America 1982.

Chapter 19 Someone seems to be in big trouble
Melonie picked up a piece of fried crab horn, dipped it in the sweet and sour sauce and put it into her mouth. After finishing it, she couldn't wait to try the tangerine peel chicken salad, Manchurian fried pork chops, and almond fried chicken on the table. Then she exclaimed to Tommy Hawke in surprise:

"I thought about what business you would do with $20,000 if you really had it, Tommy. You should open a Chinese fast food restaurant. The dishes are great. I've had Chinese food in Boston, and I don't think the food there is as delicious as yours. This is not a compliment, it's the truth."

Tommy Hawke did not comment on Melonie's compliment.

In fact, these American-Chinese dishes have nothing to do with real Chinese food. Fried crab rangoons are made by wrapping imitation crab meat and cheese in wonton wrappers and frying them, and then served with American sweet and sour sauce. Tangerine peel chicken salad is made of lettuce, boiled chicken breast, rice noodles, peanuts, citrus juice, vegetable oil, dry hot mustard, pickled ginger and steamed tangerine peel. Manchurian fried pork chops are small pieces of pork chops fried with onions and seasoned with sweet sauce. Almond fried chicken is made by wrapping chicken in batter mixed with almonds, frying it and serving it with spicy sauce.

It conforms to the tastes of most Americans and all their stereotypes about Chinese food, that is, all Chinese food is cooked by either stir-frying or frying.

Tommy Hawke doesn't actually have any superb cooking skills, or it can be said that these dishes do not require any superb cooking skills. Chinese people who have eaten them a few times and know how to cook can easily replicate them because the preparation method is so simple. This is also the main reason why more than 70% of Chinese restaurants in the United States will add these dishes to their menus.

It's just good enough to fool Americans who have never eaten real Chinese food.

He used a fork to pick up some rice noodles from the chicken salad and put them on his plate. He didn't care about Melonie's compliments at all. He lowered his head to eat and said, "If you have time tomorrow, contact Hugh Spade and ask him to come see you tomorrow. Tell him that when you make a hundred dollars, you can pay him first. I hope you can get some photos in return and give him some time."

Melonie was slightly startled when she heard Tommy Hawke talking about Hugh Spade in a voice without any emotion. She was just in a good mood because of the delicious food. She subconsciously restrained the smile on her face and said, "Then what? I can't take out a hundred dollars now."

"Here's a hundred dollars." Tommy Hawke held a fork in one hand and took a few bills from his pocket with the other hand and pushed them across the dining table in front of Melanie.

Melonie glanced at the bills in front of her, all in denominations of twenty or ten dollars.

"You earned it?"

"I earned more than that. I have three hundred dollars in my pocket and one hundred and seventy Adderall and eighty Sodium tablets in the bedroom." Tommy Hawke swallowed the food in his mouth politely, wiped his lips, and looked up at Melonie.

Melonie frowned. She knew that these prescription drugs were used by many young people to liven up parties. Although they were not classified as drugs like hemp, they were strictly controlled. "So, they are not drugs, but medicines."

"No, I said, I'm not going to do any business that violates any American laws. I just want to give Mr. Hugh Spade fifty Adderall and thirty Naphalol pills." Tommy said.

"Give it to him? Giving him some prescription drugs won't get the police to arrest him. Instead, the police will trace it back to you. I don't agree with you doing this." Melanie refused decisively.

Tommy Hawke said, "When he comes to collect the money tomorrow, you will pack the drugs in the living room. Tell him that you took this job to pack drugs for me in order to make money. Describe me as a rubbish student who lives in a rubbish high school and does not work properly, but has a way to get prescription drugs. He is short of money. When he sees the drugs and knows that I am just a high school student, he will definitely take the drugs from you because of his lack of money and greed. Just refuse a few times and let him take them away, but you have to take back a few photos that belong to you."

"You know, what we should get back is the negatives." Melanie lowered her head and sighed. The big boy opposite her was talking completely irrelevant, which made her doubt whether she was too hasty to believe that he could help her solve the problem in the afternoon.

"No, what you need are photos. It's not time to get the negatives back yet." Tommy Hawke said to Melanie in an affirmative tone.

Melonie frowned slightly and looked at Tommy suspiciously: "And then?"

