Zero Tolerance

by Claudia Mills

  But as he hugged her back—he was taller than Colin and broader shouldered—as he stood, not hugging her anymore but just holding her, she worried that she might be giving him the right idea.

  Then she pulled away.

  “Did Mr. Besser believe you?”

  “Oh, yeah. Or at least, he wanted to believe me.”

  “Did he say what he was going to do to you?”

  “Guess who’s going to have his own expulsion hearing?”

  “You’re going to be expelled?”

  “This suspension I’m on now? It’s my third this year. Fighting, fighting, swearing at a teacher. You can’t have four suspensions in a year. That makes you a ‘perennially disruptive student,’ and they start expulsion proceedings.”

  Suddenly Sierra had a new suspicion.

  “This suspension. Your third suspension. You did it on purpose. You wanted to be suspended.”

  To be with me.

  “Maybe.”

  Luke grinned at her.

  He had an incredibly appealing grin.

  How could any girl at Longwood Middle School who’d seen that grin have a crush on Colin Beauvoir when she could have a crush on Luke Bishop instead?

  “What else will happen to you? Like—”

  She couldn’t bring herself to say it: criminal charges.

  “I’m supposed to apologize to Lintbag. That’ll be fun, to have a chance to tell her some of what I think about her. I’ll be sure to flash my Game Boy in her face when I do. But he didn’t mention anything else. Expulsion is the main thing. Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, I’m free at last.”

  “But—Luke.”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to go tell him. The truth. I’m not going to let you get expelled for me.”

  “Why not? He already hates me. He doesn’t hate you. You’re, like, his favorite student ever. I hate this school. The sooner I’m kicked out of here, the better. You don’t hate it.”

  “Yes, I do. I hate it, too. I hate it more than you do!”

  “You say you hate it now,” Luke said. “But in a month, it’ll be like none of this ever happened, and you’ll be getting all A’s again, and you’ll be president of the school.”

  “There isn’t a president of the school. There’s a president of each class, but not of the school.”

  “See? You’re the kind of person who knows that kind of thing. Okay, you’ll be president of the Goody-Goody Brown-Nose Ass-Kissing Club.”

  Celeste could be president of that club. Sierra was through with that club forever.

  “I’m not going to let you get expelled for me,” she repeated.

  “Look, I’m already going down.”

  “I’m already going down. I’m the one who’s being expelled, not you. Just don’t get suspended again, and you won’t be expelled. And you could get A’s if you wanted to.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to.”

  She turned to leave.

  “Sierra—don’t.”

  She gave Luke another hug, and he hugged her back, tighter than he had before.

  She headed down the hall to Mr. Besser’s office, and to whatever would happen to her when she told him the truth.

  36

  “He stepped out, hon,” Ms. Keith said when Sierra’s timid rap on the door of the inner sanctum produced no reply.

  “But…”

  Sierra had to talk to him this minute. If she hesitated even another thirty seconds, she might change her mind.

  “Can I wait out here?” She pointed to the row of chairs beneath the appliquéd banner. “Instead of back there?”

  Ms. Keith looked around, as if to solicit Mrs. Saunders’s opinion on the question, but Mrs. Saunders was standing out in the front hall deep in conversation with a parent.

  “Sure, hon,” Ms. Keith said with a good-natured shrug. “I don’t see why not.”

  Sierra sat down.

  It was just over a week ago that she had been sitting here in this very chair waiting to talk to Mr. Besser about the Zeroes Aren’t Permitted program. Well, someone’s life could certainly change forever in an instant.

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?” Sierra asked Ms. Keith.

  “He didn’t say. But I think he would have told us if he was going to be a while. Oh, here he is.”

  Mr. Besser strode into the office, grinning to himself, probably remembering some banter he had exchanged with a smart-mouthed eighth grader or a clever comment he had made to a teacher.

  “Sierra would like to talk to you, if you have a couple of minutes,” Ms. Keith told him.

