True to the pattern, Mrs. Van DeVenter opened the door and welcomed Sandra into her inner sanctum, where she found her eldest son with tear streaks down his face. Adrenaline gushed through her, and she surged into mama bear mode, rushing across the room to him. “What’s wrong, honey? What happened?”
Peter’s face sank toward the floor, and he flinched away from her touch.
Mrs. Van DeVenter shut the door, annoying Sandra again. The car seat and diaper bag were still on the bench. “Please, Mrs. Provost, have a seat. Thanks so much for coming in.”
“Call me Sandra.” She slid a chair over to Peter, as much to comfort him as to signal to the principal that she was firmly, unequivocally on her son’s side. Peter was in trouble. She could see it on his face and feel it in the air. And though she knew her son was far from perfect, she also knew he didn’t do things that landed him in the principal’s office in tears.
“What happened?” Sandra asked the administrator, and Sammy echoed her question with a bellow that sounded highly critical.
Mrs. Van DeVenter rolled her chair close to her desk and then folded her hands on top of her blotter, which was covered with sticky notes. She took a long breath. “There’s been an incident.”
Yeah, I got that much.
“A bullying incident.”
“No, there hasn’t,” Sandra said, proud of the quickness of her answer and the firmness in her voice. The principal’s tone made it clear that Peter wasn’t the victim, which meant she was accusing him of being the bully. That just wasn’t possible. Sandra might not be good at sticking up for herself, but sticking up for her children? Piece of cake.
Chapter 9
“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Van DeVenter said, sounding appropriately indignant.
Sandra leveled a gaze at the new principal. “I am far more concerned about my son’s behavior than you are, and will be the first to correct him when he is wrong, but my son is no bully.” This was the kid who liked helping out in the church nursery, for crying out loud.
She was obviously unimpressed. “I’m sorry, but Peter did, in fact, push a fourth grader to the ground. He’s admitted it.”
Sandra heard the words, but in no way accepted them. She turned to look at Peter, who looked scared to speak. Before she could coax him to do so, the principal started talking again.
“I’m afraid that we have a zero tolerance policy. Physical bullying is a two-day suspension.”
Over my dead body. Sandra knew then that she would take this to the Supreme Court if necessary. “Peter,” she said softly, trying to pretend the principal wasn’t there and they weren’t both sitting in the hot seats, “what happened?”
He shrugged, but he finally looked at her. “Cameron Thompson is a jerk.”
Sandra recognized the name. Cameron had played with Peter in summer soccer. Cameron’s mother was insufferable.
“He’s the bully.” Peter’s voice wavered up and down.
Sandra’s heart broke for him. This kid didn’t know how to be in trouble and was obviously incredibly uncomfortable with it. She resisted the urge to throw her body between him and the mean principal. “Did you push him?” She tried to sound objective, rational. She almost made it.
Peter nodded. “He deserved it. I’d push him again.”
Oh dear. That didn’t sound like the Peter she was so stoutly defending. “What do you mean, honey?”
“I mean that he was threatening second graders, telling them he was going to make them eat poop if they didn’t do what he told them to do, and he was telling them to do bad stuff. They would’ve gotten into trouble. I told Cameron to leave them alone, but he wouldn’t. So I pushed him away from them, and he fell down and acted like a drama queen, like I beat him up or something.” Peter sniffed loudly.
Sandra turned her eyes to the principal. “Sounds to me like Peter wasn’t the bully. Sounds like he was defending the bullied.”
Mrs. Van DeVenter still looked unimpressed. “That may well be, but he still pushed the child.”
Peter folded his arms across his chest and raised his chin. He simultaneously looked like her little baby and a young man.
Sandra’s chest swelled with pride. “Even so, he was trying to do the right thing. Instead of humiliating him and forcing him to miss two days of his education, maybe we could use this opportunity to teach him how to better handle such a situation—”
“He should have gone to a teacher!” Mrs. Van DeVenter interrupted her.
