Zero Tolerance

by Claudia Mills

  “CNN?” Lexi asked. “Like, national TV?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Holy moly.” Lexi’s eyes were gratifyingly huge. “I wonder if they came into the cafeteria and interviewed Sandy and she had to get off her stool. Or maybe they filmed her sitting on her stool.”

  Em and Celeste laughed, and Sierra let herself laugh, too.

  “Or Ms. Lin. Maybe they had a hidden camera and filmed her being the bitch she is, and now the whole world will see. And Besser—that bow tie he always wears? Maybe they asked him why he seems to think it’s cool to wear a bow tie when it’s the least cool thing ever.”

  “Sometimes they film stuff for TV, but then it doesn’t end up being on TV,” Celeste said, stretching herself out full-length on Sierra’s bed. “Like, something more important happens. A car wreck. Or a murder. I mean, I don’t think someone getting suspended is as big as a murder.” She paused. “You were suspended, right? That’s why you weren’t in class all day?”

  Isn’t that what you’ve already been telling everybody? Including Colin?

  Sierra nodded.

  “And are you really going to be expelled?” Celeste asked. She sounded as if she’d just as soon have Sierra expelled so that she could claim to have been the first to see it coming.

  “Well, they have to have a hearing,” Sierra said.

  “They’re not going to expel her,” Lexi shot back, sitting bolt upright and hugging one of Sierra’s pillows to her chest. “Not when it’s on TV.”

  “Why not?” Celeste asked. “Why would that make any difference?”

  “It would make Besser look so bad!” Lexi retorted. “Like the jerk to end all jerks! It’s called bad publicity. As in terrible publicity.”

  Em hadn’t said anything yet; she was busy coaxing Cornflake to reappear from under the bed and position himself on her lap.

  “Em?” Sierra asked her, once Celeste had gotten up to go to the bathroom; Sierra could never talk as freely in front of Celeste. “What do you really think is going to happen to me?”

  “I don’t think they can expel you, not when it was all just a big mistake. It’s horrible enough that they suspended you. Was it awful? Sitting in suspension?”

  “It wasn’t too bad.” She had to say it. “Colin was waiting for me afterward.”

  Well, not really waiting for her. But sort of waiting. He might have been waiting. Her five minutes with Colin had been the only good part of a hideous day.

  “He does like you!” Em said. “What exactly did he say?”

  Sierra was grateful that Celeste was still out of the room.

  “He said he was going to watch me on TV. He saw all the reporters filming me.”

  “So he’ll be sitting in his house, and he’ll turn on the TV, and he’ll sit there gazing at you.” Em gave a little imitation of what was supposed to be Colin’s lovesick sigh.

  “There’s no way you can be expelled once you’re on TV,” Lexi repeated. “Once you’re so famous, famous all over the country. Maybe even the world.”

  “You guys,” Sierra said.

  She was glad Em and Lexi had come over, even though she could have done without Celeste. Thank goodness Celeste hadn’t heard her gushing about her crush on Colin.

  But she would have been gladder if it had been Mr. Besser at the door, coming to put an end to this mess and to make everything all right again.

  12

  Sierra’s father called to say that he wouldn’t be home until late because of the Wilson trial tomorrow. Celeste and Lexi had to go home, but Em stayed to watch the six o’clock local news with Sierra and her mom.

  They turned the TV in the family room to Channel 9. Sierra’s mother leaned forward from her spot on the ottoman; the two girls sat side by side on the floor, legs outstretched, backs against the couch.

  “Maybe it won’t be on,” Sierra said, echoing Celeste’s words. “Maybe there’ll be a murder or a car wreck or something else instead.”

  “It’ll be on,” her mother said.

  Sure enough, the news anchorman, seated next to an anchorwoman, started off the broadcast by saying, “Two state senators face indictment on corruption charges. Another major snowstorm is on its way. And at Longwood Middle School, a seventh-grade honor student may be expelled for bringing the wrong lunch to school by mistake.”