Tommy Hawke used a fork to pick up the rice noodles and brought them to his mouth: "Then, it's my turn as a high school student who has suffered a loss to find him."

Seeing that Melonie was about to speak, Tommy Hawke continued, "Don't worry, there won't be the fight you imagine. If he is investigated by the police or imprisoned, the public school will have an excuse to dismiss him, right?"

"Yes." Melanie nodded. "The teachers' union has a special department to listen to teachers' problems, right? For example, psychological counseling and legal consultation departments?"

“The union does help us.”

"Send Hugh Spade away tomorrow. You will go to the union departments for some consultation. For example, you will tell the psychological counselors that you have suffered psychological trauma and you have tried hard to get out of the shadow, but now the nightmare has reappeared. You are worried that if you continue to develop, it will have a serious impact on your teaching career, or you will have to say goodbye to this profession that you love so much."

Melonie was about to listen carefully to Tommy's arrangement, and she raised the champagne to her lips, but she almost choked on these words. She quickly covered her mouth with a napkin and looked at Tommy Hawke: "What are you talking about?"

"You were once deceived into taking drugs by your ex-boyfriend who was heavily addicted to drugs and had bad habits. Then he took a lot of photos of you when you were unconscious. Now he is trying to approach and control you. This feeling makes you feel panic. This is the main reason why you seek psychological counseling. The same is true for legal counselors. You have to ask them whether they can legally force Hugh Spade to stay away from you after so many years and without evidence. But no matter in counseling or consultation, do not mention the other party's name, and use the term "ex-boyfriend" instead." Tommy Hawke continued:

"You need to go to counseling and tutoring twice a week so that those people will have an impression of you. The rest of the time, just continue to be your substitute teacher. Leave all the rest to me until I notify you that you need to prepare to be a witness and testify against Hugh Spade."

"A witness?" Melonie was stunned for a moment: "I am a witness? Not the one who is going to sue him?"

Tommy Hawke tasted the fried pork chop he made and shook his head slightly: "It's a bit hard."

Then he answered Melanie's question: "The identity of a witness will be more beneficial to you. There is a witness protection law. From the moment you become a witness, it doesn't matter who owns your photos. But if he dares to leak them again, you can find a well-known lawyer to file a claim in court on the grounds of unfavorable protection of witness privacy. So in order to avoid being legally blackmailed by you, the court or the state government will definitely help you recover all your photos and negatives. In this way, you can ensure that you don't have to fight him head-on. You only need to help hammer in the final nail when Hugh Spade lies in the coffin."

"What are you going to do, Tommy Hawke?" Melonie felt that her mind could no longer catch up with Tommy's thoughts in time.

Tommy Hawke swallowed the food in his mouth and ignored Melonie's question. He continued, "After sending him in, a position will be vacant at Sinclair Elementary School, and you, the witness, can replace Hugh Spade and become the new teacher at Sinclair Elementary School."

"Will the school agree?" Melonie asked in disbelief. "What are you talking about, kid?"

"If the principal of Sinclair Elementary School is not an idiot, he'd better agree." Tommy Hawke finished his food, picked up a cigarette, lit it, exhaled the smoke, and said in a monotonous voice:

"Because if he disagrees, he will lose his position as principal. He should know how to make a wise choice between being kicked out of that position or being given a job to continue to serve as principal."

Melonie felt a chill in her heart after hearing this. For some reason, she felt that all the delicious food had lost its taste. She now looked at Tommy Hawke, who looked calm and composed. It was obvious that this big boy already had a careful plan in his mind. Judging from his expression, it seemed that her troubles might be as easy for him as solving a math problem and were not worth any emotional response at all.

She seemed to hear faintly in her ears the words Tommy Hawke had said while sitting in the passenger seat on the way home:
"I want to cook a nice dinner. Usually when I'm doing some housework that doesn't require much brainpower, I always have time to think about complicated things."

Although she didn't know what Tommy Hawke was going to do, her intuition told her that Hugh Spade was in big trouble.

I would like to ask for your recommendation votes, collections, and most importantly, follow-up reading. Your follow-up reading can determine the fate of this book. If you think the writing is okay, please give me some support. Thank you.

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(End of this chapter)