“Why?” Peter cried. “Teachers never do anything about bullying! Adults don’t ever do anything!” His voice went up several notes with each word until he was squeaking. “Adults don’t care!” he cried.
Oh dear. This isn’t helping. She’d never seen Peter so irreverent.
The principal gave her an I-told-you-so look that Sandra ignored.
She put a hand on her son’s knee. “Honey, that’s not true. I care. I always care. You can tell me about any of this, and I’ll make sure bullying is addressed.”
“We’d prefer he come to someone at school.”
Sandra was suddenly very tired of her son’s principal. “That would be great too, but I want him to know that if that doesn’t work, he can come to me.”
“I’ve told two different teachers,” Peter mumbled, now back in control of his emotions. “This has been going on since the first day of school.”
That wiped the smugness off the principal’s face. The first day of school was a week ago. “Which teachers?”
Peter named them.
Sammy started screaming. Sandra recognized the cry. It was the I’m-tired-and-you’re-not-letting-me-sleep complaint. “Under the circumstances,” Sandra said, nearly hollering to be heard over Sammy’s demands, “can we just give Peter a warning about getting physical, and let him get back to class now?”
Sammy got even louder. Sandra was so proud of both her sons. The three of them made a fairly persuasive team.
The principal appeared to be thinking it over. She looked at Peter. “Do you understand that what you did was wrong?” she asked, but her voice was barely audible.
Peter nodded, whether he heard her or not.
“You can’t push people, no matter what they’re doing. That’s assault.”
Sandra caught her eyes just in time, right before they were about to do a big roll. Assault? Come on, the kid was ten years old.
Peter nodded. “I won’t do it again. I was just trying to stick up for the little kids.”
Mrs. Van DeVenter nodded, looking contemplative. “All right. I appreciate that. But next time, don’t get physical, and tell a teacher. I’ll talk to the teachers and make sure they are taking bullying seriously. We’re not going to suspend you—this time. But you are on probation. Do you know what that means?”
Peter nodded, even though Sandra knew he had no idea what that meant.
“You may, however, be suspended from today’s soccer game. That will be up to your coach.”
Chapter 10
Sandra was halfway home when Sammy fell asleep, so she just kept driving around in circles, waiting for her kids to get out of school. What a crazy day it had been. Her son was growing up. She was proud of him for standing up for the oppressed, for the downtrodden. She wasn’t so proud of him for pushing a kid to the ground, but she wasn’t exactly upset with him for that either. It sounded like the kid had it coming, and if Cameron’s mother was any indication of Cameron’s attitude, then she could understand perfectly why Peter had thought a good shove was appropriate. But she fervently hoped that the coach wouldn’t make him ride the bench today. That wouldn’t be fair, and Peter would take it hard.
Finally, she pulled her van into the front of what would soon be a long line of cars waiting for that final bell. As soon as her car stopped moving, Sammy opened his eyes, his mouth, and his lungs. Sandra took a deep breath, said, “We’re just going to sit here for a minute, punkin, and then we’ll get back on the road,” and then turned her Casting Crowns CD up louder.
Sammy loved Casting Crowns, and usually didn’t cry when the pianist—Sandra thought her name was Megan—sang. They really should let her sing more often. She skipped ahead a few songs to one where Megan took the vocals, and sure enough, Sammy stopped screaming.
The bell rang, and kids spilled out of the front doors. Joanna was near the front, and Sandra’s heart swelled at the sight of her sweet daughter. It had only been a few hours, but she’d missed her. Joanna ran for the car, her thin coat flapping out behind her. Peter came along shortly after, moving with much less enthusiasm. Sandra couldn’t blame him.
The side door slid open, and Joanna started chattering as she dove for the middle seat. Sandra didn’t really hear her; she was looking at Peter, who, sans expression, got into the front seat and immediately turned the music down. Sammy started screaming. She reached over and put a hand on her son’s leg. “I love you.”