  So Celeste didn’t know everything.

  As she waited for the first segment to be over, the one about the two state senators, Sierra had a thought she had never had before: Every story on the news is about someone who is a real person. Those state senators were probably sitting in their houses, smelling a casserole in the oven, maybe with their feet up on the coffee table, watching themselves on TV. Maybe their kids were watching, too, feeling awful that people were saying bad things about their dad, the same dad who had coached their soccer team and helped with math homework.

  Although weather usually came late in the news, the snowstorm was predicted to be disruptive enough that the next story segment was devoted to the preparations being made all over the Denver metro area.

  A commercial came on for a car dealership having a big January clearance sale. Then the news anchorwoman said: “In the hustle and bustle of busy school mornings, it’s easy for family members to grab the wrong lunch by mistake. But at Longwood Middle School, a lunch bag mix-up might mean big trouble for one seventh grader.”

  Then there was Sierra, on the screen, standing outside the school explaining to the blond reporter what had happened.

  She should have combed her hair.

  Was her mouth really that wide?

  She hadn’t realized that her voice was so high, like she was still in elementary school.

  “The principal at Longwood Middle School, Thomas A. Besser, has refused to talk to 9NEWS,” the reporter’s voice-over continued as the camera panned the familiar front of the building, with the students streaming out the doors to waiting buses and cars. “But we were able to obtain a copy of the school’s zero-tolerance policy put in place by Principal Besser three years ago.”

  The text of the policy appeared on the screen, the relevant section highlighted in yellow: “All students bringing drugs or weapons of any kind onto school grounds for any reason without prior written permission will be expelled.”

  Sierra’s face filled the screen again.

  “I think it was unfair. It’s completely unfair.”

  The camera zoomed even closer as her eyes began to fill with tears.

  “Unfair? Or a reasonable strategy to keep students safe? Go to our viewer comments section on our Web site and leave your thoughts. More details on this story tonight at ten.”

  Another commercial came on.

  “Wow,” Em said.

  “Did I look okay, or did I look stupid? Did my mouth look funny to you? Sort of twitching?”

  “You looked great. Like—that was you. On TV.”

  “Do you think Colin watched it?”

  “Who’s Colin?” her mother asked.

  “Nobody,” Sierra said.

  The phone rang. Colin? I just wanted to say that I saw you on TV. Mr. Besser? I see now how wrong I’ve been. Another reporter?

  Sierra’s mom answered it. “Yes, hon, we’ve been watching.” So it was her dad. There was a long pause on her mother’s end of the phone. Then: “You’re kidding. Already?”

  She turned to Sierra. “Eighty-seven people have already logged on to the station Web site. All of them think the school is being ridiculous.” Another pause. “Okay, I’ll tell her … Okay, I won’t wait up. Love you.”

  Sierra’s mother put down the phone. “Your father thinks Mr. Besser is going to have to back down now. The publicity is just too terrible. He said you should plan on going to your regular classes tomorrow.”

  Em hugged Sierra. “See? I told you they couldn’t expel you, didn’t I?”

  The phone rang another time.

  Sierra’s mother picked it up. “Hello?… No, Sierra can’t talk to any more r
eporters today. I’m sorry. She needs to do her homework.”

  As soon as her mother hung up, the phone rang yet again.

  “I’m turning it off,” her mother said. “Enough is enough. Em, do you want to stay for dinner?”

  “I’d better go, I guess.” To Sierra she whispered, “Does Colin know your cell phone number? Text me if you hear from him.”

  Once Em had left, Sierra snatched up Cornflake and carried the cat to the couch. Cornflake’s lazy, contented purr seeped into her chest. She felt more tired than she had ever been before in her life.

  13

  Sierra reported to the office the next morning fifteen minutes before the first bell. If Ms. Lin or Mr. Besser said she could go back to class, she wanted to arrive at first period early so that she could talk to her accelerated language arts teacher and find out what assignments she had missed.

