure in the thickened left ventricle was too much and while the autopsy concurred her hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, Tess did in fact die from fright.
By Flint Keller
Sixteen-year-old Tess Harper worried every night closing Bonworth’s at the Coral Isle Prime Outlet. Walking out with the manager into the dark lot Tess imagined a big black panther appearing. There were yellow Panther Crossing signs just up the road so it wasn’t really just her imagination.
It didn’t help that she had grown up on the outskirts of Scottsdale, Arizona before it was built up and neighborhood cats and dogs were taken nightly by coyotes. Moving to Florida Tess thought would be a relief—no coyotes. But in Naples on the gulf coast just north of Marco Island the great black Panthers were making a comeback. Great.
They parked their cars in the employee spots, a long walk from the door. Lit only by two high yellow lights and surrounded by small hills, scrub brush and some young palm trees, it seemed prime picking ground for a hungry panther.
No one had actually seen a panther in the lot, or even that close, but they had been spotted near by—pictured in the Naples Daily News with quivering haunches and menacing yellow feline eyes. They were to Tess perfect killing machines: worse then coyotes by a million percent.
Tess had moved to Naples with her mother just after the start of the school year. Leaving behind, as her mom had put it, a dead-end-job and a dead-beat-dad. Tess didn’t see how working for Comcast just up the road from the RV park where they rented a trailer was any better than Qwest back in Scottsdale, but her mom was calmer without Tess’s dad always hanging around.
It was working out okay in other ways for Tess too. Some of the girls at Naples High School like Gwen, Laurie and Tissa were stuck-up and didn’t talk to anyone who didn’t wear their clothes, and their hair, and live their exact lives. But there were other girls like Carrie and Mir who became fast good friends.
Then there was Jenk Wilkes. Jenk was new to Naples High too. Jenk with sandy brown hair dangling just above his blue, blue eyes. Jenk who smiled at Tess her first day and warmed her right up.
After, “Hi,” the first thing Jenk said to Tess was, “I have no clue how to do trigonometry, do you?”
Luckily Tess did know a little bit about trig. And after a few study sessions and walking in the halls every day, people considered them a thing. Which wasn’t exactly true: they had being new to Naples High in common and a few classes together and that just gave people ideas. That was okay with Tess, but not with Gwen and Laurie and Tissa. Mostly Gwen. From the first moment Gwen saw Jenks she had had her sights set, ready to dump her current boyfriend Rodd Pittman at a moment’s notice. Gwen who lived in the high brow gated Verona Walk up Collier Blvd., Gwen who wouldn’t be seen shopping anywhere near Bonworths, got what she wanted. And when she didn’t that was trouble.
In honor of the new and growing population of black panthers in the area Naples High had just last year changed their football, basketball and baseball team’s name to the Fighting Black Panthers. New growling panthers adorned the hallways and a huge snarling beast menaced the main entrance. The cheerleaders, Gwen, Laurie, Tissa and a few others in the group with the exact same lives and clothes now wore tight black on game days, painted whiskers on their faces, and growled at people they liked and some they didn’t. Whenever someone in a black suit jumped out and growled at Tess her heart leapt to her throat, constricted, beat, beat, beat before it settled in her chest. Reminding her of things she didn’t like to think about. On game days Rodd Pittman wore a panther suit onto the field and raced around to the cheering of the fans.
Tess kept her fear of panthers well hidden from everyone at school. It wasn’t something you shared. Mir and Carrie knew. They tried to relieve Tess’s fear by telling her that no one had ever been hurt by the panthers; that the population had been slowly growing since they were eleven, but it didn’t really help so mostly they didn’t talk about it much.
Gwen found out about Tess’s fear of panthers. Here’s how: Gwen’s older cousin was night manager at Bonworth’s where Tess worked. At first the cousin merely told Gwen of this girl she worked with who trembled on the way to her car every night. But when Tess’s name came up Gwen realized who it was.
Gwen hatched an evil plan.
Gwen got Rodd to record snarling panthers onto her I-pod and one night she hid in the bushes outside Bonworth’s near Tess’s Corolla and played it over speakers. Tess’s heart rate near doubled, sweet broke out in quick beads on her forehead and her breathing grew fast, then shallow, like she was drowning in a deep black sea. The cousin, next to Tess told her the panthers were probably off in the distance somewhere and felt just a little guilty over Tess’s reaction.
Two nights later Rodd went with Gwen to the parking lot. Gwen had arranged for her cousin to forget something back in the store just as she and Tess were past the mid point in the parking lot and to dash back for it without waiting for Tess. The cousin, in a police interview later, said she “deeply regretted” her decision to go along with the plan.
Left alone in a shadow of darkness Tess stood motionless, unable to move back toward the store and the sprinting manager, or toward her car near the edge of the lot. Growling sounds rose from what seemed all around her, and exacerbated the problem. Her heart worked overtime.
Rodd prowled up over the rise brushed by the dim yellow light from above. Large. Black. Beastly. Yellow eyes flashing.
Tess crumpled to the ground. To Gwen and Rodd it appeared that Tess had fainted, but when they checked she was dead.
Rodd said, “Jeez, we scared her to death!”
That wasn’t too far from the truth.
Tess suffered from a severe form of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This genetic condition had caused a great thickening of one of the walls of her heart, which prompted her occasional fainting and that heavy beat, beat, beating she felt within her chest at times.
Rodd, appearing as a panther on the rise above her, caused Tess’s heart to flutter in very abnormal heart rhythms. The elevated pressure in the thickened left ventricle was too much and while the autopsy concurred her hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, Tess did in fact die from fright.
Copyright © 2011 Flint Keller All Rights Reserved
