HEART OF ICE

CHAPTER 13

The day didn't get much better. It had barely been a month since I'd last seen the principal's office. Fifteen minutes after I led my broken bicycle out of the drainage canal behind the football field, I was in that office again. It smelled like old carpet freshener and stale M&M's. Cold daylight peaked in behind the heavy blinds draped over a pair of tall, rectangular windows on the wall behind Principal Connell's desk. I didn't need to see his name coming closer in my thoughts, though I couldn't stop it. I was staring through the half-closed slats of the blinds, replaying the events of the morning over and over again, until-that is-the sound of the principal's voice began to pour into the room. He was still on the other side of the door. I sighed. I wasn't the only one who did.

As it turns out, unlike the month before, I was not alone in the office this time. I glanced at the two boys sitting beside me. It was the same two on the motorcycle: Baron Roget and Gerald Warton. They glanced back at me in the instant before the office door opened with a WHOOSH.

"...and frankly I'm just getting a little tired of this! Oh, and here we all are," Principal Connell said loudly as he stepped into the room. The person he was talking to followed a few steps behind him.

I didn't turn around to watch them cross the room behind us. I only heard the door shut in the brief break Principal Connell took in order to breathe between his ranting. It was not a moment that would last long.

"Mr. Nicholas, once more," Principal Connell said sternly and with a tone of heavy disappointment. "Why am I, somehow, not surprised. First, a wannabe card shark trespassing in off-limits areas. Then, vandalism. And, now, disturbing the peace on the first day back to school of the semester."

I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he walked and talked past the chair I was seated in and around the side of his desk. His greasy brow furrowed. He narrowed his dull, greenish-brown eyes when he was standing opposite me. "Would it be a stretch to assume you were somehow involved in the destruction of my new cafeteria, as well?"

No, I thought honestly. But I didn't say that-or anything. I simply stared in his direction. I was furious that I was somehow getting blamed for the two black vans that had chased me across the campus. The cafeteria hadn't been my fault, either. If he wanted to blame anyone, he should start with Chase Paul Briar and his band of misfits and the shadowy, psychopathic elf that had been trying to kill me and my friends.

"Maybe you should stick to the matter at hand," said the fifth person in the room. He was standing just behind my right shoulder. I turned to look up at him a second after Principal Connell's eyes shifted suddenly away from me. I was surprised by who I saw, and even more surprised that I hadn't known it was him that had entered the room.

Officer Luis Castillo had his hands on his belt. He glanced down at me. There was something in his dark-brown eyes that made me nervous. The man made me anxious in general, more so than Principal Connell ever could. It wasn't just because Officer Castillo was a policeman. It had more to do with the fact that he was the father of my new best friend. And, somehow, he knew who-or what-I was. I wondered about that. Even more, now, I had to wonder why his name didn't appear in my mind. He turned his attention away from me and back to the principal, adding, "That other stuff doesn't matter today."

Principal Connell straightened his posture. "Yes, well...I was simply establishing-"

"Nothing but wasted time for all of us," Officer Castillo said bluntly. He was clearly the authority in the room. "This isn't about Mr. Nicholas or these other boys proving themselves innocent because you have no evidence they did anything to be guilty of."

Principal Connell cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed by the scolding he'd just received. "Right. Well..." He blinked and turned his head to look at the two boys sitting beside me. It was as if it were the first time he had even noticed them being in the room. "Who are you two, anyway? And how did you get involved in all of this?"