  His smile died away.

  “All right, come on in, Sierra.”

  In the inner office, he sat down in his chair, and Sierra sat down in her chair.

  “Luke didn’t write that letter,” Sierra said.

  “I know,” Mr. Besser said.

  Silence for a moment.

  “It was too well written,” Mr. Besser said. “It wasn’t written by somebody with Luke Bishop’s grade in language arts.”

  Sierra couldn’t bear to listen to Mr. Besser disparaging Luke in that way.

  “Luke is smart! If he doesn’t get good grades, it’s because he doesn’t want to!”

  “I wouldn’t call that a very smart choice, would you? But we’re not here to discuss Luke Bishop; we’re here to discuss you.”

  “It was just—Ms. Lin—she was so mean to me, and to Luke, to all of us. She took away his Game Boy, not just for one day, but for the whole rest of the year. And she treated me as if I had brought the knife to school on purpose, to kill someone, when I tried so hard to do the right thing and turn it in the second I found it. She made me feel like a criminal, and I’m not a criminal, I’m not. I’ve never done a criminal thing in my life!”

  She broke off, remembering why she was sitting in Mr. Besser’s office this very minute.

  “Wouldn’t you say,” Mr. Besser asked, “that forgery is a crime?”

  “Yes, I know it is, but it wasn’t really forgery. It was just to get back at her because she had been so hateful and horrible.”

  “Sierra. The Denver Post published that letter. Over Ms. Lin’s signature. As a member of the staff of this school. That letter is there in print for hundreds of thousands of people to read as a representation—a misrepresentation—of the views of a member of our Longwood Middle School community.”

  Sierra had been prepared to be contrite, to say over and over again how sorry she was, but talk of “our Longwood Middle School community” made her suddenly think of the Beautiful Mountain community. They knew what it meant to be a community. In a real community you didn’t destroy a member of the community just to uphold a policy that never should have been established in the first place.

  For a few moments Sierra sat silent. Then she managed to say, “Now that you know that Ms. Lin didn’t write the letter, is she going to get her job back?”

  “I didn’t fire Ms. Lin. She quit. And after you explain to her what happened—and you are going to explain to her what happened—she certainly has the right to decide if she wants to retract her resignation. But I don’t think she will. She is very upset.”

  Not just about my letter. She’s upset that you lost your cool and yelled at her about it in that horrible demeaning way.

  “I’m sorry,” Sierra said.

  And now she truly was sorry.

  I never meant for any of this to happen!

  She waited for a minute to see what Mr. Besser would say next.

  He gazed out the window. Sierra’s gaze followed his. It was starting to snow again, the first few thick flakes floating lazily through the air like tufts of down from a torn pillow.

  Maybe he would never say anything, and she would never say anything, and they would sit in his office for the rest of the morning wordlessly watching the snow falling onto the winter-brown grass.

  Luke would wonder what had happened to her, Luke who was willing to be expelled for her sake.
>
  Sierra spoke first, losing the silence contest just as she had won the staring contest an hour ago.

  “So what happens now?” she asked. She tried to make it sound as if she were asking out of mere curiosity, as if she were asking how much accumulation was expected from the morning’s snowfall.

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Besser said.

  The answer surprised her.

  “What do you think should happen?” he asked.

  The question surprised her even more. It had been a long time since anybody at Longwood Middle School seemed to care about what she thought her fate should be.

  “I should apologize to Ms. Lin,” Sierra said slowly.

  Mr. Besser nodded.

  Sierra couldn’t tell if he was nodding in agreement or just nodding to show that he was listening.

  Sierra continued. “And the Denver Post already knows, and they’ve printed the correction, even if not that many people will read it.”

  Please don’t make me tell the Denver Post! She couldn’t bear to have her crime be the lead story on the nightly news.

  “And for punishment.” Sierra still couldn’t read Mr. Besser’s impassive face. “Well, if I’m already getting expelled for something I didn’t do, or didn’t mean to do, then maybe that punishment can be for this, too.”

