Pocket Hole

Pocket Hole Chapter 2

Kristin didn't resort to another physical attack. In fact she hardly raised her voice. For twenty seconds she calmly expressed what could only be described as a quiet tirade. Mr. Bower cleared his throat no less than six more times, and he didn't say another word. When Kristin was done she stormed around her desk, picked her beret off the floor, and left.

Detention!

The alien ring of that in her head was like curry in sugar cereal. It seemed impossible that anyone could think she and detention could go together. It was almost a miracle she even knew where detention was. When she was a teacher's aid last year she had been asked to deliver a flyer to the teacher in charge of detention. That had been Mr. Adorvak, a mousy man with multiple face twitches. Kristin was pretty sure he had retired this year. Who had replaced him was anyone's guess. The sad little room was stuck way on the other side of the shop classes. For good reason, Kristin supposed. Most detentioners probably came from the bottom feeders infesting shop anyway.

Kristin marched down the center of the main hall, though for the first time in her life a part of her wanted to slink along the side. She knew she didn't have a scarlet letter sewn anywhere on her person, but it wouldn't be long before everyone knew where she was spending her day. She thought of just slipping out of school and going home, avoiding the humiliation altogether, but her father was working from home today, and if anything could be worse than the ridicule of her peers, it would be telling her father she was home because she didn't want to sit in detention.

So Kristin walked down the middle of the hallway like she was emperor, and the few students she passed didn't seem to doubt that status. Kristin passed the lunchroom, the smell of fine cuisine absent. This and the added stench of approaching detention made her stomach turn. She liked to be in control, and this was not a moment where she was getting her wish. The demon that often pressed against her chest was pressing.

Kristin slipped by the shop classes and then at last came to the lonely room at the far end of school. Detention by any other name. The door itself seemed to approach as she neared, growing exponentially in size as she drug her feet the final twenty paces. The rectangle of open doorway didn't even seem squared to her, the edges off kilter and distorted like an entrance to a wax museum. This side of the school was the old part, almost thirty-five years old and aching for a wrecking ball. There was chipped paint and dents or scuffs anywhere one cared to look, though the door frame, and what Kristin could see of the open door and beyond, seemed especially worn and in need of replacement.

She began to work through in her mind the excuse she would use to whomever she was forced to sit by. She expected the room would be packed to overflowing with the dregs of Wildcat refuse, but when she finally stood at the door, which upon closer inspection didn't seem all that worn, she found the room empty.

Except for Mr. Adorvak's replacement.

Kristin couldn't help but stare.

Mr. Adorvak's replacement was an immense woman with gray hair that clung to her head in tight, greasy curls. Immense didn't quite fit the bill. The woman was circus big and bigger than that, like here was the person who had eaten the fat lady . . . and the bearded lady as well. The gigantress wore only a housedress, and Kristin couldn't fathom what store the woman went to. What back alley strip mall could you buy housedresses big enough to outfit sail boats with crews of thirty?

The woman seemed to be asleep at her desk, and her massive forearms, crossed over her ponderous belly, rose up and then floated down at each breath like twin ocean liners. Kristin couldn't believe she hadn't heard anything about this creature. There should rightly be rumors, even myths surrounding the detention gorgon. Why were there no stories? The only answer that made sense to Kristin was that no one who entered this room ever came out.