by Jeff Altabef
I shake my arm free. “I’m feeling much better.”
Katie and I leave the social studies wing, withstand another heat gust, march through the double doors, and enter the main classroom building to find our lockers. I pause for a second in the doorway, something is wrong. A vision of Tiffany’s face with a sly grin flashes in my mind and it makes me cringe. She’s not visible yet, but she’s up to no good. I can feel the bad vibes float toward me like a gust of wind.
I clear the doorway and find a larger than normal crowd loitering in the hallway, which looks like a clogged artery. Four clusters of cool kids create an obstacle course down the tight corridor. Between classes usually only a few people hang out near the lockers. Something is definitely up. A nervous energy fills the small space, so my antenna goes all the way up, and I eye them suspiciously as we weave around them toward our lockers.
Tiffany, Morgan, and Ashley gather in a small circle across from our lockers, standing close together with smug expressions on their faces and smartphones in their hands. I hesitate for a second as a weird déjà vu feeling creeps up my back. Tiffany looks exactly as I imagined her only a moment ago. The Bartens uniform doesn’t leave much room for improvisation, and Tiffany generally looks the same, her hair always perfect, as if a cosmic stroke of good luck blows her hair in the ideal place every day, but this similarity is uncanny. She never wears the same earrings twice. She must have a vault with them stacked inside. I doubt I’ve ever seen her wear these golden starbursts before, but I just imagined her wearing the same ones. Weird.
I shake off the eerie feeling and focus on her and her shark pals. When they see us, Tiffany nods, and they snicker. She is the undisputed great white shark of Bartens, and it looks like she’s ready to attack. My eyes narrow. A piece of paper is stuck on Katie’s locker, which is two down from mine.
Katie hasn’t noticed the note yet. A distant look has settled in her eyes, so, I grab her arm, pull her to a stop, and whisper in her ear, “Is that Tyler back by the door? I think he called your name.” Tyler smiled at her last week, and that was enough for her imagination to weave stories of love, wedlock, a house, and a picket fence. He’s one of the few nice kids, but I don’t see any possible romance between the two. He’s the star of the basketball team and smiles at everyone. Still, why dampen Katie’s imagination? It’s better for her to think about Tyler than her dad.
She squints and sorts through the thicket of students, which buys me just enough time. While she bites her nails, an explosive energy builds in my body and I bolt past her, dart forward and zip by the four groups of students in a blur. It seems like I reach the locker in one giant step, as though I’m fired from a gun.
A newspaper cartoon stuck to Katie’s locker depicts a jail cell with her father’s hands clutching the bars. A giant, bald, beefy looking inmate lurks behind him. The muscle-bound criminal blows him a kiss. She would have been devastated if she had seen it.
By the time she turns back toward her locker, I’ve ripped down the paper, crumpled it in my fist, and jammed it into my backpack. I turn to face the great white shark. I’m not going to let them hurt her. They can say what they want about me, but Katie just can’t take the ridicule right now. Blood pounds in my head.
Tiffany’s face twists into a scowl, her nostrils flaring out angrily. It transforms her perfectly symmetrical face into something misshapen, something mean. I sneer back at her when a sudden bolt of pain jolts through my head. She calls me Indian Trash.
I’m not going to let anyone call me that, especially not Tiffany, so red clouds my vision, and I make a run at her—straight through the pack of sharks in a blink. Before she reacts, I grab her shoulders and ram her into the almond-colored lockers.
Clunk!
She crashes hard against the metal and grunts, but she manages to grab two fistfuls of my hair, and yanks me to her side. Pain shoots through my scalp. It feels like she’s ripping out my hair, so I go for her throat and clasp my hands around her perfectly tanned neck. I squeeze and slam her head against the bank of lockers. Clunk! I let go after she collides with the metal. Hard.
