by C. L. Stone
“Kota Lee,” Ms. Johnson called in a stern voice. “What are you doing?”
Kota ignored her and put a cool palm across my neck. “Sang,” he said in a soft tone, and then urged me to stand up, supporting me under my elbow. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you were feeling sick?”
Sick? Oh. I’d thought I was just hot and nervous and overtired. Did I have a fever? And how had he known from that distance? I wanted to ask him to check and make sure.
It took a lot of effort to get my muscles to move to allow me to stand up. I wanted to sink to the floor and take a nap.
“What’s wrong?” Ms. Johnson asked.
Kota turned to her with a soft smile and reassurance in his voice. “It’s no problem, Ms. Johnson. Looks like she’s sick. I may have to take her home; I’m her ride.”
Ms. Johnson frowned. “Do you need to take her to the office to call her parents?”
“Her dad’s out of town on business,” Kota said. “And her mom’s in the hospital.” He tightened his hand on my arm. “I’ll come back to school. Just let me drop her off at home. She probably has the flu. It’s been going around.”
Ms. Johnson conceded, asking him to check in with the nurse before leaving school. Some of the kids moved away as I moved past, making comments about not wanting to get sick.
Kota grabbed my jacket and assisted me toward the door, leaving behind our bags. “Don’t worry about them,” he said. “Gabriel will get them. I’ve got my keys. Let’s go.”
Out in the cold air, I felt better, at least not as hot. I didn’t even need the jacket. When he tried to put it around my shoulders, I waved it off. “I don’t want it,” I said.
“I’d say you should,” he said, “but it is probably better you cool your body off a little.” He kept a hand on my back, walking me toward the school. “Sweetheart, why didn’t you tell anyone you weren’t feeling well?”
“I didn’t know,” I said quietly. “I just thought I was hot. And nervous about the new schedule. And tired...” I moaned, stumbling a bit but catching myself. “I really shouldn’t leave. She said if I was absent one more day...”
“You can’t be at school with a fever,” he said. “I’m hoping it’s the flu and not something worse.”
I didn’t even want to know what he thought worse was. I should have been more concerned with staying, but then I started shivering, my body suddenly too cold.
Kota stopped just before we reached the doors to go inside the school. He held me by my upper arms for a minute, looking me over. “You okay?” he asked. “Are you going to make it?”
It wasn’t like I had much of a choice. I couldn’t just sit down on the concrete sidewalk, as tempting as it was. For a second, I wondered if Ms. Wright would allow me to sit in suspension again. At least there I might get away with a nap and my body would be in a seat like she wanted.
Maybe I’d spend forever in suspension. That seemed reasonable at that moment.
Kota held open the door for us to get through, but the moment we were inside, he let the door go and swiftly picked me up.
My head spun at the movement and I held on tighter to him. “Kota...”
“You looked like you were going to fall over,” he said. “Let me take you to the car.”
“We should go to the nurse.” I tried to release my grip, hoping it would worry him less. “I can let her take my temperature and write a note. Ms. Wright will call the school board if I don’t do things right.”
He sighed and changed direction. Would he have really just left school without letting anyone know?
It seemed like Kota took forever to get to the nurse’s office. I wanted to suggest I could walk, as it was a short distance from where we were, but I was so tired...
He did let me go right outside the office’s front door, although he held on around my waist. “Maybe I’ll leave you with her,” he said. “And bring the car around closer. I’ll get someone to come stand by close while I’m gone.”
I couldn’t imagine who might do that, except for maybe Dr. Green or Mr. Blackbourne. Everyone else was still in class.
The nurse was busy checking the temperature of another student when we walked in. She took one look at me and then nodded curtly before returning to the other student. “You see that?” she said to her. “That’s a sick girl. I can tell already without taking her temperature. You’ll have to come in looking like that to fool me into thinking you’re sick.”
“I didn’t say I had a temperature,” the girl said, frowning as she looked at me, her hands pressed to her belly. “I...my stomach hurts. Cramping.”
