“Yes, yes, Mom,” said Maddie, exasperated. “I know the drill. Maddie is short for Madison, not Madelynne—my real name. My last name is Jennings, not Collins. We’re from Pennsylvania and lived outside the country for most of my life. I’ve only done this a million times in the last six years and across three continents. I’m better than an embedded CIA agent at this.”
“I know. I just don’t want your high school debut to be worse than you imagine it will be. It will be challenging enough without the press camping out here.”
“You do realize I can’t hide forever, right?”
Silence was her mom’s answer to the obvious. With nothing more to say, Maddie left the car as a distant bell rang and sent the two-legged zoo animals scurrying inside. A few kids glanced her way, examining Maddie for a millisecond before turning back to their friends or the games on their phones.
OK, Maddie-berry, she mused to herself. You’ve survived bullets, terrorists, bears, warthogs, and blood-sucking insects. Surely, high school won’t be so tough.
I’ve died and been flushed to the ninth sewer of hell.
There was no other way Maddie could describe what she had seen so far in American high school life. She felt like an extra on the set of a movie showcasing every high school cliché known to man.
The loud, muscular jocks were in full meathead mode. Cheerful, with smiles too large for their faces, artists and performers floated through the halls. Gamer boys and girls with lower fashion quotients than the male cast of The Big Bang Theory huddled like a fantasy movie warband. The jocks’ and gamers’ eyes all zeroed in on the pretty girl cliques as they sashayed through the halls. Then there was the earthy, acidic smell of patchouli-smelling weed enthusiasts mixing and mingling with cologne, scented hair spray, and perfume.
Maddie’s new classmates were a jumbled mix of stereotypes and cliques—a United Nations of Teenagers separated not by borders, but by name-brand attire, personality cutouts, and group disdain for the other groups surrounding them. As far as Maddie could see, there was only one normal human being on the premises: herself.
Maddie stayed low-key at the start of the school day, only speaking a few words to the small boy who had taken her to her homeroom. She felt the stares and looks of curiosity, most of all from a blonde she had dubbed “Cheerleader Girl.”
The blonde was in her homeroom and first-period English class. Maddie had ignored her in both, but now in her third class of the day, the girl was looking at her again and Maddie stared right back. Cheerleader Girl was every high school boy’s wet dream. Her hair was yellow to an extreme that could not be produced by Mother Nature. Sapphire-blue eyes commanded attention from boys and girls, while a shape made to order for a Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover filled out the cheerleader uniform she was wearing.
Maddie let her eyes fall to the girl’s chest and pondered which was a more frightening possibility: that parents might let a high school girl get breast implants or that girls really did come to school dressed in cheerleading uniforms. Maddie’s eyes lifted back up to the girl’s face. Cheerleader Girl raised an eyebrow; she had caught the direction of Maddie’s eyes. A sardonic smile played across her face, then she leaned over to another cheerleader and whispered in her ear.
They were in history class. The teacher, Mr. Y Leiro, did not spare a single glance at the whisper and giggle that followed in the middle of his class introduction speech. Maddie folded her arms on her desk and leaned down on them.
As Mr. Y Leiro droned on about history and immigration, Maddie’s mind wandered from boredom. A conversation she had with Zavier when she was young came to her.
“Uncle Z, Daddy is always complaining about boring meetings. Do you have boring meetings at your job?”
“I work for the government, sweetie. Our meetings are always boring.”
“What do you do? Daddy tries to hide that he’s sleeping.”
“Depends. If it’s a long one, I try to make it fun—turn it into a game.”
“How?”
“Usually by starting some trouble.”
Maddie giggled at the memory.
“Did I say something amusing, Miss . . .,” Mr. Y Leiro began, “Jennings.” The students had introduced themselves at the start of the class and written their names on dry-erase placards that now sat on their desks.
Maddie perked up. Everyone was looking at her. She could feel the beginning burn of embarrassment and decided to kill it. She looked at the whiteboard, which had the words “Past immigration vs. current immigration: How can there be a difference?” The words start some trouble echoed in her mind. She decided the memory was a message from heaven.