She releases my hair, but before I can grab her again, the hallway bursts with teachers and commotion. Ms. Arnold appears behind me, grabs my arms and pulls me away from Tiffany while the shark bends over at the waist, grabbing the back of her head and wincing. I make one last lunge at her, but Mr. Davies, my math teacher, stands between us and pushes me to the side, and Ms. Arnold increases her grip around my arms.
The entire pack of sharks point in my direction and shout. They scream out different things, but the brunt of their message is clear; I started the fight. Katie is ash-white. Tiffany smiles. Her face becomes even uglier than it was with the scowl.
I sigh and let my arms drop to my side. This is going to be bad.
I sit in the Headmaster’s office in a small chair as far away from his mahogany desk as possible, my head hung low in my hands, pondering my fate. How much trouble am I in? How long will Mom ground me? The longest was two weeks when I got into a fight in ninth grade. I get the miserable feeling this time might stretch until my eighteenth birthday.
To distract myself from my impending doom, I study the office. This is my first time here. Cherry wood paneling stretches halfway up the stuffy walls. A tightly woven burgundy carpet covers the floor, and numerous portraits of unknown, disapproving, pasty-white men stare into the room with annoyed expressions as if they had somewhere better to go and are totally uninterested in what’s going on around them. Twenty-two faces in total stare back at me. Who are these people, and why are they at my school?
The office smells old and dusty and a bit acidic, like corroded batteries. I’m not sure why. Maybe the smell comes with the paintings?
Forty minutes have passed since they dragged me here. Sicheii is supposed to retrieve me, but the time stretches on and seems like a dozen lifetimes.
The office door swings open and the Headmaster, Alistair Cordingly, strides into the room, followed by my grandfather. Cordingly matches the office, smells old and is imported from England.
He could not look more different from my grandfather, and for a moment I forget about my problems and smile. Cordingly’s light complexion, thinning straw-colored hair, and general stuffiness are all England with no trace of Arizona. He wears a navy blue pinstripe suit with a gold tie and gold handkerchief as if he had just stepped out of a Brooks Brothers catalogue. No one likes him or understands what he does. All the students believe he has an expiration date stamped on his palm when he’ll be called back to England or curdle like sour milk.
Sicheii rolls into the office a step behind him. His sky colored linen shirt billows around him and over faded blue jeans. His favorite straw, wide-brimmed hat with a lone hawk feather stuck into the band sits on top of his white hair. Confident and self-assured, he knows exactly who he is and why he’s here. Neither Cordingly nor Bartens intimidates him in the least.
Cordingly uses short, brisk steps to retreat to the safety of his desk while Sicheii strolls behind him with easy loping strides. Safely behind his desk, Cordingly smooths his tie and settles into his leather chair, his smile fake, his small black reptilian eyes skittering around the office.
Sicheii makes him anxious. Instead of sitting in the chair opposite him, as I’m sure he expects, Sicheii saunters along the edges of the office while studying the portraits with a grim expression on his face. He’s not interested in the paintings. He’s sending Cordingly a message that he cannot be dismissed lightly. I sit up straighter. He’s done the same thing to me many times. When I’m in a hurry and want an answer to some critically important question, he delays just long enough for me to realize he’s in charge and will answer on his terms.
I smile now that Cordingly learns the same message. Time languishes for a few more uncomfortable minutes. Finally, Sicheii pivots on his moccasins and turns his attention to the Headmaster, who has been staring at him quietly, fidgeting in his chair and tapping his fingers on his desk.
“I believe the art someone surrounds himself with reveals much about his character.” From his expression, it’s clear Sicheii is unimpressed with the portraits.
“Yes, well, these are portraits of significant alumni from our sister school in England.” Cordingly points to the largest portrait behind his desk. “That is Sir Godfrey. He served as Chancellor for England’s High Court. He graduated from our very first class almost one hundred and twenty years ago. Some legal historians still write about his greatest verdicts today.”
Sicheii regards the painting with his arms crossed against his chest. “I’m sure he was an impressive man in person.” Switching his eyes to Cordingly, he bores them into him as if they were daggers. “I understand there is a misunderstanding involving Juliet.”