“Then I’ve got Midol and a cot for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes only, you understand?” She shook a finger at the girl. “Your face is way too familiar to me for me to fall for this again and again. And don’t think you can fuss at your male teachers like last time. Periods are not your vagina ripping out of your body. And believe me, if you had endometriosis, you wouldn’t be standing, let alone sitting around, able to complain about it. The other thousand girl students at this school manage to get to school without incident.” The nurse turned to us.
I gritted my teeth, ready to get yelled at.
“Does she need a cot or does she need to go home?” she said kindly.
“Home,” Kota said. “But I’m her ride. She wanted to stop by and make sure to get your sign-off.”
“Good girl,” the nurse said. She pointed to a cot. “I’ll just take a quick temperature. It’s good I keep a record in case the administrators ask questions. Does anything hurt?”
My whole body felt like one big aching mess. I nodded, but didn’t say anything. Kota guided me to a cot, easing me down on it.
“I’m going to be right back,” he said. “I’m going to bring the car around closer. I shouldn’t be longer than a couple of minutes.”
“I should call her mother,” she said. “Or parents of some sort.”
“They aren’t home,” Kota said quickly. “I’ll make sure she’s safe.” He walked off in a hurry. I could hear his footsteps in the hall as he picked up his pace.
“Kids these days. Some of them parent themselves. Are you and him close friends?” She pressed her lips together and pointed an electronic thermometer in my direction, like she didn’t really expect me to answer.
I opened my mouth, letting her position it, though she put it a little too close to the base of my throat under my tongue, and I coughed, nearly spitting it out.
“Easy there, kiddo,” she said, holding the thermometer in place until I settled. “Your throat is looking a little red. This might be strep.”
I wished Kota didn’t have to leave, but there were only three of us in the nurse’s office. If he had gone to get Mr. Blackbourne to babysit, it would have been wasted time. The nurse seemed okay.
I slumped, sitting on the cot. It was tempting to lay down, but I worried if I did, I’d pass out and wouldn’t be able to get back up. I thought of Nathan’s bed and how I should take the couch so I wouldn’t get Nathan sick. I worried about the others, too, since they were always in close proximity. I hope none of them caught it.
Kota might.
The room got quiet as the nurse waited for the thermometer to beep. It did after a couple of minutes and she was just pulling it out when the door opened suddenly, sticking open as it wedged under a door stopper by the wall.
Ms. Wright appeared in the door, first sending death-ray glares at the girl sitting waiting for her Midol. Ms. Wright turned from her to the nurse, and then focused on me.
“I heard you were in here,” she said. “Do you think you can fake sick and avoid going to class?”
“She’s not faking it,” the nurse said, reading the thermometer. “A hundred and three fever. You’re lucky she’s even upright.”
“If she can sit upright, she can go to class,” Ms. Wright said. She sliced her hand through the air. “She was in suspension all last week. I can’t believe she’d be sick. I want her butt back in her chair right no
w.”
The nurse’s eyes bugged out, like they were going to fall out of her head. “How could you say that?” she asked. “You’re going to expose everyone else to this?”
“I’m telling you, she’s probably got a heater in her mouth,” Ms. Wright said. “She seems to be pretty good at getting out of school whenever she feels like it. I came down here to warn you before you released her. She’s been out for over thirty days this semester.”
That wasn’t true, and she had increased her number. I started to shake my head, but felt really weak and my throat was feeling scratchy. I didn’t have the strength to fight her right now, and didn’t care enough to. How could she not understand that this time I really was sick? I sighed sadly. How did she even know I was down here so fast? Was she monitoring me?
“Maybe I could sit in suspension again,” I said quietly, looking at the floor and accepting defeat this time. Kota wouldn’t like it, but at least I wouldn’t infect anyone. “Just until this fever goes away.”