“No, sir,” she began. Her word choice elicited swift snickers from her classmates. “You did not say anything funny, but I do find it humorous to try and equate early immigration into America with modern immigration that has established rules and laws that have been agreed upon for people who want to come to this country. It’s like using ancient medical methods as the method of choice in a modern world of medicine.”
The class quieted with the bold statement.
“Interesting. So, you think rules, laws, and procedures are more important than compassion for undocumented immigrants who merely wish a better life for their family, much like the immigrants of Ellis Island?”
Maddie could not help but snort. “If I came to your house in the dead of night, sneaked in through the window, and raided your fridge for my quote ‘family,’ I don’t think you’d do anything but call the police.”
The class broke out with “oohs” and “aahs.” A few mumbled statements were also made that Maddie could tell were rude more by the tone than the words.
Mr. Y Leiro let the noise run a bit before he clapped his hands for quiet. He walked over to Maddie’s desk with a paternal smile.
“Yes, Miss Jennings, I would call the police, and when I saw that the people just needed food, a drink, and perhaps even a bath, I would help them, not have them arrested.”
“Alright! Party at Mr. Y Leiro’s house tonight,” shouted a boy from the back in his bid for class-clown status. A few hands banged on the desks, and shouts of agreement crisscrossed the room.
“Mr. Jocosa, you,” Mr. Y Leiro began, “I’ll let them arrest. Everyone else could stay.”
“Aww, man.”
As laughter at the joker’s expense rang out, Mr. Y Leiro turned his attention back to Maddie. “These issues are not black and white, despite how the dusty pages of history try to make them. In my class, you will learn that history is colored gray. The morality of America is literally covered in shades of gray.”
“Why is it that morality is always colored gray when someone wants an excuse for something they have done?”
Maddie turned toward the speaker. She sat in the back corner. Her shoulder-length blond hair framed a face that held a hint of makeup. Maddie could tell nothing about the clothes the girl wore, but she got the impression they were middle of the road. She looked normal, which is to say out of place with everyone else, just like Maddie.
“That is a fair observation, Tiffani. It is also fair to say that principle is a revolving door. It always rotates back on the person who wishes to judge the actions of others. This is a good start to the year. The rest of you could learn something from the participation of Tiffani and Miss Jenn—”
“Madison,” said Maddie.
“I resisted the placement of a student schooled by her parents in my advanced history class. Perhaps my misgivings were amiss.”
Maddie did not care for how Mr. Y Leiro phrased the words “schooled by her parents” like he was looking at something unpleasant. My mom was a teacher and a good one, you asshat, she shouted to herself. To the class and her new teacher, she put on a honey-dipped smile and raised her hand.
“Yes, Madison?”
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
Mr. Y Leiro hesitated and waved a hand toward the door. Maddie headed to the front of the class, but when she reache
d it, Mr. Y Leiro held up a finger. “Wait a minute.” He pulled a side drawer open, reached in, and pulled out a long piece of wood with the word “Lavatory” written on it. He slid it across the desk.
“What’s that?”
“Your hall pass.”
“What are we, a sketchy roadside gas station?” asked Maddie, incredulous.
Laughter erupted from the class. Mr. Y Leiro said nothing but slid the woodblock back toward himself. “Do you have to go or not?”
Maddie rolled her eyes and snatched the woodblock from the desk. “Yes. Though a paper pass would have saved a tree.” She turned and headed for the door.
“Miss Jennings . . .,” said Mr. Y Leiro just before she reached the door.
Maddie huffed. “Yes, Mr. Y Leiro?”
“Paper is made out of trees too.”
Maddie rolled her eyes and left before he could say anything else. She marched down the hall, ignoring the bathrooms. The only relief she needed was from aggravation. She needed some movement to calm her mood before the impatience both her mother and Uncle Z had chastised her about got the better of her. Mouthing off to a teacher on the first day was not a good look.