Cordingly settles his gaze on me. He keeps if fixed on me probably because he’s more comfortable looking at me than my grandfather. “Juliet instigated a physical altercation with another female student this morning.” He frowns and taps on the desk. “I do not need to tell you how seriously we take this violation of our conduct code.”
Sicheii’s focus unwaveringly falls on Cordingly. He doesn’t even blink. “In my experience, disagreements are two-way rivers. The currents often travel up and down river. Perhaps the best way to fully understand the nature of this dispute is to ask both students what happened.”
“In this case, all the witnesses report that Juliet attacked this other girl without provocation. This is not acceptable behavior at Bartens.” Cordingly flattens his hands together, brings the tips to his lips, and glances at Sicheii. “I know she has a history of fighting in her other school. However, this is her first offense at Bartens. Is there some issue at home? Students often act out when matters are unsettled at home.”
Mom is probably the only single mother at Bartens. For the first time, I’m happy she is out of town and Sicheii is here instead. She would have already buckled under the pressure and blamed everything on me.
“Who is the other student?”
“Tiffany Johnson, but I must repeat that all our witnesses confirm Juliet as the provocateur.” Sweat sprouts on the Headmaster’s forehead like weeds. He picks up an expensive fountain pen and twists the writing instrument in his hands. The Johnson family is an elite member of the privileged class in our town.
Sicheii flashes his sparkling white teeth. “According to your rules, both students involved in a physical altercation are supposed to be suspended for a week with a full hearing where the dispute can be heard.”
When did he read the school’s rulebook?
Cordingly sputters words so fast they bump into each other on the way out of his mouth. “Y-yes, those are the s-stated rules, but in this case I do not believe we need to follow the rules precisely. As I said earlier, this is Juliet’s first offense and luckily it was a brief one. Today is Thursday. I suggest Juliet stay home tomorrow and ponder her actions. She can write an apology to Tiffany and return to classes on Monday.” He glowers at me and slows his pace so the words come out measured. “Of course, we would have to take more severe actions if this behavior happens again. Perhaps even ex-pul-sion.”
The last word takes forever from start to finish and sends a shudder down my back. I’d happily return to my old school, but expulsion would be bad—the type of offense that would stay on my permanent record and prevent me from going to a good college. If I don’t go to a good college, I’ll never get into a top graduate school. Without a top graduate school, there’s no chance I’ll land a high paying job and live in a big city in an apartment with river views and expensive clothes and Apple products and cars and vacations and all the other luxuries I’m supposed to want. At least that’s what Bartens tells me, yet Mom makes a lot of money and I can’t help but think she’d be happier with more free time and less stress.
“I’m sure there will be no more incidents like this one.” Sicheii turns and saunters from the office without another word. He doesn’t even glance at me. I jump from the chair and race after him.
The Porsche is parked out front. Before I can buckle the safety belt, Sicheii pulls away from the curb with a squeak of the tires. His disapproval drapes over me like a wet blanket.
“What happened?” He speeds from school, working his way around slow moving cars.
“Tiffany stuck a nasty cartoon about Katie’s father on her locker. I yanked it off before she could see it. When I turned, Tiffany called me Indian trash.”
He keeps his eyes on the road as he works the manual stick shift. “Do you think you were doing your friend a favor?”
“Katie would have been devastated if she saw that cartoon. She was already upset over a news show from the night before that said her dad was guilty and going to jail.”
He glances at me for the first time. “How is she going to feel when a new cartoon gets stuck on her locker tomorrow? Especially when you won’t be around?”
“I didn’t think about that.” Heat flushes my face.
“A good friend helps those she cares about face their challenges, not hide from them. We must embrace our destinies. Did anyone else hear Tiffany call you Indian trash?” He turns down a side street, swerves the car to the side of the road, and stops so suddenly the seatbelt jabs into my chest.