“If you even have a fever,” Ms. Wright said. “No, you will go to class. I’m not going to allow you to get away with this continual line of excuses. You don’t get to go where you want to.”
“You can’t do that,” the nurse said. “There’s no way I will allow it.”
“You’ll allow it because I say so,” Ms. Wright said. “There’s no way she’s getting away with going home again after being out of school for so long. She’s cried wolf too many times, from my understanding. She’s going to have to suck it up.”
The nurse turned on her then, her eyes wide and her body in fight mode, with a fist around the thermometer still in her hand. “Have you gone insane?” she asked. “If I let this student go back like this, and her parents hear about it, I’ll be out of a job.”
Ms. Wright looked her dead in the eye. “Like what?” she asked. “She looks perfectly fine to me. I’m even willing to pretend she was never here.” She nodded to the thermometer in the nurse’s hand. “Turn it off. You never saw her today. She came to me instead for some guidance. That’s all. Or shall I talk to Mr. Hendricks about the nurse who won’t obey her superiors?”
The nurse sputtered, shaking her head. I just wanted to lie down and almost started to cry at the thought of going back to class.
There was another sudden movement by the door, and this time, I thought I’d finally passed out on the cot and had started dreaming.
Mr. Blackbourne, Dr. Green and another man were standing in what little space there was in the front part of the nurse’s office. Mr. Blackbourne was in his usual suit, with a flash of steel in his eyes as he faced off Ms. Wright. Dr. Green wore a green sweater and khakis, surveying the scene. The third man, in a dark suit, looked at all of the women in the room and was frowning.
“What is this?” Ms. Wright said, turning her back on the nurse and to face off with Mr. Blackbourne. “Who are you to barge in here? And what are they doing here?”
My cheeks heated and my eyes watered. Mr. Blackbourne and Dr. Green had finally come to defend me. Who was the third man, though?
“We need to have a little talk,” Mr. Blackbourne said in a quiet and yet powerful tone.
Dr. Green took one look at the girl in the chair and quietly went to her. He whispered a quick something to her and she instantly got up. Dr. Green escorted her to the door, and then shut it behind her after she left.
“I don’t know what you think you heard,” Ms. Wright said in a quieter, nervous tone, stepping sideways and away from me and the nurse. “I wasn’t serious. I was just trying to scare her a bit to fess up in case she wasn’t really sick.”
The third man approached Ms. Wright. He had salt and pepper hair and a handsome, angular face. “I’m afraid we’ve got ourselves in a bit of a pickle here,” he said quietly.
Ms. Wright pursed her lips tight and glared at him. She shifted her weight on her feet and then snapped at him like a viper. “I don’t know who you are, but you don’t have any authority here. This is none of your business.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, holding out his hand to shake. “I guess I’m not a familiar enough face around here. I probably should stop by more often. Joe Hertz, Mayor of Goose Creek.”
My lips formed a small “o” shape. Goose Creek was the name of the town the school was located in, so he might technically be an authority for the school. Mr. Blackbourne knew the mayor? I wondered if it was him who had asked the guys to come in and check out the school. My heart was beating a mile a minute. My breath quickened. I hoped I wouldn’t pass out just from the surprise.
The nurse reached for my hand, holding it in a reassuring grip. “It’ll be all right,” she said quietly to me. “You aren’t in any trouble.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. I looked at Mr. Blackbourne, who had the steel of his eyes focused only on Ms. Wright as the mayor spoke. Dr. Green, however, side-stepped them and quietly came to me. He gestured for the nurse to hand over the thermometer, which she did. He frowned down at the temperature and then touched my forehead. He drew a few calm fingers over my cheek and then urged me to open my mouth.
Really? He was going to examine me here in the midst of all of this? Despite me wanting to ask questions, he continued his inspection. The nurse must have been familiar with him, because she found a tongue depressor and passed it to him. He examined my throat, using his own flashlight on his key ring to look.
