“You two sit there,” the playground monitor says to Cynthia and me, sounding both angry and worried as she points to two chairs outside the principal’s office. The principal’s door is open, but he’s probably in the hallway, jumping out and saying “Hi!” to unsuspecting kids coming in from lunch. “Mrs. Tollefsen can slap a bandage on that knee for you when she gets back from the ladies room,” the monitor tells Cynthia, talking about our school secretary. “The nurse isn’t here on Thursdays.”
It is obvious from the look on her face that Cynthia does not like this news about the missing school nurse one bit. “She’s not?” she squawks. “But this could be serious!”
Yeah, right. A “serious” skinned knee with three tiny dots of blood on it. Okay, maybe four.
“I think you should call my mom,” Cynthia says, tears filling her eyes again.
My dad calls this “turning on the waterworks” when Alfie does it.
“We’ll let Mrs. Tollefsen decide about calling your mother,” the playground monitor tells Cynthia, peeking at her watch. “I have to get to class. Do you think you two can control yourselves for a couple of minutes?”
“Yes,” I mumble.
“I guess,” Cynthia says, scootching her chair away from mine an inch or two—so she won’t be infected by my badness. Or in case I start whirling her around again.
And all of a sudden we are alone.
Cynthia turns and stares at me. “You are in so much trouble, EllRay Jakes,” she says. “Hitting a girl so hard that she falls over and bleeds.”
WHAT?
“I didn’t hit you, and you know it,” I say, because somebody has to tell the truth around here. “Just saying stuff doesn’t make it true, Cynthia. We were playing Octopus Tag. I tagged you, but you wouldn’t stay tagged. That’s all that happened.”
“Nuh-uh,” Cynthia says, shaking her head. “You went after me for no reason, and you hit me so hard that I fell on the ground. And now look at me,” she says in a wobbly voice, pointing to her knee. “I’m wrecked, just like Heather said. And so is my poor, stretched-out pink sweater, which was brand-new last year. You owe me.”
“You know it didn’t happen like that, Cynthia,” I say, trying to keep my own voice steady. “I never went after you. And I had to tag you. We were playing Octopus Tag! That’s why they call it tag. You were running right at me. You didn’t see me, that’s all.”
“Well, but you didn’t have to hold onto my sweater the way you did,” Cynthia says, petting its saggy sleeve like it’s a little lost kitten.
“But you were gonna cheat,” I argue. “You kept saying I never tagged you!”
“So what?” Cynthia says. “Making someone bleed is a lot worse than not playing some stupid game right, EllRay.”
“I didn’t make you bleed,” I say. “You fell. It was an accident, and you know it.”
“They won’t know that,” Cynthia says, her voice very loud and clear, and I can feel my heart slither down to my shoes, because—the grown-ups might believe her. Everyone might believe her sooner or later, even the kids who saw the real thing happen with their own eyes.
I’m starting to think that’s the way things are in the world.
“Who won’t know that it was an accident, Miss Harbison?” a man’s voice asks, and Cynthia and I both look up.
It’s the principal, and he’s been in his office the whole time! And the door was open!
He heard everything.
Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.
Cynthia jumps to her feet, even though no one told us yet that we could get up. “This bad boy was mean to me on the playground for no reason,” she says, pointing her finger at me.
Okay. Cynthia knows the principal heard what she said, but she still thinks she might pull this off.
“Look,” Cynthia says to the principal, showing him her skinned knee—as if it must be proof of something.
“Mrs. Tollefson will take care of that scrape in a minute or two,” the principal says, barely giving Cynthia’s knee a glance. “Why don’t you two come into my office and sit down?”
This sounds like a question, but it isn’t. So Cynthia and I don’t make any suggestions of different activities to do. We follow the principal into his office.
I already know the way, unfortunately, but I think this is Cynthia’s first time—unless she’s been there to get a medal for being perfect or something.
No. She would have bragged to everyone if that had happened.
“Now, what’s going on?” the principal asks, once we get settled into our uncomfortable chairs.
Cynthia and I look at each other for a second, and then, as if we have made a silent promise, we look away and try to erase our faces like marker boards. For once we share the same goal: to get out of the principal’s office as fast as possible.
I mean, he’s nice and everything, but he’s the principal.
I just hope he doesn’t call our parents, that’s all. Being in trouble at school is bad enough, but being in trouble at home, too—at the same time? And for the same thing? That’s just wrong!“Nothing’s going on,” Cynthia mumbles.
“Everything’s fine,” I agree. “It was just an accident on the playground. It wasn’t an on-purpose.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” the principal says, staring at us through half-closed eyes as he pets his beard. “But I’m not too pleased about what I overheard you two saying out there.”
Cynthia and I look at each other, then look away.
The principal doesn’t say anything for one whole minute, which I know for sure because I count the seconds from one to sixty. And then he says, “Look. I’m not going to have any feuds going on here at Oak Glen. Or any roughhousing on the playground, or any fibbing about it afterward. Do you understand me?”
Cynthia gives me one of her old looks. “Do you understand him, EllRay?” she asks, sounding patient and forgiving at the same time.
If I could kick her “by accident,” I really think I would.
“I was talking to both of you, Miss Harbison,” the principal says, his voice sharp. “And I’ll be keeping an eye on both of you. Understand that, please.”
And Cynthia and I both nod our heads, because by now, we’re too scared to say another word.
I can tell that Cynthia is furious, though, and that she blames me—not herself—for this scolding, on top of blaming me about her knee and her stretched-out sweater.
But even though he’s angry, the principal kind of stuck up for me!
At least now, someone knows I’m not the only kid here at Oak Glen who messes up.
For what that’s worth.