“I heard her. It sounded like she yelled it to me, but no one else said they heard her say anything.”
“Even Katie?”
I shake my head. “But I’m sure she said it.”
Sicheii’s white eyebrows arch for a moment and then turn downward as if they tired from the effort. “I thought we raised you stronger than this. You are special. Your blood is special, more special than you realize. How others view you is the least of your concerns. A rock doesn’t care if others think it is a diamond or piece of clay. The rock is strong because of its nature.” He frowns. He appears sad, and something in his eyes that’s hard to identify seems melancholy. “You are special because of your nature. You must accept this. You must be the rock, not the river.”
“I know they shouldn’t bother me, but sometimes it’s hard.” Oddly, I think we’re talking about two different things. With Sicheii, it’s hard to know for sure what he’s talking about.
Sicheii swings the car back on the road. “The spirits are not entities that existed a long time ago and have since died. The Wind Spirit is as strong today as she was in our ancestors’ times. She touches all of us, you in particular.” He glances at me as if he is telling me a secret only meant for us to share. “I need you to think on this. I have errands to run today. I’m not sure when I will return.”
Didn’t Troy tell me the same thing last night?
With nothing to do, I wander to my room, dive on my unmade bed, and pound my pillow a dozen times, making believe it’s Tiffany’s smug face. When feathers start flying about, I toss the Tiffany Face Pillow at my mirror, flip open my laptop, and surf the web. Googling Roundtree produces a number of hits that pop on the screen. The first three all relate to his death.
The Sentinel has the longest article with the headline “Mystic Slain at Home. “ I skim the piece, looking for details, looking really for anything that would mean my grandfather wasn’t involved in Roundtree’s murder. I don’t find what I want. The reporter quoted Sheriff Daniels as saying that he has no suspects in custody, but he’s following up on a number of promising leads. The reporter raises the specter that the killing had something to do with the occult. He writes that Roundtree had long been suspected of participating in satanic rituals.
Satanic rituals?
Roundtree was certainly weird, even stranger than Sicheii, but I can’t imagine him involved in satanic rituals. The reporter probably made that up.
The last line of the article catches my eye. “Sheriff Daniels believes an arrest is imminent.” An arrest is imminent? Did Daniels speak to the reporter before or after he came by last night? He didn’t sound like he was close to arresting anyone then, unless that someone was my grandfather. But if he had any so
lid evidence against him, he would have taken him in for questioning. At least, that’s what they do on the television shows.
Nothing else of interest appears in the current articles. All three local newspapers describe Roundtree as a secretive medicine man who had no family and lived an odd life. None hint at who might have committed the crime, or why, and nothing exonerates Sicheii. Only The Sentinel mentions anything about satanic rituals, which I dismiss as nonsense.
I glance at the rest of the search results and find some that go back over decades. There are dozens of them. Outspoken, he frequently criticized the town government and led a protest against the casino, claiming it was going to be built on a culturally significant site. The original location for the resort was planned near Devil’s Peak, but he forced a compromise. They moved the project to the other edge of town.
The protest made him unpopular with the developers and business owners in town who all supported the casino. A small blurb about him being arrested for disturbing the peace around the same time appears in a local paper. I’m sure the protests against the casino are what got him thrown in jail. Still, that was a long time ago and the casino was eventually built. Now, it’s the largest employer in town. Too much time has passed to connect his protest of the casino to his murder fifteen years later.
Since my news searches into Roundtree’s life hit a dead end, I check the web for images of the medicine man. Most were snapped at one of our Native American festivals with him wearing traditional clothing. I hover over one image taken during a Changing Woman Festival, which marks thirteen-year-old girls as women. It’s one of the most important Tribal ceremonies. It takes four days to complete and is full of dancing and singing. We went to one when I was thirteen. We’ve never lived on the Rez and have always been outside of the official Tribal structure, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was part of the ceremony. Roundtree and Sicheii were there, though they deferred to the medicine men who lived on the Rez for the official duties.