“I’m sorry,” Ms. Wright said, her eyes wide now, as she stepped closer to Mr. Hertz. She never reached for his hand. “You’ve come at a bad time. This girl has had multiple unexcused absences and I’ve been trying desperately to keep her in class. You have to understand, I was only trying to...”
“I know it must be tough being the counselor for this school,” the mayor said calmly. He put his hand down when it was clear she wasn’t going to shake it. “It can’t have been easy since Mr. Hendricks has been forcing more of his own duties on you. I understand he’s been promising you the principal position at this school.”
If Dr. Green hadn’t been examining me, I would have groaned. If Mr. Hendricks stepped down, she would become the principal? How horrible! In truth, if I’d been a good student and went to class like I should, I didn’t know how much worse she would be. Mr. Hendricks used students and teachers to spy on each other, on top of whatever else he was doing in secret.
Ms. Wright pointed at me. “Students like her are allowed to get away with almost anything around here. And who does the school board turn to with their questions? They look at me, not him. I’m the one responsible.”
Mayor Hertz shook his head, a small, tight smile turning up his mouth. “That’s what he makes you believe, is it? He does put a lot of pressure on you. It’s not your responsibility, it’s up to parents and the students themselves. We’re simply record keepers. Did he tell you that you could possibly go to jail, too?”
Ms. Wright didn’t speak out loud, but nodded her head, the puffy curls around her face shifting.
“He’s been spreading a lot of lies,” the mayor said. “It’s why I’m here today. To set the record straight with the faculty. I’ve gotten special permission from the school board to come here and let everyone know your jobs are secure for now.”
Was this why Mr. Blackbourne had been so quiet about his plans? He was going to bring in the mayor?
If the school board knew, I wondered if Mr. Hendricks’s partner, the super intendent, knew this was happening. And the third person in their group? The one we didn’t know the name of yet? What about him?
Suddenly, it made sense to me. They were trying to get Mr. Hendricks’s plan to backfire. His overstretching threats against their jobs were being pointed out now. When Mr. Hendricks’s power got revoked, when people saw his empty threats for what they were, what power did he have?
“But I need your help, Ms. Wright,” the mayor said. “He’s done a lot of damage here. I’m interested in saving the reputation of this school.” He nodded in my direction. “But I need you to s
top pointing fingers at this girl. She’s on a special mission here at this school. In truth, she’s only on loan.”
The lie was spoken so smoothly, that even I almost believed it.
She squinted her eyes at him. “Do you mean...”
“Yes,” he said with a small smile. “You were asked to ignore seven students on your registration and without much of a reason as to why. She was supposed to be among them—an eighth—but in secret from everyone else. I know you’ve been asking around about these students, and she’s done her very best to blend in while still being tasked to do what she was brought here to do.”
“You should have just told me sooner,” she said.
“I’m about to let you in on a very sensitive secret mission of mine. We may need your help to pull it off.”
They were going to try to work with her? I gripped the edge of the cot, wishing my head didn’t feel like it was full of cotton so I could focus better.
Dr. Green rubbed my back soothingly. “Hang in there, pumpkin,” he whispered.
“What do you need me to do?” Ms. Wright said, desperation in her voice. “You have no idea what it was like to work with Principal Hendricks. He’s...” She stopped, swallowed.
Mayor Hertz held up a hand, cutting her off. “I’m going to want to hear all about it,” he said. “Right now, though, I need you to do a little spy work for me. Nothing dangerous. Your job isn’t in jeopardy. We need you to pass along a message.”
“What message?” she asked.
“I need you to quickly go to Mr. Hendricks, wherever he is, and calmly let him know that you’ve been through all the student files, and outside of the usual troublemakers, there’s absolutely nothing wrong. I know after you went to him about the letter you got from the school board, he told you to give students hell and start suspending everyone, yes? That he’d fire you, or the school board will do much worse, if you were found neglecting your duties? Prove to him that you have completed your investigation and everyone is on the right track. No need to call in the school board, even.”