SIX 

 

I pressed against Jeannie’s door to listen. Here’s what I found out.

Ms. West had told Jeannie and some other teachers that there wasn’t any paper or markers or stuff left for the rest of the school year. But Jeannie said some teachers weren’t running short. And that she’d seen Mr. Brown with that projector too, after West told her the school couldn’t afford one.

But where were the supplies coming from? The supply room was empty.

“She’s hiding them somewhere,” said Mr. R. “and only giving stuff out to her bootlickers, like Brown. You know she hates you.”

I didn’t stay to listen. I knew where to look.

The door was locked, of course, and the shade pulled on the window. I tried to look under the door. Nothing.

Then I got lucky.

American History is my last class. Mrs. Reyes was showing us posters from WWI with the projector, the one I’d seen Brown with, not Jeannie’s. Then the classroom phone rang.

Mrs. Reyes listened and sucked in her breath. “I’ll be right there,” she said. Then she called the office. “I need a sub immediately.”

She grabbed her purse and ran out of the room, looking bad. Everybody was talking, wondering what happened.

A few minutes later, this dude walked in. I had seen him around school, but I didn’t really know what his job was. Like an aide or custodian or something I think. He was pretty young.

“Chill out, chill out,” he said, “or I’ll make you put your heads down on your desks until the bell rings.”

Somebody swore at him, but the guy just laughed.

“What happened?” everybody wanted to know.

The guy shrugged and said he thought it was Mrs. Reyes’s kid’s day care that called.

I was staring at the poster still projected on the screen when it came to me.

As the bell rang and everyone ran out, I went up to the guy.

“Umm, you know, Mrs. Reyes asked me to take the projector cart back to the room,” I said, wide-eyed.

“Uh, okay,” he said.

“But I need, like, a key for it. Mrs. Reyes probably took hers, but do you … ?”

“Oh, yeah, right. Uh, here,” he handed me his ID lanyard and keys. “Should just be one of those keys. Hurry up, I want to get going.”

I grabbed everything before he could think too hard about it and zoomed down the hall with the cart. The fourth key worked in the door, and I busted in and slammed the door closed.

I shoved the cart to the side and looked around quickly. Boxes of paper sitting on one of those wood platforms, two boxes of markers, two more carts with computers and projectors. Boxes of toilet paper, staples, pencils …

I heard someone in the hall. I ducked behind a box in the corner as the door opened. Two people were talking. Mrs. West and someone I didn’t know.

“We really don’t need this many projectors,” Mrs. West said.

“I’ll sell one for you if you give me 10 percent,” laughed the man who was with her.

They took some stuff and left.