Rebel at Spruce High

Inside, a million of my nerves are restless and dancing and prickling with dissatisfaction. Who pulled the fire alarm is really his biggest concern? Not what Hoyt was doing to me?

“On your way out, please send Donovan Pane in,” he instructs me as he continues filing things into his desk. I think he means to sound kind, but instead he comes off just as cold as his eyes.

I rise from my seat in a fog. My head spins as I leave the office. Vann is still staring down at his boots like he hasn’t moved an inch since I left him. He doesn’t even seem to breathe.

“Vann,” I mutter quietly, dipping a toe in the figurative water. “The … The principal wants to see you now.”

Without even a glance of acknowledgement, Vann stands up and moves toward the door.

I can’t stand it another second. “Thank you,” I blurt out.

He stops, grows still, then turns his gloomy eyes onto me. His eyebrows pull together with questions, his face clouding over.

I’m taken aback. “I mean, for … for standing up for me. In the cafeteria. No one’s ever done that before.”

“No one should have to,” he throws back coldly. “Stand up for yourself next time.”

I open my mouth to speak, then can’t.

That … wasn’t the response I was expecting.

“I was just—” My face is turning red. I feel an indignant twitch in my lips. Is he mad at me for getting him in trouble? “I didn’t mean to make you—I mean, I was just thanking you for—”

“Save your thanks for someone who cares.” And with that, he continues into the principal’s office, slapping the door shut on his way in, causing my short bangs to flutter off my forehead.

I stare at that door, baffled.

My bafflement turns into annoyance. Then it turns into anger. Then it turns back into bafflement all over again as I walk past a quizzically-staring Becky, leave the main office, and make my way for the restroom to clean up, just as the principal suggested. It’s in the reflection of that boys’ room mirror that I stare for too long a time, wondering why Vann would be so rude to me. I didn’t do anything wrong. He could have easily let Hoyt feed me a whole Thanksgiving dinner if he wanted. Why did Vann get involved at all, if it was just going to piss him off afterwards?

I make it to fifth period pre-calculus for its last ten minutes, grabbing an open seat in the front. Ms. Ducasse, who seems to be aware somehow of the reason for my tardiness, doesn’t interrupt a word of her lesson as she comes up to my desk and lays a syllabus upon it, then returns to the front of the classroom, still talking. As I clutch the sheet of paper, my mind is consumed with thoughts of Vann and how he spoke to me. I keep seesawing between feeling mad about it, or sympathetic to him. I wonder what the principal is talking to him about right now.

I peer over at my classmates, revealing half of them staring my way. I’d bet a month’s worth of lunch money the fight in the cafeteria was the talk of the town before the fifth period bell rang.

Then my eyes catch sight of someone else at the opposite end of the classroom: my stepbrother Lee, who isn’t giving me the time of day. He probably heard every single version of the story, too. And I’m sure the worst version will make it to my stepdad’s ears, and then to my mom’s. There’s no avoiding it; I’ll have to tell them and endure a ceaseless barrage of questioning later.

On my way to sixth period, my stomach growls. To be fair, I’d only eaten one or two bites of a chicken strip before everything went down. Kelsey ate more of my lunch than I did. Is it too much to ask to slide into one of the other lunch periods for a do-over? And for that matter, shouldn’t the principal have made a better effort in separating me and Hoyt schedule-wise? It’s the first day, after all, and a change would be easy. Didn’t he notice Hoyt and I not only share two classes, but also the same lunch period?

I reunite with Kelsey in sixth period: yearbook. It’s held in what feels like a closet, fitted with shelves of old yearbooks and four computers lined across a squatty table with four desk chairs. Fittingly, there’s only four of us on the yearbook staff, the other two of whom are each at a computer, racing to finish two games of Solitaire, since our yearbook advisor Ms. Reyes isn’t here yet. Ms. Reyes makes an art out of running late to everything. Once, her first period journalism class waited for fifteen minutes before she rushed in with a half-spilled mug of coffee, cockeyed glasses, and her hair a shocking mess. No one ever seems to mind. She’s been head of yearbook and journalism for over fifteen years.