Whispers of the Dead

IX

Like gossip does in a school, word got around very fast that Mr. Johnson was called to the principal's office. In their group of friends, it was Eliza who told them about it when Payton asked, "Why is everyone leaving?"

"I heard Johnson is sitting in the principal's office. I suppose they're waiting to see if he's going to get fired." Eliza sounded too smug to match the neutral tone of her words, and she was not the only one. Amethyst, however, was the only one who stood up and looked at them.

"Are we going or what? If it happens I want to be on the first row."

Hayden stood up.

"I'm with you," they said, and soon everyone followed the two of them to the exit. Amethyst noticed almost half of the cafeteria was now doing the same thing, and she was happy they reached the hall before the principal's door before it got so crowded as it was getting now. A few teachers tried to usher them away, but at that exact moment the door opened.

"I'd like you to leave my office, sir," they heard the principal say. The whole hall fell silent when Johnson stormed out of the door.

"Fine," he almost yelled. "But this is complete bullshit. I will see to it that this gets an investigation."

He was still holding up his mask of innocence, but the fact that he pushed his way through the crowd to the main doors told them a lot about what had gone down. Amy knew he was lying – an investigation would only be worse for him.

"You think he got fired?" Hayden whispered beside her. Amy turned to look at them.

"I hope so," she said. "He did seem angry."

The relief on Hayden's face was sudden and overwhelming.

"Good," they said, and looked at the doors through which he had disappeared. "I didn't have him, but just seeing him walk through this school would make me feel unsafe. Do you think that's why he got fired? Because they couldn't let a teacher stay who scared the shit out of everyone?"

"Maybe. But isn't this very soon? You'd think they at least would let him stay for a week to see how things escalated and how many complains they would be getting."

"Maybe they didn't dare to take the risk," Hayden shrugged.

"Maybe," Amethyst repeated absently. She couldn't stop thinking about his face. He had seemed even more angry. Could Katie...

meet me after school. same place Amy texted Katie before the principal started yelling at them to leave. The many bodies moving back to the cafeteria hid her and her phone from sight. She didn't get an answer immediately, but assumed Katie would eventually read it and put her phone in the pocket of her black, woolen skirt. Most of the faces around her looked grimly satisfied, she noticed. Some were laughing, some were excited, happy that something interested had happened. Some looked sad, but she knew instantly it wasn't because of Johnson's absence. Mainly because Charity had the same look on her face. Amethyst slowed her pace to let her friend catch up with her, then asked, "What's wrong?"

The sharp lines of Charity's face were even more closed up than usual, her pale eyes drifting across the crowd.

"Nothing," she replied. Amethyst knew better than to keep pushing her, so she just linked arms with her and kept walking beside her. When she had first met the girl, she had thought she hated her. And during freshman year, Charity really did. She never really had explained why, but Amy didn't really care. She was happy she had gotten the chance to talk with Charity when she was forced to sit beside her third term. They had, to her surprise, kept talking even after the lesson, and the next day she had showed up to their table. Their group was pretty small back then, only consisting of her, Hayden, Elizabeth and Austin. Amy had even then felt safe with those three. People often asked her why she stayed with the people who were considered weird by a lot of people, to which she responded she, too, was weird. One time a guy had asked if she did it because they could get no other friends, out of pity, to which she had flat-out answered that the only person who needed pity was him, for his lack of braincells. Charity's new roommate, Payton, and Hannah had joined them the year after.