“Love you too,” he said without looking at her.
She started the engine and pulled out into the stream of minivans and SUVs heading away from the school. “Honey,” she said, trying to tread carefully, knowing Peter would clam up if he felt she was nosing into his feelings, “when you said adults don’t care about bullying, I just want you to know that I care.” She sneaked a look at him. “You know that, right?”
He moved his head up and down, but it wasn’t a convincing nod.
What did that mean? She considered her words carefully. “You say you know that, but it seems like you don’t know that.”
He sighed, his eyes trying to bore two holes through the windshield. “Can we just drop it, Mom?”
Her neck got hot. “No, we cannot drop it. How can you think I don’t care about bullying? Have you even met me?”
He finally looked at her and then glanced toward the backseat. “Can we not talk about it now?”
She turned some knobs and put Casting Crowns into the rear speakers. Then she cranked the volume.
Peter rolled his eyes. “She can still hear us.”
Sandra looked in the rearview mirror and asked, “Anyone want ice cream?” Joanna didn’t blink. “She can’t hear us. Talk.”
He sighed again. “I know you care, Mom. You care about everything.” He managed to make this sound like a bad thing. “But you’re also so busy that sometimes you don’t know the bullying is going on.”
What? “How could I know, Peter, if you don’t tell me? I don’t follow you around at school all day.” She’d thought about doing that several times since that first day she’d dropped him off five years ago, but she’d managed to restrain herself.
“I’m not talking about school,” he said so quietly that she wondered if she’d heard him wrong.
She paused, knowing that if she asked him to repeat himself, he would be beyond annoyed. “Then what are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Just forget about it.”
She pulled the van into the parking lot of a lingerie boutique. Peter’s eyes widened in panic.
“What are we doing at a fancy underwear store?” Joanna piped up.
Sandra ignored her and turned to face her son. “I’m not going to forget about it. Just tell me what’s going on and then this conversation can be over and you can stop feeling so uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, right.” His sarcasm was thicker than her sister-in-law’s makeup.
She didn’t flinch. She just kept staring at him. Sammy started screaming again. Sandra turned the music up.
“It’s too loud!” Joanna cried.
She could see Peter’s resolve weakening. She would never allow one of her children to be more stubborn than she was, and Peter knew it.
“Church, okay? I’m talking about church.”
She recoiled. “What? Someone’s being bullied at church?” That was the last place she’d worry about.
“Not someone,” he muttered.
Oh no. A vision of him hiding in the nursery flashed through her mind. “Someone at church is picking on you—”
“Don’t say ‘picking on.’ It makes me sound like I’m five.”
“Okay, so what’s going on?”
“People are jerks, and I’m not naming names, so don’t try to make me.”
“Peter James, you tell me right now. Unless you want to sit right here in this exact spot through your game and then through supper and then through the night—”
“Ethan and Jack,” he spat out. “And more. Everyone follows them.” He finally looked her in the eye. “It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing we can do about it. They won’t stop. Now, can we please just go home?”
She gazed at him for nearly a minute, weighing her options. Her first choice was to drive to each of their houses, invite them outside, and then thump them on the head repeatedly, but she thought this might be ineffective and get her thrown in the clink. Peter was obviously done talking. She needed to talk to Nate. He’d know what to do. “Of course, honey, we can go home. Thank you for telling me. And we will do something about it. Church is supposed to be a safe place.”
“Yeah, right,” he said again.
Chapter 11
Ten minutes into the first half, Peter still hadn’t been put in the game. This was weird; even though he was only a wee fifth grader, he was one of the best players, and he’d started in their last game. She had a bad feeling in her stomach. This had to be about the incident at school. She forced herself to wait until halftime to do anything, and then she waited for the team meeting to be over before approaching the coach.
