“Yes, but…” Mrs. Intolerantiae started.
“Then you know that your child could have opted out.” He said.
Mrs. Intolerantiae’s voice rose a little. “Then he would have been humiliated by not participating. That is unacceptable!”
“Choices are made every day with consequence. This is one of them. I’m not going to rewrite a curriculum for one child’s discomfort, no matter the popularity or unpopularity of the class.” Mr. Resler explained. “If you disagree with our curriculum, then you have three choices. Opt your child out of the class, don’t have your child participate, or leave the school.”
The silence was deafening. I was on the edge of my seat leaning in.
“Mr. Resler, I’ve talked to my lawyer…”
Mr. Resler interrupted her. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Intolerantiae our meeting is done.”
Even outside I could tell that Mrs. Intolerantiae was at a loss for words. Footsteps approached the door and then it opened.
“Janice, will you contact Mr. Hatzenhueler our lawyer and take Mrs. Intolerantiae’s lawyer’s information and pass it along.” He turned to me.
“Ah, JJ. Will you go and get Jacob Intolerantiae from Mr. Gibson’s class, make sure he understand how to get his assignments from the school website and bring him back to the office. Janice, please call Mr. Winckler to the office too.”
“Mr. Resler,” Mrs. Intolerantiae began as she exited his office.
He cut her off. “I’m sorry Mrs. Intolerantiae, since you brought up your lawyer, our lawyer has instructed us to discontinue our talks until both of our legal counsel representatives have talked.”
Her demeanor softened. “I wasn’t trying to threaten you, Mr. Resler.” She assured him.
Which was a lie of course. It was clear she was trying use the lawyer card to intimidate him and get her way. Even I could see that.
“I’m not suggesting you were, Mrs. Intolerantiae. You made your choice to bring him up and I’m showing you the consequence of your choice.” He turned to me. “Aren’t you supposed to be going and getting someone?”
“Yes, Mr. Resler.” I handed him the file before scurrying out of the office as he dismissively waved her towards Mrs. Douglas and shut his door.
The hallways were empty while I walked towards the Middle School portion of the building which occupied the middle three floors. The stairs were vacant, which was to be expected during classes. I opened the fifth floor door and proceeded to Mr. Gibson’s classroom. Stopping at Mr. Gibson’s classroom, I observed through the door’s window that the kids were dressed in traditional Muslim garb. I opened the door to music playing quietly in the background while class sat on the floor listening.
Mr. Gibson waved to me and walked over quietly, which was a feat because of his size. He was a gigantic man, 6’ 7”, broad shoulders, dark moppy hair and a large grin. The kids call him The Bear outside of class.
“Hey, JJ. What’s up?” His deep voice reverberated through the class. Several of the students opened their eyes, but one look from The Bear and they closed their eyes quickly.
“Jacob Intolerantiae is asked to come to the office. His mom is here.” I explained to him.
He frowned. “Does this have to do with the Muslim garb?”
“I believe so, but I wasn’t told.”
He shook his head. “He wanted to dress up but his mom wouldn’t let him.” He looked over the class. “Jacob.” His loud whisper was almost the volume of a normal voice.
A young boy reluctantly got up. He had a turban around his head but had on his regular clothes unlike his classmates.
“I gave him that so he could participate.” He reached out his hand.
Jacob took off the turban revealing his cropped brown hair underneath.
Mr. Gibson got down on one knee. “Hey, buddy. JJ here is going to take you to your mom. She’s waiting for you…”
“I don’t want to go.” He complained.
“You have to. Remember our discussion on responsibilities?”
Jacob nodded.
“Okay. Do what your mom asks.” He said.
Jacob nodded but resentment appeared in his eyes.
“Come on.” I pushed the door and he stomped out. I waved to Mr. Gibson and he waved back. “Tell Mr. Resler I’d like a meeting.”
“Okay. We need to get your stuff from your locker.” I told Jacob.
He stopped, stunned. “I’m being suspended?”
My smile did little to relieve his apprehension. “No. You just have to get your stuff. You know how to get on-line to get your lesson, don’t you?”
“I’m not stupid.” He grumbled.
That tone made me stop. “Hey. You don’t need to be rude.”
Defiance rose in his eyes.
“Let me tell Mr. Resler how you acted.” I walked forward.
He reached out. “No, please don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Okay. I forgive you. Just don’t worry. Mr. Resler will always look out for us.” I told him.
He didn’t smile but his demeanor relaxed. We picked up his coat and stuff from his locker and made the trip back to the office, where is mother, Mrs. Intolerantiae fumed. As we walked into the office, Mr. Resler’s door opened and he greeted us.
“Everything okay?” He asked.
I nodded. “Yes. He knows how to get his assignments on-line, he has all his stuff, and Mr. Gibson asked for a meeting with you.”
“Already e-mailed him.” He turned to Mrs. Intolerantiae. “Thank you. I hope our lawyers will be able to work something out. Jacob is an important member of our school.”
“Mom! You called a lawyer because of some stupid clothes?” Jacob appeared beside himself.
“Don’t you raise your voice to me, Jacob!” Mrs. Intolerantiae grabbed his arm.
