Chapter 11

I pulled into the lot, parked, and killed the engine. It felt good to be back. I climbed out and grabbed my backpack from behind the seat. 'This ought to surprise Robbie and Tami, ' I thought, grinning to myself. Surprising Monster Girl was never easy and almost worth a week of suspension if I could.

I walked in the front door and stopped in the main hallway. I was kinda surprised that it didn't feel different. The hall was mostly deserted. I glanced at my watch. Second period had started six minutes ago. I wished the hall had been deserted, cause the only people I saw were Mr. Parker talking to Frank, one of the janitors.

Parker saw me, and the look on his face wasn't what I would call friendly. He took a couple steps toward me, then turned and walked quickly the other way. I decided this wasn't a good time to question luck and walked to the office.

"Good morning, ladies," I said, tossing my backpack at the foot of the counter.

"You're back!" Stephy Ward yelled, rushing around and hugging me. Cassie Saunders and Miranda Watkins, the other two office aides, just smiled, but Stephy had been one of my gymnasts last year.

"I need a tardy slip," I told Miranda, with Stephy still hugging my side. "I'm not sure if it's going to be excused or un-excused since I hadn't known I had school today."

"I already have it here," Mrs. Hatcher said, from her desk. I came around, disentangled Stephy, and took the slip. "Mr. Reed would like to see you," she added.

I nodded. "Ladies," I said, tipping an imaginary hat and walked back to the principal's office. Then I hesitated. "Is he in here?"

"The other one," Mrs. Hatcher said without turning around. Parker had moved into Mrs. Jeffries office as soon as he became acting principal and apparently hadn't moved out yet. I moved to the other door and knocked.

"Come in."

I nodded to the girls again, opened the door and walked in.

The room was mostly bare. Mr. Reed had a picture frame on his desk, and that was the only decoration. Without seeing the front I knew it was his family. He had a wife, a boy here in the high school, and two girls in the middle school, one sixth and one eighth.

"I like what you've done with the place."

The look he gave me wasn't the friendly greeting I'd expected.

He looked back down at the file he'd been reading. There was a chair in front of his desk. I sat down.

Maybe Tami's telepathy thing is contagious, cause I suddenly KNEW the file he was reading was mine.

After a couple of minutes he looked up and smiled. "Tony, glad to have you back."

I returned the smile. "Glad to be back."

"This," he tapped the folder, "makes interesting reading."

"I'll bet it does."

He picked up a paper. "Recommendation for suspension in the seventh grade for fighting." He set that one down and picked up another. "Suspended in the eighth grade for disrespect to the vice principal." He exchanged that paper for the next one in the stack. "Suspended as a freshman for unauthorized publication."

I was beginning to wonder if I should have stayed in bed.

He picked up three more papers. "Then last year, recommendation for suspension for refusing to take a test." He shuffled the first paper behind the others. "Recommendation for suspension for disrespect to a teacher." He shuffled the papers again. "And recommendation for suspension for leaving school without permission."

He set all the papers down and looked at me. "Then you started this year off with a suspension the very first day for disrespect to the principal."

I wondered if his reading material had just lost me a friend. Actually, when you put it that way, I wondered if I shouldn't just slit my throat and get it over with. It didn't sound like the kind of record that Stanford or Harvard would jump at.

"Tony, are we going to have a problem?"

"I hope not," I said after a long pause.

"But you're not making any promises?"

"No, sir."