The Cow Ate My Homework

6. Authority Figures Make Things Worse

Do they, though? Is this Caleb guy all anti-establishment, anarchy for the win and whatnot? Talk about a teen stereotype, you say.

But no, let me assure you, I am not anti-authority in everyday life. By no means. I do what my parents tell me to, I follow rules, I've never set out to rebel against anyone.

And yet, on this particular day when it seems that all things must go contrary to the way they should go for me, turning to an authority figure for the assistance does not actually help me one little bit.

I march straight from looking at the Zero Tolerance poster to the vice principal's office, ignoring Sarah's protests that this might not work so well. I'm certain she has no idea what she's talking about in this, ignoring my knowledge that she usually pretty much knows what she's talking about. The vice principal is literally in charge of this type of thing, I tell myself. And there's a poster on his wall all but begging me to get him involved. It's obviously the right course of action.

If Vice Principal Moore were a regular vice principal, my reasoning would prove true. But alas, he is not a regular vice principal.

Why would he be a regular vice principal, in Dermont High School? Instead of being the type of guy that the term "vice principal" usually conjures up in your mind (you know, well-spoken adult in a tie who can be firm and smart enough to not have wool pulled over his eyes, maybe even a real stick-in-the-mud type who can totally bring the hammer down... the type of guy who could deal with Rodney for me no problem), Vice Principal Moore is actually a cleaned-up hillbilly in his mid-40s who doesn't look at all as if he belongs in an office wearing business casual. Like I can literally picture him in overalls with a hunk of straw hanging out of his mouth as he distills moonshine in his back yard shed. For all I know, that's actually what he will be wearing and doing a few short hours from now. I would certainly buy it if someone told me this were the case.

He leads me into his office, which is decked out with mounted deer heads and other fun specimens of taxidermy across the walls and in every nook and cranny.

"Come on in," he says, shutting the door behind me and motioning to a chair across from his desk. Then he plops into his own seat, man-spreads, and says, "What can I do you for?"

Now would be the time when I should tell him about my very pressing problem, but I'm momentarily distracted by all the dead animals staring at me. He takes the opportunity my pause gives him to spit tobacco juice into a coffee cup on his desk (sick—and probably super illegal on school grounds, right?).

I fight the hard-core grimace trying to work itself onto my face, and I answer, "I have a bullying issue to report?" It comes out as a question despite my conviction that I'm taking the right course of action.

Vice Principal Moore chuckles. I do not.

I continue, "Rodney Wood threatened to kill me."

He's not even a little bit fazed by this frightening piece of information. "Oh, he probably wasn't serious. It's the last week of school. Hang in there, it'll all be over soon."

Vice Principal Moore seems to think we're done, as if he's solved my whole problem by telling me to hang in there. He totally looks like he's expecting me to get up and leave, like there's nothing else I need from him.

Though I've only been here a moment, I'm tempted to take his cue and drop it.

But I can't. I have a dude plotting my murder. So I plow ahead. "I was literally just staring at that poster in the hall about zero tolerance—"

He cuts me off. "Yeah we had to put those up last year. State mandate. We do take those types of things very seriously when it could turn into something bad. Like when it's not almost the very end of school."

I can practically see him fantasizing about his summer vacation. It's so close. He only has to finish out a few more days here and then he's free of us for a couple of months. There might as well be Hawaiian shirts and hula skirts in his eyes, like a cartoon dog fantasizing about one of those T-bone steaks that always seem to be so plentiful in cartoons. Vice Principal Moore is probably waiting eagerly for me to leave so he can check his travel itinerary to somewhere tropical and far far away from Dermont (my money's on Fiji, or maybe Aruba). He is the picture of a guy checked out.

"You're not gonna help me at all, are you?"

He stands to usher me out, physically signaling that we are totally done here. "You've got a couple more days. Nothing is gonna kill you for a couple more days."

I leave the office, more than a little disappointed at my easy-out petering into a no-go. And I begin to feel just a smidge of panic building as it hits home that my problem has not been made better in the least.

I fidget with the hall pass in my hand as I walk through the empty hallway toward my classroom. I am lost in unpleasant thought, so much so that I'm not aware of my surroundings. I don't pay attention this time to things like those Zero Tolerance posters, or fliers for the spring production of Grease that never got taken down from last month, or the couple of people who are out in the hallway during class time like I am. I'm vaguely aware that I'm not alone, but it does not register that I should possibly take notice of who else might be out there.

If one of these couple of random people I am passing might be, say, Rodney's Redneck Lackey watching me from a distance with a toilet paper shaped hall pass in hand, totally stopped in his tracks to stare at me, I do not see him. I am oblivious to all except worries for my diploma and my life.

#

As a nearly direct result of my ill-fated trip the vice principal's office, my conflict with Rodney escalates almost immediately.

As the next period-end bell rings, I am pushed along with the crowd of students into the hallway on our way out of the classroom. But suddenly, I am shoved much more violently and purposefully from behind.

I turn to find Rodney looking down at me menacingly (so basically like his normal). "A little birdie told me you made a trip to the office last period."

His Redneck Lackey moves in toward me like an enforcer and says, "No it was a big jacked birdie who told him."

Rodney moves in closer. "I sure hope you weren't trying to rat me out."

I glance around, as if some magical way out might present itself to me. But all I see are students passing by. They're all completely ignoring Rodney doing what he always does. Nothing to see here, same old same old.

He moves in even closer, so close that I can smell the stank of tobacco chew on his breath (what is with you people? So gross). And he says, "Maybe you don't know what I do to people who try and rat me out."

My brain fires rapidly, debating. Flat denial? Witty response that somehow deescalates? Sheer panic? Sheer panic. I try to fight it, but my fight or flight quickly veers flight.

I take off running down the hallway.

Rodney immediately gives chase. I can sense him behind me without even looking, gaining closer and closer and closer. Shit shit shit shit shit shit. I try to zigzag through a few people, but it doesn't help. He's gaining on me.

I fly around a corner and see before me:

A girls' restroom.

Desperate, I fly toward it and burst inside.