“Jacob. Remember our Tenants. Respect.” Mr. Resler told him.
“But…”
“No buts. We are having a disagreement. That doesn’t mean you get to be rude.” He said.
Jacob bowed his head. “Yes, Mr. Resler.”
Mr. Resler smiled. “Thank you Jacob for being a gentleman. I look forward to a swift resolution.”
Mrs. Intolerantiae nodded curtly and stormed out of the office with Jacob in tow. I felt bad for the little guy.
“Will he get to come back?”
He winked. “He’ll be back tomorrow I suspect. You have to pick your battles, JJ, and sometimes all the battles are the right ones.” He actually cracked a smile then quickly regained his usual stoic demeanor. “Don’t you have something to do?”
“Yes, she needs to go out to the west gate and deliver these passes for the game Wednesday night.” Mrs. Douglas held out the passes. “And the south gate.”
“Both of the Bunkers?” My whiny tone didn’t do anything but get a mocking smile and nod from her.
Grabbing the passes I head off outside. The day was warm. My walk along the road toward the south gate wasn’t really all that bad. When I approached, Kim and Mark were working on homework inside the South Bunker.
“Hi guys.” I handed them the passes through the window. “These are the passes for Wednesday night’s hockey playoff game against Valor.”
“Oh, man, I can’t wait.” Mark pumped his fists. “We are going to kill them.”
A smile appeared on my face.
“I don’t know, they got that new kid that just transferred in.” Kim said looking up from one of her physics problems.
“Who?” I asked.
She looked up, “uhm, I think his name is Cret? Tret?”
“Set?”
“Yep, that’s it. I’m not very good with names.” She said.
“Unless its epsilon or omega or tangent.” Mark rolled his eyes. He mouthed ‘boring’ to me.
“Whatever.” Kim said going back to her book.
I smiled. “Have fun you two.”
“I’d rather have a stick in my eye!” Mark yelled to me as I continued down the Trail of Tear toward the West Bun
ker.
It wasn’t long before the P.E. class came running around the trail at the corner of Broadway and Dry Creek. The fourth graders were huffin and puffin with Mr. Carter yelling at them from behind.
I cut across the grass to stay out of their way and waved to Mr. Carter. I wonder if Brooke’s feelings about Set playing have changed. I shrugged and continued on. The West Bunker came into view and the two girl students occupying it, I didn’t recognize. Since the gates are part of the junior class community services it wasn’t surprising I didn’t know them. Even though Apollo Academy was small, you don’t always get to know the transfers that come in. I introduced myself.
The two girls smiled back. “Hi, I’m Julia and this is German Julia.”
German Julia waved.
“Are you an exchange student?” Figuring that could only be the reason for such a name.
The blonde girl nodded.
“Nice to meet you. Here are the tickets for the hockey game on Wednesday, do you guys know where you need to store them?” I asked.
“Yep.” Julia pointed to the floor safe.
“Good. Nice to meet you two, bye.” My feet led me away from the bunker and back towards the school.
“And you.” They said together.
The floor safe never has money in it, but they do keep cameras on them in case they get vandalized. My phone beeped reminding me that the bell was going to ring soon.
I rushed into the office, grabbed my back pack, said goodbye and headed off to my next class. The rest of the day passed by without much excitement and I couldn’t keep my thoughts off of Gabe. Even though he wasn’t around, my mind continually thought about him and not much else. So, when the last day’s bell rang, the hallways crowded quickly with exiting students talking about the big matchup for the Wednesday hockey playoff with Valor. I think the most excited were the elementary students and the seventh graders. The eighth graders tried to appear more cool but even they couldn’t keep the excitement from filling their faces. Since this was a big game, the administration had reluctantly agreed to have a late start day on Thursday for postgame celebrations. But everyone knew the faculty were just as excited or even more than the students.
I stopped at my locker, pulled out my books for classes that had homework, and shoved the others back in. A quick checked of my hair in my little mirror told me it looked great and then freaked when red eyes appeared over my shoulder. I spun around. Nothing. Nobody stood behind me as my eyes scrutinized the passing student. What could have done that? Christian isn’t around and besides, his locker is on the other side of the star. I remembered the night at Gabe’s with the red eyes, but could I be hallucinating about them? I…
“AHHHHHHH!” My screamed would have made any horror movie goer proud. Everyone in the hallway stopped and teachers came rushing out of their rooms.
“Holy shit, little jumpy are we.” Brooke laughed.
My heart pounded so fast and loud that I thought I was going to drop to the floor and begin hyperventilating.
“Everything okay?” Mrs. Wallace asked.
I waved to her indicating it was, even though my breath was still having trouble entering my lungs.
“She’s okay, Mrs. Wallace. Just a little love struck.” Brooke smiled and Mrs. Wallace smiled back.
The hallway returned to normal but even the students from above and below came to look about the scream. And there were plenty to fill them in on who did it.
I leaned up against the locker. “God, I hate you when you do that.” My breath moved in and out of my lungs real slow.
Brooke snickered. “I’ve never made you jump like that. What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” slamming my locker shut. “Shouldn’t you be at practice?”