  Ms. Lin looked up, wooden-faced, as Sierra came through the door. Until two days ago, she would at least have given Sierra a tight-lipped version of her parent smile.

  “You can go on back.” Ms. Lin nodded in the direction of the suspension room.

  Maybe Mr. Besser wasn’t in yet; he might be too busy talking to reporters himself. Should Sierra ask Ms. Lin if she could wait for him here?

  “Go on,” Ms. Lin said. “Go.” She could have been shooing a dog away from her flower beds.

  Didn’t Ms. Lin watch TV? Didn’t she know how bad Longwood Middle School was looking right now? By the time Sierra had gone to bed, 482 people had posted comments on the three local news Web sites; of those, only four people—four!—had thought the school had done the right thing.

  At breakfast that morning her father hadn’t given her any specific instructions about what to do. He had just said, “I know one middle school principal who must be feeling like a royal, class-A jerk this morning.” Only he hadn’t said “jerk.”

  Sierra didn’t dare disobey Ms. Lin. She started down the hallway—surely, Mr. Besser would come find her there once he arrived at school. Then she heard the main office door open, followed by the sound of Mr. Besser’s booming voice.

  “Cold out there! Let’s hope the snow holds off until after dismissal.”

  She turned around.

  “Mr. Besser?”

  One look at the muscles tightening in his jaw, and she could feel the hopeful smile freezing on her face.

  “Sierra.”

  He took two steps toward her.

  “You can tell your father,” he said, “that he has destroyed any chance he might have had of avoiding next Friday’s hearing. We might have been able to work something out”—he certainly hadn’t said any such thing yesterday—“but now, with media from all around the country leaping all over this thing, our hands are tied. Tied. Did you hear that?”

  Sierra made herself nod.

  “Ask your father if he’s ever heard of behind-the-scenes negotiations. Ask him if he’s ever heard of settling things off camera. Will you do that for me?”

  Sierra nodded again.

  She wanted to say, Did you check the Internet? 482 comments? Four for you, 478 for me?

  But she had never said a rude thing to a grownup in her life, and she didn’t know how to start now. She needed Tiffany. But Tiffany’s in-school suspension had ended yesterday.

  Without another word, Mr. Besser went into his inner sanctum and shut the door.

  “Well, don’t just stand there gaping like a goldfish,” Ms. Lin snapped.

  Sierra fled to the suspension room before Ms. Lin could gloat over the hot tears that stung her eyes and threatened to escape down her burning cheeks.

  * * *

  “Hey.”

  Luke dropped down in the seat beside her. “Are you crying?”

  “No!” Sierra jerked her hand across her eyes. She tried to change the subject. “Isn’t Mitch coming today?”

  “He just got a one-day suspension. Because he told them I started it.”

  “Did you start it?”

  “Depends on what you mean by starting it. I hit him first. But he said something to me before that.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Something I didn’t feel like listening to. You are crying.”

  Sierra gave up pretending and pulled a tissue from her purse to blow her nose. “I’m just so mad. My father said they’d have to back down because I was on TV and all.”

  She wondered if Luke had seen her on the news.

  “But Mr. Besser said now they can’t back down. Because I was on TV. He said all these awful things I’m supposed to tell my father. Why doesn’t he call him and say them himself?”

  “You were on TV?”

  So Luke hadn’t watched it.

  “Uh-huh. And, like, almost five hundred people wrote in on the TV Web sites, and they all said Mr. Besser is an idiot. All of them. So how come he still thinks he’s right?”

  “Because he’s an idiot?”

  Sierra couldn’t laugh.

  “What will I do if I really get expelled? I’ll never get into college. I’ll never get a job.”

  “Wrong.”

  “How would you feel if you were expelled?”

  “For something stupid? I wouldn’t care.”

  “You would. Anybody would!”

  Ms. Lin stuck her head in the door. “Keep it down, you two. This is supposed to be a suspension. If you can’t talk quietly, there’ll be no talking at all. And you, Mr. Bishop, you put that thing away.” She pointed to the Game Boy that Luke had placed in front of him on the table. Then she gave Sierra and Luke a final glare before disappearing down the hallway.

