An Angel Among Us

Chapter 2: My Mom, The Principal

Well, I got caught.

I'm sitting in the principal's office, across from my mom, nervously twiddling my fingers while Mom talks on the phone with the head of the board of education. Somehow, my mom had figured out that I had caused the flood in the school's pool room. I didn't need to ask how she knew because she always seems to know.

My mom takes her job seriously ever since she got the job when I was ten years old and the old principal 'quit'. The rumor is that some seniors played a practical joke on him that turned him screwy. He couldn't handle the pressure of being principal anymore and just left. Without prior notification, Mom was hired as his replacement and the students haven't pranked her yet. I think they're too afraid after the speech she gave when she first took up the position.

Anyway, the pipe I had broken is important to the school's water system and it caused other pipes in the building to bust as well. And the water caused a crazy power outage in some parts of the building and it'll take a lot of money to fix it. With Mom's position, she isn't taking it lightly.

Who knew?

"Isabella Celine Steele," she begins.

Uh-oh!

The full name is never a good sign. My mom is in her mid-thirties with dark brown hair that she reaches her shoulders and light blue eyes. My mom's name is Ava Santiago and she is 5' 2" with tanned skin and wrinkles around her eyes. We don't have the same last name because Santiago is her maiden name. Steele is the name I got from my father before he left.

She hangs up the phone and turns to face me, fingers tapping on the desk. My mom only does this when she is either nervous or angry, and I'm pretty sure it's the latter. Her desk is covered in tons of paperwork so that I could barely see the top of the desk. She has a stack of binders to the left of her on the desk and a bunch of folders on the right.

The office isn't big because of budget cuts. It used to be the copy room until they got the new fancy copy machine that is now sitting in the secretary's office. The walls are plain white with paintings hanging up, giving the room a splash of color.

One of the paintings is of a woman with her hand under her chin as if in thought, and the other one is of a bowl of fruit. My Mom had painted them several years ago when she was trying to find a new hobby to take up some of her free time when she isn't working.

The chair I'm sitting in is one of those uncomfortable hardback chairs that make your back sore after sitting in it for a while. There aren't any windows in the room so she had set up a rotating fan in the corner to help move the air throughout the room.

"What were you thinking, Bella? Breaking the pipes! Do you know how much damage you've caused? Did you even think about the consequences of your actions? No, you didn't! You never think, Isabella. And now your idiotic pranks have got this school into serious amounts of trouble..." she scolds, getting louder with every word.

"It was an accident..." I start to explain but she interrupts before I can get much out.

"No excuses, Isabella. You need to start taking responsibility for your actions," she exclaims, eyes flashing with anger.

"I threw my shoe and it hit the pipe. It was a total accident, Mom," I tell her.

"Did someone make you throw a shoe?" she inquires, eyes narrowed.

"Well, no but..." I say.

"No 'buts', Isabella," she says. "If it wasn't the last day of school, the board of education could have expelled you."

"Yeah, they could have," I admit, "But they didn't."

"That doesn't excuse the fact that you're still in trouble. For now, you are grounded," she says.