Three
The bad news was I had sprained my hand; pretty badly from what the nurse said. She thought it better if I had a doctor look at it. I asked her if she had met my mother, at which Ms. Martin chuckled involuntarily. Either way I was told I should head home and rest my hand and REALLY consider going to a doctor. I told her I was fine, it didn't hurt anymore and I could probably even get through the school day. Truth was it hurt like hell, but I didn't want to deal with my mother. I picked up my book bag with my good hand and started out the door, but before I could get out the door a taller man walked into the nurse's office. Behind him were the Terrible Twosome, looking falsely contrite. "Okay girls. The camera caught you doing it. Now let's hear it."
Sasha was the first to speak up, mainly because the tall man gave her a stern look. "Look goth....." the clearing of the man's throat made her change track, "ummm, Medora. I'm really sorry about what happened. I honestly thought it was an accident. We'll try to be more careful in the future." She backed up to allow Jennifer to extend her warmest apologies. Needless to say, I didn't buy a word of it.
"If there are any medical bills involved with this incident please have them sent to me." The man put his hand reassuringly on my shoulder. Sasha looked at me as if she could kill me. "By the way, high time I introduced myself. I'm Porter Daniels. I'm the principal of this school."
Daniels....Daniels. The name sounded familiar. Then it hit me. At roll call the teacher called out "Sasha Daniels" as she went down the list. This brat was related to the principal. I'll tell....Dad. Even worse, this man was her father. I felt as if I was going to be sick. The principal was the father to one of the spawns of Satan. "I can assure you I will deal with my daughter and her friend Miss Langston with the appropriate punishments. Now girls, time to head to class. See you tomorrow, Miss Langston."
See you tomorrow? After what they did to me? I wanted to scream at him, to demand that Mr. Daniels send his hellspawn and her evil "bestie" packing! They didn't belong among normal people, they belonged in a reform school! I watched Sasha take her things, kiss her father on the cheek and say cheerfully "Okay Daddy!" She shot me a dirty look as she walked out the door. She and Jennifer didn't even make it out of earshot before they rejoined Peyton and started laughing hysterically. Mr. Daniels just sighed and spoke to me about how sometimes girls get a little silly and how those two would walk the line from this moment on. He also broke some additional bad news to me; he had already taken the liberty of calling my mother. I groaned, which he mistook for a groan of pain. "Don't worry, little lady. We're going to get you all fixed up."
I tried to get him to let me call her back before she headed for the high school. All I wanted to do was finish out the day. He told me I really needed to get additional medical attention and he would not take "no" for an answer. I couldn't help but think he never said the word "no" to that little slut he and his wife created in a drunken stupor eighteen years ago either. I sat in a chair by a fake tree and waited for the storm to blow in.
And blow in she did. Twenty minutes after he called she stormed into the school, absolutely irate. "Mer, how in the world did you wind up tripping over someone's foot?" She was already turning red with rage.
"I didn't trip over her, she tripped me! She and her friend! She made me fall because she has a problem with me!" I wasn't taking responsibility for this.
"After one day of school?" she demanded. "What could you possibly do that would make someone that mad at you after one day?"
I wasn't going to take the blame for this. "Mom, I'm serious. She's just a brat. Her dad is the principal. She knows she can get away with stuff, so she did it. And she gets to come back to school tomorrow!"
Luckily this was enough to turn my mom's rage toward the principal himself. She marched into his office much like she marched into Ms. Martin's office earlier. "What's this about your kid tripping my kid?" I heard my mom shout.
"Mrs. Parker, I presume." I heard the principal respond, sounding irritated.
"Ms. Parker. Let me get this straight. Your kid trips my kid and damn near breaks her arm and you let her go? If you tell me that's what happened I'm going to pitch a fit!"
"Madam, please calm down before I have to ask you to leave. There is no need for hysterics." Mr. Daniels sounded very rehearsed, like he had had this discussion before, perhaps with another pissed off parent.
"Calm down. Calm down!" Oops, wrong answer. "I had to leave a brand new job to come down here to take care of what looks to be your problem! My kid could need medical care because of this. And you send her away with no punishment whatsoever? What, you never heard of a belt before?"
Now it was Mr. Daniels to lose a little of his composure. "I certainly do not condone child abuse, Ms. Parker. I've already agreed to pay for any and all medical costs associated with the accident today. And the two girls in question will face punishment, I can assure you. Now, if you could please get back to attending to your child, I have work to do."
