Innocently Amber

Everything He Did

Harrison Ambers stood outside of the principal's office with an unamused expression on his face, he was leaned against the wall with his arms crossed and a cliche smug look on his face. He had no idea why he had been pulled from class but, he wasn't exactly thrilled to be missing trigonometry, he was already getting C averages and really couldn't pay to be missing class right now. Whether he enjoyed it or not, Harrison stayed at his post outside of the door as he awaited being called inside, he could not recall getting into any fights or doing anything mildly inappropriate in class recently so he didn't even know the reason he had been called down.

Curiosity getting the best of him, Harrison peered into the room through the small window that was on the wooden door to the office. Inside he saw a police officer and a small girl in overalls and a braid next to him. Putting his back against the wall again his eyes widened,

"Why.." He half mouthed - half whispered, his head was racing with thought now, what was the point of bringing the police into the school and why wasn't he in the room. He hadn't even started to wonder about why a fifth grader, he was in a high school not an elementary school after all, was in there with the policeman. It felt like he had no time to decide what he would do before one of the secretaries came over and told him to enter the room.

In no time flat Harrison had the most bored look back to being plastered onto his face, he came into the room and took the seat opposite of the little girl who was looking at him through the blue lenses on her glasses, her finger running over the wire of her necklace. She smiled weakly at him as he came in and sat down, behind her colored lenses her eyes were puffy and red.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked as he looked over to the principal and officer, he spoke softly at the sight of the 'crying' girl, not quite knowing how he was involved yet,

"Mr. Amber have you spoken to your sister, Mara, recently?" The principal asked as she first cleared her throat,

"Uh yeah, I made her lunch this morning and woke her up before driving to school. If she is the reason I was called down why didn't you bring her here, since you obviously can pull kids from the Elementary school." He asked as his tone went fairly snarky towards the end, he was starting to pick up on his awareness of the cop in the room, "Listen, can you please just tell me why you've called me down... I have trig right now and I'm already struggling.." He spoke slowly as he carefully tread over each of his words, the boy was sure to keep his eyes on the principal, he actually knew her and he felt more comfortable speaking to her than the police officer and random child.

"Listen Harrison.." She said as she addressed him by name, she didn't do this often with any of the students, "While I agree that grades are important, there is something you need to know, and uh, you aren't in trouble so don't worry about yourself." The lady spoke with caution in her voice as she attempted to calm the teenager, "Your sister has gone missing and we don't have any ideas on where she could be."

Harrison was held in that office for hours past that moment, him and that girl simply sat there, and they stayed there past the bell for the end of the period, for the bell at the end of the school day, when the girls parents arrived and took her home, Harrison stayed. The principal and officer didn't leave either as they continued to speak of how they would handle the publicity of this issue, they asked Harrison various questions on whether he knew how to get ahold of his parents who hadn't been in town for several years now, they asked of any odd habits his sister had, they asked whether or not he wanted to make this public. The boy answered each question without thinking too much of them, truthfully he was not mentally in the room.

"No, she's a regular student, definitely not."

By the time the police officer left and the principal was gathering her things to leave, Harrison was still not fully in the room itself. Screw answering the police's questions he still didn't have answers to his own. Despite being as virtually and physically distant in school to his classmates, at home he did all he could to be there for his sister, ever since their parents started to work in another state Mara had forever feared that she would be forgotten. Whenever she did anything she would always ask for help or try and hold conversations while doing so just to assure herself that she wasn't invisible.