to school that morning. She was funny that way – whenever something stressful befell me, she would make every effort to avoid my riding the bus. As though a break from that giant yellow beast with its troglodyte passengers was a healing gift. She wasn’t wrong. But the magnanimity she placed upon the personal drop-off service was perhaps a little over the top.
My mom had kissed me gently on my still-swollen cheek. Getting a tooth pulled was no joke, and the hole in my mouth was a little more tender than I had let on. Any sign of weakness and I’d be staying home. And she would have likely stayed home herself and force-fed me love and ice cream. Any other day, this would be a veritable dream come true. But important stuff beckoned.
I flashed a quick Spock sign at my mom. She returned the gesture and sped away. I was armed with a little plastic baggy of extra-strength Tylenol and a note that I was to turn in to the nurse’s office. Any medication or anything remotely resembling medicine has to be kept in the nurse’s office, and then you have to race there between periods to convince Nurse Ron to let you access it.
I thought this protocol was extremely silly if not superfluous – if I’m old enough to take a grownup dose of Tylenol, surely I was old enough to keep track of the little orange tablets. But one time Declan Myers had that same thought, and he was suspended for, like, three days when someone caught him popping an aspirin with his orange juice the day he returned to school with his broken wrist set in a cast. So, I obligingly trudged to the main office to turn over my illicit drugs and dentist note.
“Ms. Archer, we’ve been expecting you,” the secretary’s flat voice greeted me.
She added some quip about having a case of the Mondays (it was Thursday) and needing coffee. I shrugged and continued into the principal’s office. I wasn’t certain that I was told to go in there, but I sat down in one of the chairs facing the large wooden desk anyway. I had regularly studied the lineup of the furniture. Four different chairs – different sizes, shapes, fabric, everything – sat rigidly against the wall. I wondered if there was some sort of test associated with them, some litmus agent for judging a person’s character. Like if I sat in the puffy overstuffed one with red and gold pinstripes on the far end, they’d know me to be a liar. But if I sank into the delicate wooden cane chair with the navy upholstered pad tied to its seat, I was surely a truthteller.
“Eve, thank you for coming in.”
Principal Fernhouser sauntered into his office with a watering can in one hand and a box of donuts in the other. He set the box down on his desk, not yet looking at me, and turned toward the windowsill with his watering can. I had to applaud a man who brought his own watering can from home, though judging by the state of his plants, this dedication was a bit past due. He hummed as he watered a very dead orchid stem, a thirsty spider plant with its grasses still intact, and two very shriveled ferns. The latter seemed ironic, given his name.
I studied the box of donuts and my stomach growled. They were not mere donuts, but crullers. The cruller was the lightest, fluffiest, and most delicious of all donuts. My mouth watered, which made my tooth hole burn. I winced in pain and let the tiniest groan escape from my mouth. Principal Fernhouser spun around and gasped upon seeing me.
“Eve! Your face! Your disfigurement! It’s astounding!”
“Uh, thanks.”
“I didn’t understand. But seeing you now, well I understand the severity,” he said, holding out his hand to me.
“That’s … great,” I said, uncertain what to do with the freckled, veiny hand extended toward me. I kind of lightly slapped the side of it in a lame attempt at the world’s worst hi-five.
“Is it painful? The physical wound, I mean. I can’t even fathom the psychological pain.”
“It’s not so bad now,” I said, looking toward the exit anxiously.
Had my principal always been this odd? I was used to his pedantic lectures cautioning against whatever ill-mannered thing I had done that time, which I would tune out. This, though, this fricassee of pity and attempted conversation was uncomfortable and unending.
“I am so, so terribly sorry that things escalated to that,” he said sympathetically, his lower lip jutting out into a pouty frown. (This is one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever witnessed to date.)
“Yeah, well, I never flossed, so, you know, whatever,” I wasn’t especially talkative this morning. Moreover, I was caught off guard by his rather extreme concern for my oral health.
“No, Eve. Not ‘whatever.’ We take safety here seriously,” he shook his head gravely as he spoke.
Now I just wanted to escape. My extracted tooth had this poor husk of a man swirling in some sort of existential headspace that I wanted no part of.
“We hold our students to a higher standard, and for one of our own to be a victim of this…”
“Look, I’ll brush more, I promise! Easy with the victim talk; it will be fine. I just need to give this to the nurse,” I fidgeted around for the baggie of Tylenol.
