What He Heard

Chapter 24

            Walking into the school’s office during class was a lot like walking into a library to Willow’s mind. The place was hushed, with only the gentle rustle of the occasional paper and the clack of the secretaries typing to break up the silence. Not that she had long to contemplate the room.

            Mr. Marsden was waiting for them at his office door, flapping his hand at them almost as soon as they stepped into the office. Rune led the way over, sauntering as if he had all the time in the world, until Willow grabbed his arm and towed him along at a more reasonable speed. He flashed a grin at her as the principal closed the door behind them. As always, the sheer amount of blue, gold, and bears made Willow feel like she was being crushed under the weight of the principal’s school spirit.

            He waved them towards the chairs in front of his desk, sinking into his own seat as they sat down. Willow exchanged a quick glance with Rune before focusing on the principal. Mr. Marsden eyed both of them for a moment, steepling his fingers together as he laid his hands onto the desk. “I want to talk to both of you today about something troubling that has happened,” he said.

            Rune sat straight up, eyes brightening, while Willow resisted the urge to sigh. It was obvious enough to her that Rune was going to take an unholy joy in this, pretty much whatever it was that it turned out to be. “What happened?”

            Their principal shifted in his seat, making the chair creak under his weight. “Someone, we don’t know who, decide to graffiti the back wall near the parking lot,” he said. “Do you two know who did it?

            Willow shook her head at the same time that Rune said “No.”

            “I didn’t even know it’d happened,” Willow said, looking at Rune. He seemed equally surprised, his lower lip jutting forward slightly, the cogs of his mind almost visible as he thought. “What’d they draw?”

            Mr. Marsden coughed. “An expletive I won’t have repeated here, but suffice to say, it rhymes with duck. The custodians are attempting to clean it off now, but I’m not sure if they’ll have it finished by the end of the day, meaning a bunch of parents will see it too. That’s why I called you two down.

“Why us?” Willow asked.

            “You two are…aware of what goes on in this school. Your articles, while not always on topics I would wish, have remained relatively unbiased and in an almost professional style. I trust your judgment on your fellow students as well as your dedication to the betterment of this school.”

            “So you need us to be snitches for you,” Rune replied, leaning back into his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “You do know everyone in school would hate us if we did that, regardless of whether they liked or even knew the graffitier.”

            “I’m sure the other students would understand why it was necessary.”

            Rune snorted. “Yeah. They’re really understanding about that kind of stuff. Still, we can at least write some articles about the incident, asking for any information anyone can give us. Maybe someone even saw something.”

            Mr. Marsden’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Rune, his mouth thinning out into an almost invisible line. “You’re sure you don’t know who did it?”

            “As sure as I can be without having been there.”

            Willow cut in, not liking the way the principal was eyeing Rune. “Neither of us had heard about this until you called us down. So it must have happened fairly recently, right?”

            “Between homeroom and first period we think,” Mr. Marsden said. “But the rest of the staff we’re out of the parking lot well before the first bell rang, so it could have been done earlier without any of the faculty seeing.”

            “We were still by my locker then I think,” Willow mused out loud. “Most people are at their lockers about a second or two before the first warning bell goes off, so there probably wasn’t anyone out there at all, except whoever did it. Still, we’ll write the article, and maybe someone inside caught a glimpse of it out the window or whatever.”

            Mr. Marsden sighed. “If that’s all you can do…”

            Rune nodded sharply. “It is. But rest assured, we’ll do a great article, and mention it to others. We might get lucky.”

            “Then if you hear anything, or learn of anything, either about this incident or anything else that might be going on that’s against school rules, I would very much appreciate the information. A lot of people seem to be having difficulty obeying the rules at the moment.”

            Willow smiled and nodded, while inwardly she agreed with Rune’s early statement. Mr. Marsden was trying to make them into his little spies. And while she didn’t mind telling him if the situation was serious, if someone could get badly hurt or whatever, she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him about the handful of things she knew just off the top of her head. Willow knew that the principal would love to know who the school drug dealers were, who it was that his alcohol in the school before dances, and which of the students had pulled the fire alarm during exams last year.

            Mr. Marsden opened his mouth to say something else, but the bell ringing interrupted him. He stood then, forcing them to do the same, and walked them to his door. As they got back into the hall, Willow and Rune exchanged a glance that spoke volumes. Whatever they were, whatever they could do, they sure as hell weren’t going to become the administration’s tattletales.