Dark Dreams

A SHATTERED DREAM

Principal Odette wanted to talk to me?

It had to have been a mistake.

Though I was sure I'd heard Sarah Bloom... maybe she meant Deborah Drool, a girl in the first year who was always causing trouble. She was talking about her. I always did my homework, and I didn't talk to anyone.

How could I get into trouble?

I thought straight away about the fees but we had so many debts precisely because my mother had managed to pay the instalments on time. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking of the mini heart attack that I had almost had at the idea of being summoned by Odette.

"Miss Bloom, what are you still doing there? Hurry up, I don't have the whole day to waste."

I looked up at the speakers. Two surveillance cameras moved like snail antennae.

Then she was really talking to me!

More snickering.

"Maybe they want to throw her out."

"My father always says that those who aren't needed should be eliminated like pests."

I turned around, wishing I was invisible.

What had been a crowd of a few students had now become a herd of hungry gossips. They were photographing my mom's pictures with their cell phones.

I would become the laughing stock of Instagram and the worst part was that now I had a cell phone and could witness my own social humiliation.

I tried not to cry again.

"I'm giving you five minutes to get to my office." The principal's voice did not bode well.

A shrill metallic sound sanctioned the end of the communication.

Five minutes?

It took at least ten to cross the right wing and take the elevator to the fifth floor.

I began to run, holding the shoulder strap of my heavy bag in both hands. One of the many things that Odette hated was lateness and I was always late. I went down the freshly polished white marble corridor, trying not to slip. The huge windows let in the burning rays of the sun, which was already high in the sky. I took off my sweatshirt while I was running. Odette also hated sweatiness so it was better not to combine sweat with lateness. When I finally arrived in front of the inlaid wooden door to her office I realized that I was both sweaty and late. I knocked, trying to think of what I could have done wrong.

"About time!" said a voice from far behind the door.

I presumed that this meant I could enter.

I struggled to push the solid wooden door, which creaked as it opened. I had never been in the principal's office, but everyone called it "the madwoman's lair" when they talked about it.

The door slowly closed behind me as I walked forward onto a huge Persian rug that had to be over a hundred years old. The room was shrouded in darkness; to light it there were only two floor lamps, arranged in the two corners of the room opposite the door.

"You're a minute late," said Odette from the desk at the far end of the room.

"S-s-sorry," I said, moving forward onto the shiny black wooden floor.

I heard something swaying above my head. I looked up and noticed that a candelabra was hanging precariously from the ceiling. Since it certainly wasn't needed to light the room, I wondered why it was there. I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that it was just Odette's way of making us uncomfortable. I sat down on a leather armchair the color of burnt caramel, put my bag on my knees, and awaited my sentence.