“Eve, what are you talking about?” Principal Fernhouser frowned at me. “You were struck! You must be feeling so many things. Please, you can talk to me. This is a safe space.”
“Struck? I mean, it felt like that, I guess, but the dentist was really just doing his job,” I was trying to be agreeable, but I shifted my weight side to side uncomfortably.
“Dentist?” he repeated, puzzled.
I got up, suddenly aware of what the confusion was.
“Oh, you think I was the one – I, uh, well, thank you so much for caring,” I stammered, quickly trying to gather my backpack by its unwilling straps.
I had duct-taped my bag back together the best I could last night, but this morning my shoddy craftsmanship was really hampering me. My face reddened and my fingers grew shakier under Principal Fernhouser’s judging gaze. It was clear now: he thought I was the punchee, not the puncher, involved in yesterday’s squabble in the art room with Libby. And my stupid swollen cheek, tender from dental work yesterday, wasn’t helping.
“You really are a princi-pal, you know?” I said quickly, hoisting my bag up and bringing it to a bearhug against my chest again. “I never really got that pun until now. But you – you nail it!”
With one swift movement, I swiped a cruller from the box and dashed around the corner to the hall toward the nurse’s room. I desperately wanted to get out of the central office, but I had one more task to complete this morning.
“Eve! Eve, get back here, young lady!” Principal Fernhouser screamed from his office, his voice cracking, “I’ll not be made a fool of! This is my school! MY SCHOOL!”
I could hear him loudly clear his throat and then repeat his bellowing, his voice growing higher in pitch the more irate he became. More cracking. Then more coughing.
“Dangitall, someone get some get me some water or some coffee or something! And Eve, you’re expelled! EXPELLED!” Angry whispering broke his threat. “Fine. Er, well, I can’t do that, but you are suspended! Suspended, Eve Archer!”
His cracking voice fizzled behind me as I took off down the hall. Around the corner I beheld my mission target: the nurse’s office. The door was ajar, but the room was still dark. Keeping the door open to let in light from the hall, I quietly opened every drawer and cupboard until I found the booty I was after. The Epi-pen stash.
I heard the principal and the secretary discussing my “criminal” behavior. I frowned, listening. Principal Fernhouser had it all wrong! I had not used theatrical face makeup to deceive him and make him think I was the victim! I mean, I was a victim of an unsteady dentist’s hand, but that was it. All of this because I decided to be honest about packing forbidden Tylenol to school. Lesson learned.
I placed my cruller on the counter and grabbed the bin labeled Epinephrin Autoinjectors. I flipped through piles of bagged epi-pens, searching for a name. I didn’t want to take one of these little guys from someone who actually needed it. That would be unconscionable! Ah-ha. I lifted up the bag, reading the name Brennant Masterson. Recollections of his arrogantly correcting teachers during attendance – “it’s ‘Brehnn-ehnt.’ With a T” – made my eyes roll. That little twerp didn’t have any more of a thistle allergy than I did. And thistles? Really? Was he worried a fellow middle schooler was going to come after him with a pile of weeds? Or maybe pelt him with an artichoke in the cafeteria?
“Thank you, Brennant. And godspeed,” I mumbled, overemphasizing the t, as I shoved the epi-pen bundle into my backpack.
Armed with my stolen goods, I crouched to the side of the door frame and scanned the hallway to the left and right. All quiet. I always imagined more people worked here, but now it seemed alarmingly understaffed. Down the hall, Principal Fernhouser was still whining about being forced to start his day terrorized by my delinquency.
“He wishes,” I snorted.
I slapped my hand on my mouth. What a time to get caught! Exercising greater caution, I crept out of the nurse’s room. The skinny halls of the main office were carpeted with a weird brownish gold carpet that made the building seem much older than it was. I swiftly turned left down the hall away from the principal’s voice, and, following my own sort of yellow brick road, found the rear door that opened up to the staff lounge. It was a risky move, but I couldn’t chance going through the main office’s front doors again! They weren’t accessible without passing both Principal Fernhouser’s office and his loyal secretary. And who knows what kids were already in trouble and awaiting punishment up there now.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, hoping, praying to all the deities out there – real or made-up, I didn’t know nor did I care – that this staff lounge was vacant.
“Here goes nothing.” I pushed against the door with my forearm. It didn’t budge. I pushed harder. The door swung open to the sound of a woman’s cry. And there, in front of me, flat on her back in the doorway, was Ms. Neally.
