Chapter 15

Neither Vicki, Zoe, I or the teacher spoke as we walked to the front office. We were seated in the outer waiting area, and were instructed to sit silently. About fifteen minutes later a female uniformed police officer came in, and walked back to the principal's office. After ten minutes, both came out and asked for Vicki. Twenty minutes later, they changed her for Zoe. I just sat as people slowly built up in the office. While Zoe was in the office Margaret, Mrs. Bell and another woman I had to guess was Vicki's mom showed up. They went into the office and moments later Zoe came out.

After a few minutes, I could hear voices starting to rise. I couldn't make out the words but someone was shouting. Eventually the Principal came out and brought us all back into the office.

"Cas, this officer has questions for you. While your two friends are not in any trouble, I requested that the officer wait to talk to you until your parent could be here, as you are a minor. I think you should be aware you are being considered as a suspect in a crime."

I was shocked, "A crime? But I defended myself. Margret, if I am being accused of doing something wrong, shouldn't I have a lawyer."

Margret sounded annoyed, "Just answer her questions, Caspian."

Mrs. Bell looked mad enough to spit nails, but refrained from saying anything. I noticed the officer had a name tag that said Jawarski.

"Mister Grey, please explain to me the circumstances where you assaulted those other juveniles."

"Assaulted? I didn't assault anyone. They have threatened me several times since our first run in. They were there waiting on me, and attacked me when I went outside. I asked them not to do it, and to back away. I also sent Zoe, immediately to find a member of the faculty."

"So you have assaulted them previously?"

"What? No."

"I have a report where you were present in a previous confrontation with some of the same kids."

"They were trying to rape Zoe. What was I supposed to do? I was defending someone else, that day; and defending myself, today."

Mrs. Bell had enough, "He is clearly the victim, here. Why are you attacking him?"

"Mrs. Bell, we have been over this already. You will refrain from interfering in my investigation. If you have another outburst, I will ask you to leave."

Margret still said nothing.

"I have witness who will back me up that I was defending myself. Do you have someone saying I went out and just attacked those guys?"

"The only witnesses are the two girls you are apparently dating. That does not give their account a lot of credibility. Currently the other juveniles are not talking and no one is filing charges. But that may happen in the future. I strongly suggest you take the appropriate disciplinary actions, Mrs. Polaski. This young man clearly has a propensity for violence, and is a danger to your school."

With that she closed up her notepad and walked out of the school. I was stunned into silence. Margret just glared at me and said we would talk when I got home, and walked out. Finally, I looked at the Principal.

"You are not in trouble, Cas. At least not at the school. I know you did not instigate the fight, and I know you probably tried to avoid it. I understand you are helping with something with the JV football team, please go out and join them."

I walked numbly out of the office, only barely aware that Vicki and Zoe were holding my hands. When I got out of the office, I stopped and turned to the unidentified woman.

"Are you Vicki's mom?"

"Yes."

I reached out to shake her hand, "I am sorry we are meeting under these circumstances. Please know that I think your daughter is a wonderful person, and I am sorry she got involved in this mess."

"Thank you for saying that. I was a little concerned, but Angela," she said, indicating Zoe's mom (which was good, since I did not know that was her first name), "assured me that you are a good person. I am going to take Vicki home, but I promise I will not hold these events against you."

"Thank you, ma'am."

When she left, Mrs. Bell gave me one of her hugs.

"I took the rest of the afternoon off, when the school called. I would like to watch your workout with the team, and then take you and Zoe home."

"Thanks for supporting us, Mrs. B. Also, I am sorry Zoe had to get involved in this. Please know I would never do anything to get her hurt."

"I know, Cas. You don't have to worry about me."

That done we walked to the practice field as I tried to get ahold of my raging emotions.

When we got out to the field Josh and a bunch of other guys ran up to us.

"Dude, we heard you got into it with Tony and Tyler."

"Yeah, it's okay, though. Just one scratch. Everything's fine."

Zoe was still pretty angry from what had happened in the principal's office.

"It isn't fine. The police were there, and made it sound like he picked the fight and attacked those guys. The officer talked about filing charges, and suggested he be expelled."

There were a bunch of gasps, and a few people said 'no way'.

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing. There is nothing that I can do. They said right now no one was pressing charges against me, and the principal said she had no plans on expelling or suspending me. Now let's drop this, we are late to do our workout. Everyone out on the field."

I then led them through thirty minutes of the most brutal workout I could put together that I thought was doable. I knew this first time would be extra hard on them and it was. A bunch of the guys didn't make it all the way through, but they would improve the more we did this.

We did push-ups, sit-ups and mountain climbers. We ran the bleachers. We did exercises that would fatigue one muscle group and then immediately jumped into another muscle group, only to return to the fatigued muscles right after. We never stopped moving for the whole thirty minutes. By the end I was sweating pretty hard, and had to take a second before I could start speaking to them again.