  “Bitch,” Sierra said under her breath.

  It was the first time in her life she had ever said that word.

  “Whoa, Shep-turd,” Luke said. “Somebody is developing an attitude.”

  “That’s right,” Sierra said. “Somebody is.”

  14

  Sierra didn’t make any more note cards about Mayan temples that morning.

  What was the point?

  If she was really going to be expelled, driven from Longwood Middle School forever in disgrace because she had grabbed the wrong lunch off the kitchen counter, she wouldn’t be handing in her Mayan culture report for social studies, or writing her Lord of the Flies paper for accelerated language arts, or firing her pot in the art-class kiln.

  It was Friday now; the pots were going to be fired today.

  Sierra thought of her pot. She had worked so hard on it, shaping each clay coil with such precision and care. Now it was sitting on the classroom counter abandoned, as the other pots, made by the nonsuspended students, were carried away to be glazed and fired so they’d last forever like the Mayan pottery she wasn’t writing about anymore in her Mayan culture report.

  For the second time that morning, Sierra’s eyes stung with tears.

  Luke looked up from whatever he was killing and dismembering in his game.

  “What is it now?”

  “I didn’t get to fire my pot today,” Sierra told him.

  Luke shook his head as if to clear some obstruction from his ears that was keeping him from hearing her properly. “You smoke pot?”

  “Not that kind of pot! The clay pot I was making in art class. Today was the day it was supposed to go to the kiln to be fired.”

  Luke still looked puzzled. “And you’re crying about it?”

  Sierra nodded. “I loved my pot.”

  “You loved your pot,” Luke repeated. “Okay.”

  “You don’t love anything about school, do you?” Not that it was any of her business, but if she wasn’t going to be trying to keep up with her schoolwork anymore, what else was there to do except make herself sad over her poor, orphaned pot or talk to Luke Bishop?

  “Can’t say that I do.”

  “Did you ever? Like in kindergarten? Did you like being in the Pilgrim play at Thanksgiving? Or making a cast of your hand in plaster of paris to give your parents at Christmas?”

  “I liked one
day,” Luke said. “It was called Backwards Day. We put our clothes on backwards, and zipped up our coats in the back and not the front. The parent helpers zipped them up for us, because we couldn’t reach in the back. And the whole day went in backwards order. We started with resting time instead of ending with resting time, and we ended with the Pledge of Allegiance instead of starting with it. I thought it was totally cool, Backwards Day.”

  “So what happened after that? To make you stop liking school?”

  Luke shrugged. “The rest was all Forwards Days. I don’t do so well on Forwards Days.”

  “But you’re smart,” Sierra said.

  “How would you know?”

  “I can tell. The way you talk. You talk like you’re smart. So you could do well in school if you tried.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to try. Or maybe I can’t try. My parents had me tested back in second grade. For ADD. Because I could never settle down and listen to the teacher droning on about subtraction or the names for all the different kinds of clouds.”

  “Nimbus. Cirrus. Cumulus,” Sierra recited. “Don’t you like to know the names of things? Do you just want to go around saying ‘cloud’? Or ‘big white puffy cloud’?”

  “It was the way the teachers did it. Like the only reason to learn about clouds was to tell it back to them on a quiz so you could get a grade on your report card, and maybe if you got enough good grades on your report card, your parents would take you to McDonald’s and buy you a Happy Meal.”

  “So did you have ADD? When they tested you?”

  “They said I did. But maybe the teachers just had VBD.”

  Sierra tried to decode what the initials could mean.

  “Very boring disorder.”

  Sierra laughed.

  “Did they give you medication?” she asked.

  “My parents got in a big fight about it. My father was like, ‘You’re not going to put my kid on drugs just for being a hundred percent all-American boy.’ And my mother was like, ‘We have to do something, I can’t take this anymore.’”