I froze, holding the stolen cruller in one hand and clasping my broken backpack against me with the other hand. Ms. Neally, dressed neatly as ever in a pretty grey silk gingham dress, struggled to get up. I leaned forward and offered her the donut hand. She waved it away with a delicate flick of her wrist, so I shifted my weight and offered her my other arm. Holding onto my forearm – the very forearm that had forced the door open and sent her flying backward – she pulled herself upright.
“You really should get yourself a new bag, Eve,” she said simply. “You might need that right hand, especially when your left is so …” she gestured dramatically over my donut, “stickily occupied.”
“I’m really sorry, honestly, I didn’t mean to, I was just going,” I stopped, uncertain how to explain what had brought me to that exact point in time. Then without thought I blurted out, “Please don’t suspend my library privileges!”
Ms. Neally smiled good-naturedly. She smoothed her long skirt and adjusted her delicate glasses. Standing directly in front of me, she was barely taller than I. She leaned in quite close to me – close enough I worried about getting cruller glaze on her lovely silk dress – and stared into my eyes.
“You must go. Now. NOW.”
Her usually light and feminine voice turned dark and I startled.
“What?” I asked, confused and fearful all at once.
“Go now, Eve of Dragons,” she repeated in the same dark tone. Her eyes widened and locked on mine. I blushed. Her pupils and the whites of her eyes clouded over into a steely gray.
She looked possessed. By what, I don’t know, but the pallor of her chocolatey skin grayed as her eyes clouded over and her arms hung limp at her sides.
“Go now, Eve of Dragons.”
“Ok! Um, thank you again for that book!” I shouted at her as I shimmied around her and took off running.
I didn’t know how to leave this tiny creature whom I had only known as the guardian of my refuge – the noble library. I was suddenly scared of her and in awe of her and very certain she was more powerful than I had ever considered her to be (which was not powerful at all. Like, at all).
I glanced back at her as I sprinted across the empty staff lounge. She stood, grayed and wild, with a sort of glow around her. Her gray dress, her eerie visage, made her look like a marble statue.
The drab staff lounge opened to the back hall near the math and science commons. The second bell had already rung, so there was no chance of me running into anyone, and gratefully that included Mr. Simmons. He liked to pop out into the open areas between classes to “jive with his students,” as he called it. I don’t know what jiving meant, nor did I want to find out. But with class in session now, he would already be boring someone with word problems about acorns and speeding cars.
I slowed my pace past the math and science classrooms and headed to the drinking fountain against the back wall. I collapsed onto one of the weirdly square lounge chairs clustered there and sighed heavily. Maybe it was the events of the morning, maybe it was the dentist-induced restless sleep I had had, but I was suddenly remarkably tired. An exhaustion settled over me and my eyelids immediately drooped.
My left hand cramped. The cruller! I was still holding it! Sleepy though I was, I fished a crinkled napkin out of my bag and carefully laid the donut upon it, inspecting its lovely glazed ridges. I stretched my hand and wiggled my fingers.
“I will enjoy you,” I said aloud to the cruller, “but first, I need a little help.” I produced the baggie of Tylenol and, throwing two of the little orange pills into my mouth, I walked over to the drinking fountain. Everything was working out after all, I thought, massaging my cheek a little in the fountain’s cold water. Wiping my mouth with my sleeve, I turned back toward the chairs.
“Gah!” I gasped. “Why are you always popping up everywhere?”
Jonah grinned strangely at me.
“You found my hiding place. Unforeseen, but I’m curious now,” he said, jumping up onto one chair and then across to the other.
“The creepy lounge by the drinking fountain is your hiding place?” I asked, not caring if he answered.
He hopped back and forth to each chair, as if standing on the school furniture in his shoes was daring or cool. I folded my arms, unimpressed, and looked away. He kept leaping. As he landed on the opposite cushion, his foot planted on the donut, its delicious innocence squishing out from beneath his shoe.
“My cruller!” I yelped. Then I kind of smiled, my eyelids dropped, and I felt my knees buckle. Down I went, feeling a heavy slumber imminent.
“Nooooo … not this again,” I groaned as my body melted under me.
I forced my eyes open. Jonah’s smug face looked down at me, a chunk of donut hanging out of his mouth. He chewed sloppily and noisily right in front of face. It was disgusting. The gall!
“My …. cruller …!”