Chapter 11: New Day, New Troubles

Tuesday came, bright and warm. It’s gonna be a hot day. I’m not looking forward to the heat, the tights get uncomfortable when I sweat. Need to look into tights with some natural fiber content, I guess. I’ll bring extra powder to use. After driving to school and parking, I walked into the building to my locker and then needed to find my home room. I had just stowed my junk and closed the locker when Abover sloped past, giving me a surprised look and a real scowl when he saw me. His face was an absolute mess, puffy blackened eyes, swollen nose, split lower lip (didn’t plan for that injury) and a big scrape on his chin (nor that one. Oh. Lip and chin. Happened during the first takedown. Right). He turned and headed in the direction of the office. I shrugged.

When I got to my home room, Denise was there. I put my Monday “late slip” on the teacher’s desk next to Denise’s. Denise saw me, came over, and took my hand.

“I thought of you all evening,” she said. “They were nice thoughts. Did you really mean it about my, uh, aura thing? How can I feel it? How does that work?”

I promised to show her how to start to do the meditation exercises that beginning students learn. Then I began to tell her about the police visit—she was shocked—when the final bell rang, so we sat. The teacher came in and looked at the slips and then looked around the room to see who was attached to those names. A second later the announcements came on; it was all routine stuff.

When they ended, the final words were: “Kevin Coris, to the main office, please. Kevin Coris.”

Man—will I ever get to have a normal day? I got up, grabbed my bag (didn’t know how long this episode would be), shrugged at the teacher (she’d have to wait another day to meet me), and left with a wave to Denise. She mouthed at me, “Be careful...” I waved again and shut the door.

When I got to the office Shirley (nameplate on her desk said Shirley Maples)—Mrs Maples—told me to go to C Wing, Room 117, Mr Abover’s office. Ah. He wants revenge, and he wants it in his private office. Hmmmm. Note to self. Self: Get a small digital voice recorder posthaste. My fallback position will be open door. No open door, no Kevin in room.

“Ah, the famous Mr Coris favors me with a visit,” he sneered when I knocked. “I was surprised to see you this morning. I was planning for a jail visit.”

Oh. If this is his natural voice (remember, yesterday I only heard him snarl, scream, squawk, and croak), then sneering fits him perfectly.

I ignored that. “Sir, you called to see me.”

“Yeah. Shut the door.”

“With all respect, sir, the door will remain open.”

“SHUT THE DOOR, I SAID!”

“I heard the first time, sir. If you must have it shut, then we will meet on its other side,” indicating the hall.

“YOU BASTARD! I’ll show you exactly who’s in charge here. For your behavior yesterday, for your rude comments to two teachers, and for your insubordination just now, I’m invoking the Program rule for disciplinary action. One week for each violation. Four violations. Coris, you’re on the Program for four weeks, not to be counted toward your required participation week. Strip.”

“Sir, I know with certainty who my parents are and can assure you they were married when I was conceived and born. Also you might be interested to know that at least two people in the hall just heard your shout, cursing me, and everything you said just after that. That’s extremely unprofessional behavior and you should be ashamed. I shall file a formal complaint against you and respectfully request your apology,” I said, mainly for the benefit of the listeners in the hall who had stopped to watch, out of Abover’s view.

“You’re a goddamned bastard, boy, I’ll be damned to apologize. I told you to strip!”

“Sir, as I told you yesterday, in case the minor inconvenience that occurred to your head made you forget, I respectfully decline your suggestion that I strip.”

“THAT WAS NO SUGGESTION, PRICK! IT WAS AN ORDER!” he roared. Good. Nice crowd gathering outside.

“Sir, my hearing is quite adequate. I’m only about three meters away—uh, about ten feet, this is the U.S.,” I observed mildly.

“Ok, then, scum, I’ll do it for you,” he shouted, taking a step toward me. I backed off two steps and assumed a relaxed defensive posture.

“Sir, stop. I think your head bump made you forget yesterday’s unfortunate accident. I’d prefer not to need to pay you a hospital visit during your recovery if you have another accident, ok?”

He roared a curse at me and took a partial step toward me; he was about six steps away now. I had unobtrusively hooked my foot around the leg of a chair standing next to the doorway and noted that about a dozen people had gathered about twelve feet (getting good at conversions now) away from the door; I was in their full view but they couldn’t see the chair nor Abover at all. His second step turned into a rush; with my foot I flipped the chair away from the wall into his path and hopped backwards into the hall and off to the side.

Abover came flying out of the room, scrabbling across the corridor, and crashing into the opposite wall. He had barely broken his fall with his right arm, but I could now see the arm was twisted at an odd angle. He sat up yelling and holding his elbow. Just then Dr Fletcher came hurrying up. He must have seen Abover doing his acrobatics demo in the hall, good. People were edging closer.

“What’s going on, Mr Coris?”

“Not sure, sir. Let me see.” I called to the crowd, “Someone have a mobile? Please ring 911, I think he needs an ambulance, he might have a broken arm by the way he fell.”

I motioned to Fletcher and then to the door. He walked to the doorway to look in.

“Ah, Dr Fletcher, look—that must have been what happened—he tripped over that chair and fell.”

“Mr Coris. Look. The chair is in there and Mr Abover is out there. I saw him just about fly out of the room. Just how could he have tripped?”

“Well, I’m not sure how that happened. Maybe he was running. He had called me a number of insulting names...” heads in the crowd were nodding in agreement “ ... so I told him that I’d wait in the hall until he regained his composure...” lots more nodding “ ... and then stepped out. I heard him shout something, uh, ‘wait,’ maybe? not sure, and then he came flying out, as you said.”

Many more nods and lots of “That’s what happened” “Yeah, I saw that too” “The kid wasn’t even in the room when Abover tripped; he was out here...” That got lots of yeses too.

I looked at Abover. His face was white and screwed up in agony. Nobody was paying any attention to him and he clearly was in no shape to join our conversation; then I heard the faint sound of a siren. I turned to Fletcher.

“Dr Fletcher, unfortunately I need to file a formal complaint against Mr Abover. For unprofessional conduct. He cursed me and called me insulting names.” I raised my voice. “Maybe someone in the hall heard, I’m not sure.”

“I heard,” came a voice. Oh, good! An adult! She stepped forward. “I’m Mrs Handly. I just dropped my daughter off at the office and passed by here and heard that man shouting obscenities at this boy. I could see the boy the whole time; he was just standing there, quietly and respectfully and answering with a soft voice—he never ever raised it and that man was bellowing at him and threatening him. Then the boy stepped out of the room and that man came flying out. The boy had to be maybe eight feet away—it’s not possible that he could have caused the accident.”

There were all kinds of sounds of agreement from the crowd.

The medics were arriving and as the crowd began to disperse, Dr Fletcher shouted, “Are there any other witnesses who have a conflicting observation?” No one answered. “I’d really appreciate it if some of you could come to the office to do an accident report. Only take five minutes.”