by Pab Sungenis
I scooped up my stuff and headed to the first floor at as brisk a pace as I could maintain without being accused of running in the halls and was surprised to find the office door wide open upon my arrival. The principal usually liked to make students knock and wait for permission to enter, a tiny little bit of cruelty to my way of thinking. Something was up. Looking in, I saw the principal at her desk with Mrs. Carr on one side of her and—uh-oh—a policeman on the other. The principal gestured me in, and the cop motioned for me to close the door. I did so, and the principal started right in on what was probably going to be a very carefully scripted spiel. She didn’t even ask me to sit, so I stood there trying to make sense of this insane situation.
“Mr. Baines … ” Oh, crap. It’s never good when a teacher uses your last name, and absolutely, double-plus un-good to hear an administrator use it. Especially when there’s an officer of the law in the room.
“Bobby … ” Slightly better. She was warming up a little, like she didn’t want to go through what was to follow, but quickly pushed that warmth aside and became all business. “I’ve called you down here in accordance with the regulations set out in Chapter E, Section forty-five, of the local school district’s policy documents. Are you familiar with that section?”
I really hated when people did stuff like that, quoting the rules by chapter and verse, like we all had every little bit of minutiae about regulations available for instant access in our brains. Sure, I guess they needed to put things on the record to keep themselves on the good side of lawsuits, but it didn’t make me like it any more. I shook my head, too confused to speak.
“That section,” the principal continued as she reached to pick up something from under her desk, “has to do with our zero-tolerance policy on school violence. To be specific … ”
She laid the item she had retrieved out on her desk very carefully, as if it might turn around and bite her or give her acne or something.
“ … it’s our policy against weapons on school grounds.”
Lying on the desk was my brand-new (well, now slightly used) sword.
An Open and Shut Case
“I swear, absolutely swear on everything or anything you might consider holy … ” Swear what? I couldn’t really say. That I’d never seen that thing before in my life? That it wasn’t mine? A little digging and a few well-placed questions would disprove both claims. They’d be able to see through just about any story I cooked up.
How could I finish that sentence and get away with it? I had to think quick, before the awkward silence became any more awkward and blew any chance I had of not having my ass handed to me, not to mention hauled off to jail, which was becoming more and more of a possibility.
“I swear I have a very good reason for having that sword in my locker.”
They stared at me. That was actually a good sign. When people stare at you instead of (a) breaking out in laughter or (b) getting the jump on you and pushing you to the floor, it means they’re thinking. And if they’re thinking, then maybe there’s a very slim chance of …
“Really?” The principal leaned back. “What reason is that?”
Maybe a “slim chance” that had crossed over into “slim to none,” with the Vegas line on “none” getting better and better with each passing second. I opened my mouth, hoping the words would find their way out of my brain in time to save me, but it looked like those elusive words were going to let me down.
“Actually,” Mrs. Carr piped up, “I think I can explain that.”
She could? Even I was intrigued by this turn of events, although I struggled mightily to hide that fact. I forced my mouth to close and decided to let her drive the conversation for a while.
“Really?” The principal obviously wasn’t as impressed by this revelation. But then, I was the one in the middle of it. “Go on, Mrs. Carr.”
“Well, Bobby and I have been talking for a while about the Renaissance Faire. He’s always had a bit of an interest in that area, and I’d asked him to help out this year. We were working on a sword fighting routine that we were not only planning to perform at the Faire, but we were going to look into performing for one of the Western Civ classes, too. We didn’t tell anyone because we wanted to make sure it was good to go before we bragged about it.”
“I see. So how does that explain the sword in his locker?”
“Well, we were working out this morning before school, rehearsing some of the routine, and I guess he absentmindedly took the sword with him instead of handing it back to me. I had so much on my mind that I also forgot to take it back, and Bobby obviously hasn’t had a chance to come down to my office and return it yet. His schoolwork keeps him busy, as I’m sure you can see from his transcripts.”
It was the absolute worst cover story I’d ever heard, and I’d heard a hell of a lot of awful alibis from bad guys during my years in tights. There was no way in the world this was going to fly.
“If that’s true, Mrs. Carr,” the principal continued, preparing (I was certain) to drop the hammer on the whole story, “it sounds like a very bad misjudgment on your part. Not to mention on Mr. Baines’s part to not go out of his way to return this … thing to you.”
“Show us.”
It was an unfamiliar voice. A masculine voice. The cop.
“I’m sorry?” The principal turned her head to face the visitor. “What did you say, officer?”
“Show us. I’d like to see this routine you and the boy have been working on.”
I flushed, and I was sure Mrs. Carr did too. She obviously hadn’t planned for this turn of events, and I hadn’t planned for anything at all in this situation. Just when it looked like I might actually get away with it, the cop had to find a way to blow it apart. And after all the service I’d given to this city, too.
“Well, I don’t have a second sword with me. I’d have to go back to my office and … ” And what? I didn’t think she kept a sword in her office, and if she went to the athletic office to retrieve a fencing foil it would show she obviously couldn’t have been sparring with me that morning.
