FIVE 

 

Because of that, I started paying attention to the teachers and school supplies. The picture in my head of Jeannie carrying her own toilet paper to the bathroom was pretty funny, until I saw another teacher actually doing it. Then it seemed messed up.

In some classes we didn’t get any more copies. We had to write down stuff from the board or overhead. Or sometimes we shared copies of worksheets that were all wrinkled and with doodles and crap written on the sides. Then we had to turn them in so the next hour could use them.

Teachers were a lot meaner about giving you a pencil or paper if you forgot yours. Everybody’s whiteboard markers were drying up, but they kept using them.

Ms. Jeannie had one of those fancy projectors, however. She showed us some It Gets Better videos, ones without swearing and stuff.

“Want me to take the projector cart back for you?” I asked her after class, all innocent. “I got lunch next anyway.”

“That’s sweet, Destiny,” she said, looking grim. “But this is my projector, not the school’s. And my laptop. And my—”

I really thought she was going to drop an f-bomb! “My … cart. Early Christmas presents,” she said. “But if you’d push it in the corner, that would be great.”

Hmmm, I thought.

A week later, I saw Mr. Brown coming out of the locked room. I always jiggled the handle when I went by so I knew it was always locked. He was pushing a cart with a projector and a laptop.

“Is that Ms. Jeannie’s?” I asked.

“What are you talking about?” he growled. “Get to class!”

“So-orry,” I said. My friends laughed.

Now I was really curious. Something was going on, and I wanted to know what.

I saw Jeannie stomping toward the office after school so I followed her in. She went into Mrs. West’s office.

The secretary asked what I wanted. I stalled, trying to listen, while she gave me the eye.

“Can I use the phone?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you all have your own phones?”

“No, ma’am, I forgot it,” I mumbled.

I messed around with the office phone, hunching over it.

“—YOUR mismanagement of school supplies if we are already out of basic things. Toilet paper! Copy paper! Markers! I’m going to ask the donors for the things I need to teach my students!” Jeannie was really yelling.

The secretary looked up and was about to tell me to leave when Jeannie came flying out of Ms. West’s office.

I went to Mr. R’s room.

“Umm, I think Ms. Jeannie wants you,” I said. “She’s pretty upset.”

I followed him as he hurried down the hall. He glanced over his shoulder before going into her room, but I was playing with a locker combination even though it wasn’t mine.

See, it’s so easy to snoop if people expect you to be there anyway. It’s a school, so of course there are kids around. Teachers see you, but they just assume you aren’t paying attention to them.