  That was all she had to say.

  Mr. Besser’s phone rang. He picked it up. “Put whoever it is on hold,” he said into the receiver.

  He looked back at Sierra.

  “Why did Luke Bishop say he wrote the letter if he didn’t?”

  The way he asked the question made Sierra know—or at least think that she knew—that Mr. Besser wasn’t going to call the police and have her taken away in handcuffs.

  “I think he likes me,” Sierra said.

  Mr. Besser gave Sierra a real smile this time.

  “Yes, I’d say he does. All right, Sierra, go on back.”

  Apparently their conversation was over, and he had accepted her suggestions for how to proceed.

  “What about Ms. Lin? Should I call her? I don’t have her phone number.”

  “Mrs. Saunders can give it to you.”

  He picked up the phone, where the red hold button was still blinking.

  “And, Sierra, you know I’m letting you off easy on this one because I do regret, truly regret, everything that has happened.”

  “I know,” Sierra said.

  But as she left his office, she wanted to ask him, Do you, really? Do you? Because if you did, you could still stop the hearing tomorrow. You could. You could.

  37

  Luke was standing by the suspension room door waiting for her. He didn’t hug her this time, but when they sat down at the conference table side by side, he reached over and took her hand.

  “What are they going to do to you?” he asked.

  “It’s going to be okay. Because of everything else that’s happened. Because I’m already being expelled anyway.”

  “So they’re not doing anything?”

  Was Luke annoyed at this latest evidence of yet more unfair favoring of Little Miss Shep-turd?

  “I have to apologize to Ms. Lin.”

  “So are you just supposed to call her, or what?” Luke asked.

  “He didn’t say. I think you’re supposed to apologize to someone in person. You know, like when you send a thank-you note, it’s supposed to be handwritten, not typed on the computer.”

  Luke stared at her.

  “Don’t you ever write thank-you notes?” she asked.

  “Thank-you notes for what?” was all he said.

  “Well, anyway, I guess I’ll call her and explain that there’s something I want to tell her in person, and I’ll see if she’s willing to meet with me.”

  “Can I come, too?” Luke asked.

  “What do you have to apologize to her for?”

  “Well, I was there when you did it. Besides, I just want to see what she says.”

  “I don’t think apologies are a spectator event, where people come and watch,” Sierra told him.

  But now that Luke had offered to come, all Sierra could think about was how much less scary the whole thing would be if he was there. Unless he laughed during it. Or otherwise wrecked it.

  But he wouldn’t.

  Would he?

  * * *

  Mrs. Saunders gave Sierra Ms. Lin’s phone number without asking why she wanted it. Maybe she already knew.

  “Do you know where she lives?” Sierra asked.

  Was she going to have to ask her mother to drive her there?

  “Just over in the apartments at Fourth and Aspen. It’s walking distance. She walked to school most days.”

  Back in the suspension room, Sierra took out the cell phone that she was forbidden to use during school hours. Having survived the conference with Mr. Besser gave her new confidence as she dialed Ms. Lin’s number. Or maybe she was just getting used to living in an alternate reality, doing things that in her previous life she could never have even imagined.

  “Hello?” Ms. Lin said. On the phone she sounded as prissy and officious as she had at her desk at Longwood Middle School.

  “Ms. Lin? It’s Sierra Shepard.”

  A long pause on Ms. Lin’s end.

  “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  Another long pause.

  “It’s about something I did. And, if it’s okay, I’d like to talk to you in person. Like today? After school?”

  Another pause. The whole conversation was turning out to be: Sierra speak, silence from Ms. Lin, Sierra speak, silence from Ms. Lin.

  “I could come over to your house. I mean, your apartment. Or meet you somewhere. Like in a coffee shop? The one by—”

  “You can come to my apartment,” Ms. Lin said. “After school is fine.”