“No need,” the cop said, getting out of his chair. He crossed to the windowsill and retrieved two yardsticks that had been lying there. “It’s a simple routine, I’m sure, so just walk through it slowly with these.” He handed her a yardstick, and she looked at me expectantly.
“Sure, Mrs. Carr. Let’s show them.” I leaned in and whispered a quick question. “Why are you doing this?”
“Ask me later,” she whispered back with a wink.
I took the other yardstick and took up a classic fencing position. She responded in kind, and we were off and running.
For not having any time to choreograph an actual fight, we didn’t do half bad. She’d obviously done a good deal of fake fighting for the Ren-faire, and the one thing I’d really learned in fencing club was how to spar with people who weren’t as good as I was, because there’s nothing more boring than a three-second fight. After about a minute, I deliberately let her “disarm” me and dropped to my knees. She pointed the yardstick at my throat and smiled.
The damn cop started clapping.
The principal looked impressed. So was I. It was the worst lie we could have concocted, and yet somehow we seemed to have pulled it off beautifully. “Very nice. You two really have the beginning of something impressive there. If you haven’t talked to Mr. Jones about doing it for his Civ classes yet, you ought to. Of course, there is still the wrinkle of the zero-tolerance policy to deal with.”
“Oh, come on Barbara.” Mrs. Carr was turning on all her charm and aiming it right at the principal. “I already told you he didn’t bring it onto school grounds. I did, and for legitimate, educational purposes. Really, how could Bobby have ever gotten that thing past our metal detectors?”
The principal nodded. Mrs. Carr had made a good point. Of course, I wasn’t going to tell either of them how I had managed to smuggle it, not to mention my armor, past the metal detectors. Not since I had every intention
of doing it again. Some things are best kept from the general public.
“Good point. So he didn’t actually bring it onto the grounds. He still had it in his possession, unsupervised.”
“Maybe, but you don’t have to expel him for that, do you? Or have him arrested? I’ve explained how this was all just a mistake.”
No, but at best, and I do mean absolute best, it showed terrible judgment on both his part and yours. I can’t overlook this.”
“Barbara, this is instructional equipment. He was under my instruction, and … ”
“It’s not part of the curriculum.” There was no way the principal was going to cut me any kind of a break on this one. She pulled some paperwork out of her desk and started writing. “Since it is apparent no students were threatened, nor does there appear to be any intent on Mr. Baines’ part to do harm to any student or administrator, I don’t think there’s a need to press criminal charges. Do you, officer?”
“I don’t think so,” the cop said, slumping over in his chair, as if disappointed he wasn’t going to get to run me in. “He didn’t bring it onto the school grounds.” (Shows you how much he knew, but again I wasn’t going to say that.) “And he didn’t brandish it or threaten anybody. I don’t really have much room to arrest him on my own.” He glared at me. “Not that I can think of, but give me some time. Unless the school changes its mind on criminal charges.”
“We’re not changing it,” the principal said. “At least, not yet. The school board is going to want a full investigation, and we’ll see what happens after that. As for right now, I’m not going to escalate this to expulsion, but I don’t have much wiggle room other than that. Policy requires immediate out-of-school suspension.”
What? Suspension? No no no! Not when I was this close to … well, okay. I wasn’t all that close to getting into college as far as I could tell. But still, I’d worked so hard to make it on my own terms, and the whole hero gig had come around to bite me on the ass, after all. I barely heard the rest of the principal’s spiel about how the suspension would last pending a full investigation by her, confiscation of the weapon, recommendations, blah, blah, freakin’ blah; it wasn’t worth listening to.
“Here, let me make this easier for you.” I unslung my knapsack from my shoulders and opened it up. The cop jumped up and reached for his weapon. “Chill, Kojak, I’m not packing.” I took out my textbooks, which were technically school property, and laid them on the desk. All I had left in the bag, which I showed to both the cop and the principal, were some notebooks and a dog-eared paperback of King Dork, which I’d been working my way through in study hall. “I’m a legally emancipated minor, and I’m older than sixteen. As far as this state’s laws are concerned, I can legally drop out if I want. I’ll go apply to take the GED and get out of your way. And if Mrs. Carr and Officer Krupke here will accompany me to make sure I don’t take anything that doesn’t belong to me, I will go collect my coat and my gym bag from my locker. Those are the only pieces of personal property not on my person right now. Once I have them, I will gladly let myself be escorted off school grounds.”
The principal was dumbstruck. Maybe she thought she’d been doing me a favor by not shit-canning my ass immediately, but as far as I was concerned, she was just prolonging my agony. Even though it was probably the most reckless and stupid thing I’d done in a very long time, it felt nice to be able to make a decision instead of waiting for circumstances to make them for me.
“Bobby, there’s no need … ”
“Yes, ma’am, there is a need. It’s one I can’t explain to you right now, and you probably wouldn’t understand even if I could.” I wasn’t going to tell her I needed to get out before I started thinking about doing to her what I’d done to Squiddly-Diddly a couple of days before. Hell, if I hadn’t been on the job, there wouldn’t be a school for her to throw me out of. Talk about gratitude. I picked up my knapsack, zipped it shut, and motioned to the cop. “If you’d lead the way, officer? Or would you rather stand behind me to make sure I don’t do anything stupid?”