She didn’t want to approach the coach. She knew Peter would hate her for it. But he shouldn’t be benched for defending little kids.
She asked a nearby mom to watch her two youngest, and the woman looked up from her phone just long enough to grudgingly agree. Joanna whined. She wanted to go with her, but Sandra didn’t know how this was going to go, and didn’t need a little distraction, nor a little audience, hanging off her hand.
Her stomach full of butterflies, she walked the seventeen-mile-long goal line and then rounded the corner to head for the bench. The coach saw her coming and pretended he didn’t.
“Hi, Mr. Bell,” she called out, “do you have a second?”
“A quick one. The game’s about to start.”
This was not true. There were five minutes on the clock. Did he think she couldn’t read a clock?
“I just wanted to check in with you. There was an incident at school today, and I didn’t know if you’d heard—”
“Of course I’ve heard. Mrs. Van DeVenter lets me know whenever my athletes get into trouble at school.”
“Great,” she lied. “Well, I just wanted to make sure you heard Peter’s side of it—”
He held up a patronizing hand. “There is no Peter’s side. He pushed a kid, and he will spend this game on the bench as a consequence. He’s lucky I let him suit up.” He would have had to work incredibly hard to sound more self-righteous.
She raised an eyebrow. “Lucky? Do you know that he was sticking up for some second-graders who were getting picked on? Do you know that he didn’t mean to knock Cameron down, that he was just trying to protect the younger boys?” She knew her voice was getting louder and higher-pitched, but she couldn’t seem to stop it. It was like a runaway train.
He held up the hand again, but she ignored it.
“Of course we should talk to him about better ways to prevent bullying, but I don’t think benching him for an entire game is an appropriate—”
“I decide what is and isn’t appropriate around here, ma’am. And I can’t encourage my athletes to engage in vigilante justice on the playground.”
“Vigilante?” she shrieked. This kept getting more and more absurd. A gentle voice in her head reminded her that she was representing Jesus to everyone watching this scene. What would Jesus do? When he got angry at injustice, he flipped over tables. Maybe she could flip over the bench. How heavy was that thing? The scorer’s table looked more manageable.
“Everything okay here?” a man’s voice
interrupted.
Sandra turned to see one of the officials giving her an official-looking stare down.
She was going to lose this battle. She knew it then. The men were ganging up on her, and maybe they should. She was, after all, the crazy mom hollering at the coach. She was being the mom she’d sworn she’d never be. But darn it, she needed to be a little crazy right now. This situation was crazy.
The official stuck out his hand. “Michael White.”
Her breath caught, and all fury fled her brain. “I’m sorry, what?”
His hand was still stuck out in the air, so she took it and allowed him to pump hers up and down. His hand was very wet, as were his shirt and forehead. “I said, my name is Michael White. And you are?”
“Sandra.”
“Well, Sandra, the game is about to start, and no non-team personnel are allowed in this area. If you could find your way back to the spectator section, that’d be great.”
She nodded, totally forgetting about Peter’s situation. She backed away, still staring at the referee, who now had his back to her and was blowing his whistle. Finally, she turned and headed away, picking up her pace. She hadn’t accomplished her mission. Peter was still benched. But she wasn’t thinking about that. She wasn’t even thinking about the fact that her son was being bullied at church. She could now think of only one thing: the soccer official’s name. Michael White.
Chapter 12
Nate was frequently late to dinner, but Sandra was more annoyed with him tonight than she usually was. Her brain was bursting with things to talk to him about, and he was at yet another meeting.
“When’s Daddy getting home?” Joanna asked with a pout. Was she feeling the same thing Sandra was or just mimicking Sandra’s own unspoken sentiment?
Sandra didn’t know. “He’ll be here soon, honey. We can start eating without him.” She usually made them wait, but the pot roast was already dry enough to serve as kindling. She should have made gravy. Sometime between interviewing grieving widows and fighting with principals and coaches.
The Whistle Blower Page 4