Mr. Prinze faced me now. “Good. You’ve got one minute and one only.”
Royal nodded, his dad finally leaving. Royal started to go too, but I called him. I had more questions, so many more, and I didn’t want him to go. He stopped again, but this time, it looked like it hurt him to do it.
“I have to go,” he said, averting his eyes from me. “I’m suspended.”
He left me with only that before escaping down the hallway and around a corner, and I would have gone after him again if not for further commotion in the hallway. The headmaster’s office had opened again, and this time Ramses and another man came out.
“Unbelievable,” said the man donned completely in a gray suit. A wool jacket over his arm, he pushed arms through it. “You just got here, and you’re already getting into crap.”
I hadn’t seen the mayor of Maywood Heights this close up before, but I definitely recognized him from Ramses’ holiday party. Ramses was a mash-up of ethnicities, his golden complexion so obviously from his father. The man was older, salt-and-pepper hair perfectly pushed back and polished. I wondered if he had curls too, but if he did, he made sure they were in order. He wasn’t happy at all like Royal’s dad, and Ramses appeared just as unsettled.
“Sorry, Dad—”
“You’re sorry,” said Mayor Mallick, huffing when he got his coat together. “Ramses, just when I feel like you’re finally starting to get things together…” He stated this with a sigh, shaking his head. “You just keep disappointing, boy.”
Ramses always sounded so whatever about his father, annoyed, and I had caught him a time or two in anger. I hadn’t blamed him considering the history father and son had, but when Mayor Mallick said what he had, the words did play on Ramses’ expression in a different away. He looked almost guilty when he pushed hands into his pockets.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, and Mayor Mallick shook his head again.
He looked at Ramses. “Your uncle can’t bail you out of things every time—”
Out of the office came Principal Hastings this time, and the man in the spectacles waved a hand.
“One more thing, Ibrahim,” he said to the mayor, so informal. Together, the two men went back into the office, and after closing the door, Ramses threw out a breath. He turned on his heels, and when he found me, he bunched a hand into his curls. They no longer held that precision, and though his lip had stopped bleeding, his own dark eye was starting to surface.
He frowned. “How much of that did you see?”
Enough, I came forward. “Your dad in there?”
Ramses nodded, facing the door. “Just when I think I’m starting to get on his good side,” he said with a laugh, a joke but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. He pushed a hand behind his neck. “I’m in deep, ’Zona. Not gonna lie.”
“You’re suspended?” I asked, knowing Royal’s sentence.
Ramses bobbed his head twice. “Not as long as Prinze, but we both are out of here for a little bit. I only think I got off a little light because I didn’t start it—”
“And apparently because of your uncle?” I asked, and his eyes widened.
“Heard that too, huh?”
“Yeah. Who is it? Your uncle?”
In the next seconds, the door opened again, and two men returned, Principal Hastings and Mayor Mallick. Both men had been talking, but as soon as they saw Ramses and me, they stopped immediately. Their sights drifted over to my direction, and after a silent exchange, the mayor put a hand over Ramses’ shoulder.
“We should probably go, son,” he said, then gave Principal Hastings a nod.
The headmaster did the same, and Ramses was basically dragged away.
“I’ll text you,” he said to me, lifting a hand, and it wasn’t long before the headmaster was waltzing up right on me.
His eyes narrowed. “Do you have a pass for lingering in the hallway, Ms. Lindquist?”
I actually did, and after showing it to him, he returned back into his office. I got a text on the way back to class, and once I did, I almost dropped my phone.
My uncle is our stuffy old headmaster, Ramses’ text said. I thought you knew?
Fourteen
December