  Before Sierra could ask for the apartment number, or if she could bring Luke Bishop with her, Ms. Lin had hung up.

  “So?” Luke asked her. “What did she say?”

  “We’re going after school. Today.”

  * * *

  Sierra got the apartment number from Mrs. Saunders—182—and permission to call her mother to say that she wouldn’t need a ride home today. She could walk home after the apology. It was a long walk—perhaps two miles—but doable, especially as it had stopped snowing by lunch, with only one or two inches total of new snow. On the phone, she had told her mother she couldn’t talk longer right now, but she knew she’d end up telling her everything sooner or later; she almost always did.

  There were no reporters waiting outside school today.

  Good.

  Sierra had wondered if Luke would hold her hand as they began walking toward the Oak Grove Apartments, the way Colin had held Celeste’s hand yesterday.

  He didn’t.

  Sierra felt ashamed at her relief, at her realization that she would have felt embarrassed if Luke had held her hand in public, where anybody could see. She wasn’t ready for other people to know that she liked, of all people, Luke Bishop.

  And then Sierra did yet another thing that she would never have imagined herself doing.

  Casually, as if she hadn’t given the matter any thought at all, she reached over and caught Luke’s hand in hers. His face lit up with surprised pleasure as his gloved hand closed around her mittened one.

  * * *

  Apartment 182 was a ground-level unit, with a door opening onto the snowy courtyard in the rear of the complex, facing the mountains.

  Still holding Luke’s hand, Sierra rang the doorbell with a mittened finger of her free hand. Maybe the sight of two seventh graders holding hands would make Ms. Lin even madder. But there was no way that Sierra was going to let go of Luke’s hand now.

  The door opened.

  “Sierra, Luke,” Ms. Lin said, “come on in.”

  “Should we take off our shoes?” Sierra asked. “They’re snowy.”

  “Yes, please do.”

  Sierra let go of Luke’s hand
as she removed her shoes and hung her coat on the coat stand. But she took it again as they sat down together on the floral-patterned couch facing a matching floral armchair.

  The first surprise of the visit was that Ms. Lin was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that had a picture of a zebra and the word KENYA printed beneath it. In the office Ms. Lin had worn only pantsuits that looked as if they had come from a Proper Secretary catalog.

  The second surprise was that the only word to describe Ms. Lin’s apartment was “cozy.” A gas fire burned in the fireplace. A teddy bear—a teddy bear!—sat in a small rocker beside it. On the wall hung a yellow-and-blue quilt that looked homemade. And the view of the mountains from the large picture window was breathtaking.

  “Have you been to Kenya?” Sierra asked once Ms. Lin had seated herself in the armchair, not that they were paying a social visit. But she did want to know.

  “Three times.”

  “Wow,” Sierra said.

  Ms. Lin didn’t volunteer any details about her trips. She also hadn’t offered them any tea or set out a plate of cookies.

  “I’m here to apologize for something,” Sierra said.

  “I thought as much.”

  “I’m the one who wrote that letter to the Post.”

  “And I helped,” Luke added.

  “No, I did it.”

  She knew she wasn’t supposed to provide the explanation she had offered Mr. Besser: But I just did it because you were so mean and hateful, such a horrible petty tyrant.

  “And I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry. I really am. So that’s what I came to say. That I’m sorry.”

  “How were you able to get into my e-mail account?” Ms. Lin sounded more puzzled than angry.

  “It was the day Mrs. Saunders wasn’t there. Because of her son’s wisdom teeth. And you had gone to the bathroom or something. And you had taken Luke’s Game Boy. And we wanted to get it back, so we went over to your desk. And you had your computer on, opened to your e-mail.”

  Sierra kept on babbling since she didn’t know what else to do.

  “So you didn’t have to quit. And I know Mr. Besser would give you your job back. I know he would.”

  “What makes you think I want my job back? Do you know what I said to myself as I walked out of there for the last time? Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, I’m free at last.”