My mother left with this parting shot. "You damn well will be paying those bills. You'll be lucky if I don't take your miserable ass to court!" And, with that, she marched back into the main office and reached for my injured arm before I pulled back, forcing her to take my good arm instead. She pulled me out of the office with such force I thought she was going to pull my good arm off. And as we were leaving I could hear Mr. Daniels behind me saying "See you tomorrow, Miss Parker." And in his voice there was just a slight bit of malice. He wasn't very happy with me. And I was pretty sure I was going to pay for my mom's outburst.
It was a good thing I went to the doctor. After he had my arm x-rayed, he found a hairline fracture at the base of my right radius. It was broken...well, broken enough to require a cast. Great, I had broken the same damn wrist that got broken when I was a child. I couldn't help but hope the sight of me in a cast would at least make Mr. Daniels feel guilty enough to not take his encounter with Mom out on me. I spent the rest of the day sketching some pictures to show Miss Finch; I was so thankful that I was a left handed person. Otherwise it would be six weeks before I could sketch properly.
When Aurora got home I was finishing up the lunch I didn't get to eat because of my unexpected doctor's visit. Mom had returned to work an hour earlier. She had been filling out paperwork with the human resources at her new job when the call from the school came in and she had to have it done before she started work the next day. When my little sister saw me she instantly began whining. "Why weren't you on the bus? Did you really get in a fight on your first day? Jessica said you got her sister in trouble."
"Who's Jessica?" I asked, noting my sister's lack of compassion as she stared down at my arm.
"Oh, just a girl I met on the bus. She's in a couple of my classes, but I didn't get to talk to her until the bus. Her name is Jessica Langston. She lives on that hill where all the big houses are. She's a car rider in the morning, but she rides the bus in the afternoon because her parents are at work and her older sister is grounded from her car."
"Let me guess. Blonde hair, blue eyes and dresses to the nines?" I asked.
"Yeah!" Aurora marveled as she got up to forage in the kitchen. "Her sister is Jennifer Langston. She was telling everyone at lunch you about some fat girl that tried to get her in trouble. Are you the fat girl?"
I grimaced. I wasn't a skinny girl by any means, but I certainly wasn't huge either. But I guess people like Jennifer and Jessica Langston only see what they want to see. I raised an eyebrow and stared at her. "No, I'm not the 'fat girl', but I was the one that almost got her in trouble. You know, I did get my arm broken today. Any thoughts on that?"
Aurora jumped up. "Oh please. It's probably just a sprain. Stop making a big deal out of nothing." She grabbed her books and went to her room. For the rest of the day I was blessed with silence, because she remained in her room doing her homework and texting her newfound friends on her cellphone. My mother had called to let us know she wouldn't be home until late; last-minute business at the office that my little accident had delayed. More than likely she was going out with some people from work, but it was better to unload a guilt trip on me than to admit the truth. We ordered pizza and Aurora grabbed two slices and headed back to her room. I ate one slice, took some pain meds for my throbbing wrist and headed to bed. For the longest time I lie awake staring at the ceiling, my mind running a mile a minute. I was thinking about my old school, how even though I didn't have many friends there I did have friends, and knowing my chances of making friends at the new school were dwindling fast. I thought back to my childhood, the first time I broke my wrist and the unfortunate progression of events that had caused it. And eventually exhaustion had overtaken me, slowed my mind to a pace that allowed rest to descend. I was looking forward to a peaceful night of repose; that's not what I got.
The sound of water hitting the shore filled my ears. The air was brisk, and I thought for just a second I had left the ceiling fan on. But it was a gentle breeze, blowing across my face and warming my arms and legs with its temperate breath. Groggy, I opened my eyes a crack and found myself staring up at an inhospitable grey sky. And there was a shadow, the outline of a man standing at my feet. And he had a weapon.
"Get up!" I heard the man demand. It was so very strange; I know I had fallen asleep in my bed, yet my hair was wet and I could feel the grit of the sand underneath my feet and in my hands. Instantly I opened my eyes wider, thinking I had awakened to a home intruder and thinking, Shit! Did he hurt Mom and Aurora? What was he going to do to me? But there was no bed. And I was very glad I hadn't actually pulled myself up, because the idiot who told me to "get up" actually had a long blade trained right at my neck, so close if I had moved an inch forward my throat would have been thoroughly slit. I followed the blade upwards to stare at the man still hidden in the shadows, the emerging pre-dawn lights behind him highlighting his back but obscuring his face, and all I could make out was the grim determination in his face as he held me at bay. I snuck a glance behind him and all I could see was a dense fog. Even so, I knew where I was. I had been here so many times before, an entire lifetime ago to be exact. But why was there a man standing here threatening to kill me?