Galvin High was as large as a small-scale community college—at least to Maddie. She did not have a real reference point, after all. Each of the two main buildings had three floors with classrooms on either side of the hallways and a courtyard the inner classrooms wrapped around. Maddie was on the second floor and decided she would go down to the first, walk around the circle, and come back up before hitting the restroom.
Heck, I’m new. Maybe I’ll just wander around the school a bit. I’m just a poor homeschooled child. How could I possibly be smart enough to find the bathroom without the help of a “real” teacher?
She snorted in derision at her thoughts and took the stairs to the first floor. Other than a maintenance person or two, the halls were empty, which suited her just fine. She walked a full circle around the first floor and decided to head in the direction of the gym rather than go back upstairs. She felt silly walking around with what amounted to a billy club, but she was not ready to go back to class.
She took the back hall that looked out on the courtyard rather than walk past the offices in front. She was new but had little doubt no other teacher used a hall pass stolen from the 1960s. She kept it close to her so no one would see it if they spotted her. She breezed without incident to the T-junction at the end of the long hallway. To the left was the cafeteria. She went right toward the gym.
She had just turned the corner when she saw the bottom third of someone’s leg sticking out past the wall. Maddie giggled because the distance gave the illusion of the leg sticking out like a wall mount. There was a frantic shake of the legs, showing the person attached to them was struggling against something, then the leg snapped out of view. A yelp of pain followed.
Chapter Twenty
Without hesitation, Maddie sprinted to the end of the empty hall toward a door marked “Boys’ Locker Room.” That’s where the leg had stuck out from moments before.
“Get off me! Give that back. Stop it!” said a desperate voice on the other side of the door. Sadistic chuckles followed. Maddie’s eyes narrowed. She had watched enough Lifetime teen movies to recognize the tone of the laughter.
Bullies.
A voice in her head started mumbling about teachers, adults, and discretion. She kicked the notions away like a soccer ball. Maddie whipped the door open and thundered into the locker room. Two large boys were holding a smaller one off the ground and sideways. Maddie recognized the small boy as the one who had taken her to her homeroom just hours before. Both boys froze in their attempt to turn him upside down. A flash of fear passed in their eyes, no doubt because they thought they had just been caught by a teacher. Seeing Maddie instead turned their fear into puzzled surprise. A few feet from them stood an even larger boy holding a pair of glasses and a smartphone poised to take a picture.
“Put. Him. Down,” growled Maddie.
“This is the boys’ locker room. Get out and mind your own business,” said the larger one.
Maddie closed the distance between the boy holding the intended victim by two steps. “I said put him down.” She was looking at the two smaller bullies but addressed the large one. She assumed he was the ring leader and relegated the others to sad-sack henchmen.
The ring leader looked at her, his nostrils flaring. He was tall, blond, and blocky. In Nebraska, he would have been called cornfed.
“And I said mind your own business and get out of our locker room.”
“I asked you. Don’t make me make you,” said Maddie.
“Aden, it looks like Stevie-weenie has got himself a secret girlfriend that’s come to his rescue,” said one of the bullies, still holding their victim.
“Pleezzz. We all know Stevie is a little homo.”
“I am not!” said the small boy, his voice cracking.
The bully holding Steve’s feet dropped them and stepped toward Maddie. “Hey, guys, it’s the twenty-first century and all. Let’s show Lady Katniss here that we believe in equal opportunity fun. How about we take pictures of them both in a locker?”
“They’re small enough to fit. They can get all kissy faced—probably the only girl action Stevie will ever get.”
The groups’ dismissive attitudes grated on Maddie. She took another step forward, keeping her weight on the balls of her feet. A smirk filled with zero niceness spread across her face. “How about I kick you ‘in the closet’ butt buddie’s asses and take a picture of that!”
Eyes flared at the insult. The one called Aden dropped the glasses and phone to the floor. He pointed a finger at the one still holding their afternoon victim. “Put him away,” he said.
