I tap my pencil on my desk trying to figure out the homework problem I am working on in math. Stick me with a knife right now and put me out of my misery. (15-45)+2a/32=__, who would use this equation on real life is what I would like to know. Explain that to me and I might do the problems.
“Hey Ronnie what question are you on?” Danni whispers next to me. I turn my head to face her. I yawn, “seven, why.”
“Really? I’m on seventeen, I’m almost done!” She says happily. I roll my eyes up, ‘Woopty do. Thanks for sharing.’
I look back at my sheet and right down the problem again. Think, you know this, it’s simple. Order of operations, parentheses, exponents, multiply, division, addition then subtraction, simple.
I am almost done with number ten when the classroom phone rings. Everyone stops what they’re doing to watch the teacher pick it up then go back to their work. Classmates are weird, you show up late to class one day everyone looks at you like you’re a criminal, teacher leaves the room everyone automatically starts talking. What is it with classmates? I sigh and go back to doing my work. Halfway done when . . .
“Uh, Ronnie,” my teacher, Mrs. Barter, calls on me, “You need to come with me.” I feel my body tenses up with little fear as I stand up and admit to myself my classmates are watching me like hawks. I follow my teacher out into the hallway and she shuts the door. “Ronnie, go down to the office, police are there waiting for you.”
“What, why?” I ask paranoid. “I didn’t do anything, I sewer, and I would never do anything that bad for the police to come!”
“Ronnie, they are not here to arrest you, they are here to take you across the street to see your sister.”
My heart half sinks half relaxes as I hear that the police are not here to arrest me, but what happened to my sister. I hesitate for a minute then nod to my teacher. I walk down the hallway till I come to the schools office. My school is practically one long hallway with classrooms on each side. One part of the school holds kindergarten to fifth grade while the other part hold the middle school classes like seventh, sixth and eighth grade.
As I walk into the office two police men are sitting on a couch in the front of the office. They both stand up when they see me. “Are you Ronnie Carter?”
“Uh, yes.” I say. One suddenly comes over and points my arms straight out. “What are you doing?”
“Hold still.” He says as he pats me down from top to bottom. I want to squirm away from this man but I know better, angering a cop only makes things worse.
“Is she clean?” The other cop asks.
“Yes, John, she’s clean.” The other one asks standing up wiping his hands. He’s shorter than the one already standing up, John, I guess.
“Um, hey, what happened to my sister, I would like to know!” Both cops look down at me. John steps forward. “I found a knife in your sister’s boot when we searched the lockers today for drugs. She is waiting for us back at school.” My stomach flips in surprise. Kimberley, bringing a weapon to school? No, that’s not her. She wouldn’t do that . . . unless . . . she forgot to take it out of her boot. Crap.
“And what does this have to do with me?” I ask confused. This doesn’t make any sense.
“We need to have both siblings to make sure the other one is not carrying another weapons or drugs.” John, the taller one answers. “Come on, your sister is waiting.” Before I could ask any more questions, the police escort me out of the office, and outside the school.
I walk in between them as we walk to the road that divides the two schools. We walk across the street and enter the high school. Thoughts roam through my head as we find Kimberley, Blake and Jason waiting for us. Their principle, Ms. Lu, is sitting at her desk, her hands folded. She looks about in her late sixties and has blondish white hair with small sunglasses on. Kimberley sat in a chair in front of her desk. The knife is lying on the desk in front of the principle. The two police close the doors and Kimberley looks over her shoulder at me.
Her expression signified she doesn’t want to be here, and she is really pissed. She turns back around and faces the principle. “So Kimberley, the police said they found this in your boot when they were doing the drug check.” Blake and Jason were standing on either side of her. I stand next to Blake and look around to see Kimberley. Her eyes were narrowed and she looks like she wants to kick the principles ass.
“Yes they found it in my boot, but I didn’t mean to bring it to school. I brought it by mistake.” She pleads. “I swear!”
“Then how did it get in your shoe?” Ms. Lu asks. Don’t say it Kimberley, don’t say it don’t say it! If she gives away our outcast cover, we could all be in danger. But Kimberley is way smart for that.
“I accidently left it in there after training.” Kimberley, your and idiot, I think in my head.
“Training, for what?” The principle asks.
“Well, you see they are putting on a play where I live and I wanted to get the part of the demon who tries to kill a house hold. Yeah, and he takes a kitchen knife and tries to slaughter a little girl. I was practicing that scene earlier today before school, and since the demon puts the knife in his boot I must’ve left in there by mistake. I didn’t mean to do any harm really it was a complete miss understanding.” She smiles a liar smile.
“Well, I will still have to call your parents to see if you were not.” She says picking up the phone.
Kimberley’s smile fades and huffs. “Good luck with that.” She grumbles. Ms. Lu looks at her sternly and so do the police. “And why is that, Miss Kimberley?” Ms. Lu asks with edge in her voice.
“Because they’re both dead.” She says like a smart ass would. Jason nudges her and she realizes what she just said and tears start to roll down her eyes. She wipes them away quickly and looks at the principle who hasn’t moved.
“Okay, so who’s your legal guardian?” Ms. Lu asks calmly. Kimberley looks up at her but doesn’t say anything.
I sigh, “Logan, Logan McCarthy, he’s our legal guardian.” Ms. Lu searches through the files of the students and pulls out Kimberley’s. “Ah yes, Logan McCarthy, I have him right here.” She dials the number and puts the communication pad out in the middle of the desk where we can all see. Suddenly a projection of Logan’s upper body comes up. He’s holding his phone up to his ear and speaks, “Hello, this is Logan.”
“Yes, Mister Logan this is Ms. Lu the principle of Wover High School. I would like you to come down to see me. It seems that your . . . ,” she makes rotating gestures with her hand to Kimberley as she’s trying to find the right word to use for her. “It’s seems Kimberley has brought a deadly weapon to school and we would like you to come down and see if we can sort things out.”
Logan’s face looks shocked on the projection. “What kind of weapon?” He asks.
“A knife.”
Logan sighs, “I’ll be over as soon as I can Ms. Lu.”
“Thank you Mr. McCarthy,” Ms. Lu says. Logan nods before the projection closes. Ms. Lu sits back in her chair and looks up at the two cops, who were still in the room. “You may go back Miss Ronnie, the officers will take you. Then you two officers may leave, I know all the rest have left. Thank you for your assistance.”
“Just doing our jobs ma’am. Make sure this girl, though, doesn’t bring any more dangerous weapons to school.” John says. He then looks down at Kimberley and she looks up at him, slightly.
“Next time you will be punished, we allow a warning this time, but if this ever happens again, it will go on your record and you will end up in juvie.” Kimberley is quiet but nods. He then turns his head to me. “Come on, we’ll take you back.”
I don’t say anything but walk over to him. “By guys see you later.” I say before I walk out of the room with the two officers. The taller officer walks in front of me and the other one walks on the right side of me.
“Excuse me, sir.” He looks down at me. He looks more relaxed than John. His hazel eyes were not filled with rage like Johns but were just relaxed and calm. “I didn’t get your name?”
“My name,” he starts, “is Ricky.” He smiles at me and put a hand out.
“Well, nice to meet you, Ricky.” I shake his hand and we both smile at each other as we make our back to my school.