"You heard me. Get up...criminal."
I closed my eyes, wondering if I should scream or scramble to my feet. I heard a loud rumble from the grey skies above. A flash of light invaded my closed eyelids, or maybe it was all a part of the elaborate dream this had to be. Just as I was about to make the possibly fatal error of replying, "I can't get up with that thing right against my throat, you idiot." my eyes opened to find nothing but a dark room and a slow circling fan overhead. I grabbed at my hair, expecting it to still be wet, touched my arms, expecting to find sand. Apart from a little perspiration from the late summer heat I was completely dry, and there was no sand to be brushed. It took a moment for me to realize it had all been a strange and very short dream. Lightning illuminated my room briefly, and thunder from the approaching storm closely followed. I guess it knocked me back to my senses, but one question remained. After all these years I was dreaming of Psitharis. It had been so long and things were going so well. Why now?
The next day went a little better. There was a lot of discussion about what happened between Jennifer, Sasha and me, but there didn't seem to be that much surprise. I guess the girls had quite an elaborate past of pulling stupid stunts on newbies. I found out their punishment the next morning on the bus from a girl who sat in the same seat with me. She was a big girl, her large frame forcing me against the wall and into the window. I could feel a screw from the bus wall boring into my arm, but she was the first person at that school who actually spoke to me, so I was grateful for her presence. Everyone else seemed to steer clear of me; or maybe it was just my imagination.
The Terrible Twosome were being forced to stay after class to clean the art room for the rest of the week. Wow, seriously? My wrist is in a cast and they have to spend thirty minutes washing out paint jars? And that punishment came mostly from calling Miss Finch a 'snotty, know-it-all bitch". What a wonderful world it must be when your dad is the principal of the entire school. It basically equates to a "get out of jail free" card.
"That's not all." Tonya, my seatmate continued. "They have to ride the bus because of a punishment stemming from last year. Seems they bullied one poor girl real badly, Aubrey Ridgely. They started picking on her early last year in the car rider line, then tracked her down on Facebook and started sending her all kinds of notes like "die already" and "ugly dyke", on account they thought she might be gay or something. It got so bad this summer she upped and killed herself. Actually jumped off an interstate overpass in front of a semi. It was really gross, I heard; closed casket and everything. The truck driver had to go into therapy. So the community got all pissed off, demanded action and this was the punishment they got. The bus. Not this bus, the one that drops off near Camden Hill. Oh, and their dads paid off the mom of that other girl. Gave her money for the funeral and a little more besides. She took it because she was a drug addict who cared about the money more than she cared about her kid committing suicide. Turns out the community can't get too angry when one dad is "principal of the year" three years running and the other is a politician, and the mom of the victim is a worthless druggie. But the bus does seem to be a good punishment. The first day they actually started screaming when their moms forced them to get on the bus and find a seat! I bet it was hysterical to watch! If I had been there I would have totally recorded it and put it on YouTube!"
"Tonya." I began. "Do you think they learned anything from what they did, you know, from a moral standpoint?"
Tonya scratched her head. "I'm not sure what you mean, but if you're asking if they got any nicer or ever apologized for what they did, nope. They think it was Aubrey's fault for making them suffer so much having to ride with all us lowly scumbags. I don't think they've felt bad about anything their entire lives! I'm just glad I haven't drawn their fire. I mean, look at me! I'm the kind of person they usually hate!"
"Well, if you want to stay out of their line of fire you might want to find someone else to sit with tomorrow." I responded. "If word gets out you sat with me, they might turn on you."
Tonya, being kind of nice but not very bright, thought for a moment. "Hey, you're right! Maybe tomorrow I'll go sit by that geeky girl with the trombone case." And, with that, my very brief friendship with Tonya had come to an end. She got off the bus, gave me a little wave and never spoke to me again. And in Algebra, as Peyton walked by my desk she dropped a little piece of paper intentionally on my lap. I started to crumple it up and throw it away, but stupidity got the better of me so I carefully unfolded it. On that piece of paper was scribbled four words. Four words, but they were enough. The note said:
"You're gonna get it!"