“You go first.” He turned to Mrs. Carr. “Do you want to come? I really should have someone from the staff come along for this, unless you don’t think it’s safe.”
“I’ll come. I trust Bobby.” She was a little more hesitant in the way she said that than I would have liked, but I was willing to take any support—no matter how half-hearted—without complaint.
As we started the miniature Bataan Death March to my locker, trudging along single file with the cop at full alert as he watched my back and Mrs. Carr nervously eyeing us both, kids drifted into the hall to watch the parade. No one was sure exactly what was going on, and I had no idea how much was going to be disclosed by the administration and how much was going to be covered up, but I was pretty sure the entertainment value of watching us going through the halls was miles ahead of whatever was supposed to be going on in the classrooms. Within minutes, the gossip mills would be churning out fascinating rumors upon which a whole new mythology would probably be assembled. I had a sneaking suspicion that while I was not the kid who would be voted “most likely to be escorted out of school by an armed police escort,” I probably wasn’t near the bottom of that list, either.
“I know you, don’t I?” I doubted the cop was the kind to make small talk, so there had to be a reason for the comment. “I’ve seen you before.”
“Probably.” Yeah, Sergeant R. Simpson. I was the guy in the metal tights and the high-tech coffee can on my head who knocked the gun out of the bank robber’s hands when he went to shoot you last week. You’re welcome. Now shut up and finish running me out of school on a rail.
“You’re Jack Horner’s boy, aren’t you?”
In more ways than you can imagine, buddy. “His foster son, to be exact. Yes.”
“Great guy, your foster dad. Did a lot for this city.” Again, more than you could ever imagine, Sergeant. “Real big loss. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, so am I.”
When we arrived at my locker, the cop motioned to all the kids leaning out into the hall. “Go back into your classrooms. There’s nothing to see here.” How I wished that were true.
The teachers managed to rein in their charges, and the doors quickly closed, granting us a little tiny bit of privacy. I undid the lock and opened the door. I motioned the cop to look inside and make sure I didn’t have a rabid squirrel or something with which to wreak havoc on the school in some bizarre revenge scheme. He looked in and nodded. I took my coat, shook it out to demonstrate I had nothing hidden inside, and put it on. I then picked up my gym bag and went to close the locker door. Let the staff collect the other books and clean it out.
“Hold on a minute,” the cop said. “Give me the bag so I can look inside.”
I had held a sneaking suspicion this was coming. I didn’t have Gym that day; in fact, I didn’t have Gym that quarter. I’d rotated out of Gym and into what passed for a Health class. This made my old gym bag a handy place to stash a Scarlet Knight costume for occasions like a couple days before. I would’ve abandoned it, but I had no way of being sure I could sneak in somehow and collect it before they cleared out my locker and discovered it on their own.
“You don’t really want to do that, officer. I haven’t had a chance to do laundry this week and … ”
His hand hovered over his gun, and I tensed. For all he knew, I could have a gun of my own, or a bomb, or some other implement of destruction in my bag, and my hesitance was feeding his paranoia.
I had no way out. My secret was going to be blown one way or the other. I figured I might as well live to tell the tale instead of being suicided-by-cop. I put the gym bag down gently in front of him, held my hands out in front of me to show I wasn’t carrying anything that could do him any harm, took a step away, and sighed. “Go ahead. Take a look.”
He picked it up, held the opening away from him, and unzipped it. When nothing exploded out, he looked at the contents.
His eyes got so wide they thr
eatened to squeeze his nose clean off his face. At least I had the pleasure of watching his reaction. I needed a laugh right about then, and he didn’t disappoint. He stared into the bag for at least ten seconds, but to my great relief, didn’t pull the costume out for a better look. “This is yours?”
“Yep.”
He stared into the bag some more, then reached in to gently move the costume pieces around, still careful not to let anyone who might have been glancing out a window in one of the classrooms see. “This real?”
“Yep.”
“You’re—”
“Yep.”
He quickly zipped the bag up, then stood there shaking his head, as if trying to dislodge the correct words for the situation.
“You’re right. You need to go do laundry.” He tossed the bag to me, and then winked conspiratorially. I winked back.
Mrs. Carr glared at us, as if trying to figure out what was going on. I leaned in and whispered, “Don’t ask. Don’t tell.”
She threw me one of the worst “teacher” glares I’ve ever been subjected to. “Excuse me, boys, but there’s no point in hiding the contents of the bag from me. I’m not as stupid as I look. I know who Bobby really is.”
In a classroom on the floor below, some poor kid got knocked in the head by my lower jaw. “What … you know?”
“Of course I know, you idiot. Do you think guidance counselors don’t check up on the kids they’re in charge of when they start showing behavioral changes?”
The cop looked almost as confused as I was. “So all that stuff with the sword fight? I had a sneaking suspicion it was bull. You had me fooled, though. You’re both pretty good.”
My brain was recovering from smacking into a brick wall, and I was slowly regaining the ability to form sentences. “That explains why you were covering for me, but how did you find out my secret identity?”