They started pushing the small boy toward an open locker when Maddie made her move. She threw her hall pass at Aden to distract him. The bully on her left was already reaching for her. Maddie stepped under his arm, grabbed it, and hip checked him. His forward momentum turned against him. He flipped over, crashing to the locker-room floor. Still in motion, Maddie pivoted to the right to send a backward kick in Aden’s direction. Her heel connected with his jaw, and he flew back into the lockers.
“Shit!” yelled the remaining bully. He let go of Steve, shuffled backward, and held up his hands, pleading “¡No más!” The sentiment evaporated the second his partner came up behind Maddie and wrapped his arms around her. He lifted her into the air and tried to push her toward an open locker. Maddie raised her feet and planted them against the lockers. She pushed out against them like a bodybuilder exploding up in a squat. She and the bully flew backward, careening into the lockers behind them with a bam! But the bully held on tight to Maddie. She eliminated his grip with a sharp backward toss of her head, which resulted in a satisfying crunch of collapsing cartilage, followed by a bellow of pain. The arms holding her dropped. She leaned forward, then drove an elbow back into the bully’s gut.
“Aden, this bitch is crazy,” said a voice to her right.
Maddie turned in the voice’s direction and saw one bully standing unsure and looking to the large one, Aden, for directions. Aden smirked but held his hands up in peace.
“Yo chill. No need to get all Black Widow on us. We were just messing with our bud. We put him in lockers. He hacks our phone and computers, making our parents think we’re into Donkey porn.”
“Donkey porn?”
The comment had the desired effect. Even as Maddie’s face scrunched up in WTF confusion, Aden stepped forward. His hand shot out like a cobra, striking Maddie in the face with an open palm. The impact sent colorful stars across her eyes. The sting, however, meant nothing to her. The blow had been openhanded—a total insult.
Maddie screamed and jumped at him. The yell was a distraction, the wild jump a feint. Aden flinched. He shifted his weight back on his heels, which put him off balance. Maddie took advantage. She sent a left cross into his face, snapping his head backward.
“What
the hell is going on here?”
Two male teachers entered the locker room just in time to see Aden step inside the follow-up kick Maddie was sending toward his head. He grabbed her leg, lifted her from the floor, and slammed her into the bank of lockers. The teachers grabbed Aden from behind before he could do anything else.
Later, it would occur to Maddie that if she had just lain on the floor, looking hurt and helpless, she could have gotten away with almost everything. However, that notion came to her when she was calm and clear-headed.
Now, she was not calm. She was pissed.
Maddie shot up from the floor to take advantage of the opening the two teachers holding Aden gave her. She took one step forward, then jumped into the air, fist pulled back. You would expect to see Gina Carano use that type of move in a Hollywood movie. Her fist crunched into Aden’s face. Blood splashed from his nose and landed on the lockers and the teachers’ faces. Then all four of them—Maddie, Aden, and the teachers—were falling to the floor. Someone behind Maddie grabbed her arms and picked her up. She managed one last desperate kick that struck Aden someplace on his face. Then she was pulled away.
“Calm down, young lady!”
The words had the tone and volume of an adult. Maddie stopped struggling against whoever was holding her. One teacher was restraining Aden, while the other kept trying to lift Aden’s head up so they could stop the waterfall of blood streaming from his nose. Maddie could taste the salty, metallic tang of her own blood pooling in her mouth. Without regard to anyone around her, she spat the blood out.
“No wonder you three jerks need to pick on people smaller than you,” said Maddie. “You hit like pansies!”
Chapter Twenty-One
A silent battle raged over who was more furious. On one side, leaning against the wall, eyes blazing, stood Maddie’s father. Two resource officers flanked him—a less than subtle precaution to prevent him from acting on a notion to step across the crowded office to snap Aden’s neck. Derek’s parental fury was matched in intensity by the severe woman sitting in front of Principal Devin’s large desk. Sophia Maier had hair the color of a rising sun, but no warmth emanated from her. Maddie had taken one look at the woman when she walked into the office and thought, Cersei Lannister in the flesh. The look she had given Maddie after seeing her son’s face confirmed the comparison. It had been cold death.
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