“Yep. On my way there now. Just wanted to stop and see if you were up for going out afterward. Going to head to Cold Stone for some ice cream.”
“No.” I didn’t really feel like going out after I got home. “I have too much homework to do. Plus Dad has some really important conference call to do, so I said I’d make him dinner.”
“That’s even a better reason to go out. You don’t want to disturb him.” She winked.
I smiled. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay.” Her tone changed just a little. “But a certain someone…just might be disappointed….if a certain someone…didn’t show.”
My heart started pounding again. “Okay!” The word blurted out of my face even before my brain fully registered what was being said.
She clapped her hands together in victory. “You are so easy…and I’m not talking about manipulating you either. Though, that’s pretty easy too.” She skipped off down the hall. “I’ll text you.”
Why do I let her do that to me? I hung my head. A solemn walk punctuated with moments of skipping took me to my jeep; backpack tossed into back, climbed up, sat for a moment before looking at my review mirror and there it was: That happy smile. I winked at my newfound self and headed home.
Oh…there be Dragons here
Copper jumped up on me when I came through the door.
“Hey, boy. How’s my little puppy dog.” Scratching his ears, we walked over and put my backpack on the couch and sat next to it. I pushed Cooper to the floor and rubbed his belly.
“Honey, do you know where my tie clip is?” Dad yelled.
“Try the dish in the bathroom. Right side.” I yelled back.
“I looked there!”
“Your other right.”
“Ha…Ha…oh!”
I smiled knowing he had found it. Cooper jumped up and raced to the stairs as Dad walked down them.
He was neatly dressed in a maroon shirt, silver tie, and his favorite Avalanche hockey tie clip. But what really made the outfit were the gray track shorts he had on and his Monty Python bunny slippers. I clapped.
“You are a fashion Faux pas.” Standing, I walked into the kitchen to start dinner.
“I know. That’s why all the ladies love me.” He kissed me on the head as he went to the fridge.
“I was wondering if I could go out with Brooke for some ice cream after her practice.”
He placed a fruit drink next to me. “As long as you have all your homework done. You know I don’t mind.” He gulped his down. “But I thought we were going to have dinner together?”
I pulled the shrimp and veggies out of the fridge, poured some oil in the pan and began to stir fry them. “Would you get the noodles, please.”
He placed them on the counter next to me.
“We are. They are going to have a long practice with some extra film time. So it will be a few hours or so. Brooke’s going to text me.” A little more sauce was needed in the stir fry pan.
“A few hours, huh?” He looked at his watch. “I could join you.”
The bottle slipped from my hand onto the stove, spilling sauce everywhere. Copper rushed to my feet and began licking up the sauce that had dripped to the floor.
“Unless, that would be a bad idea, for some reason.” He handed me a dish towel to clean up with.
Occupying myself with cleaning up, so I wouldn’t have to answer right away, my mind raced. “No…that would be great.” My voice sounded a little more confident than I thought it would. “Why don’t you call Sydney, and have her come too.”
Luckily Dad appeared surprised by the invitation and he didn’t know what to say. Sydney was a lovely lady that Dad had met at a Christmas party. They had gone out a few times, but Dad was still not ready to seriously date someone. And to tell the truth, I wasn’t sure I was ready either.
I took the opportunity to complete the clean up and put the finishing touches on the stir fry.
“Plates?” pointing to the cabinet.
He still seemed puzzled as he quietly handed them to me. I piled on some noodles, smothered them with the stir fry, handed the plates back to him and pointed at the table. It isn’t often that I make my Dad speechless, but I do relish it. He walked over to the table like
a zombie, as I grabbed two sparkling juices out of the fridge and placed them on the table.
“Well?” I said after taking a bite of the stir fry. This is good. I am such a good cook and I’ll cook every day for Gabe!
“Uhm,” He said.
My face appear as uninterested as I could make it, since I didn’t really want him to come with us to get ice cream and ruin my alone time with Gabe. But watching him struggle with whatever emotional path I accidently sent him down, made my heart ache. I didn’t think my offer would cause him this much distress. It was clear that mom’s memories were still a deep wound.
“Don’t you like her?” I asked between mouthfuls. “I thought you liked her?”
“I do. Do you?” He said concerned.
I shrugged. “I guess so. She seems nice enough. Beautiful, smart. She is a doctor after all. Not quite sure what’s she’s doing with you, though.” I chided him.
This appeared to wake him up. “Ha. You so funny.”
“Thanks, I get it from you.” I gave Cooper a shrimp.
“I guess I could call her.” He didn’t seem too enthusiastic about it.
“At least this way you wouldn’t be out of place.” I stood, washed my plate and placed it in the dishwasher. “I’ve got homework. Don’t struggle with it for too long, you might not be ready for your conference call. I don’t want to live on the street.” Kissing him on his head, I grabbed my backpack and headed upstairs.
My homework could have been done much sooner if watching my stupid phone hadn’t taken most of my time. I groaned for the millionth time, but my phone stayed annoyingly quiet anyway. Even Rumpelstiltskin would have complained about how agonizingly slow Time was behaving. But being afraid of missing the text, which of course was stupid since my phone’s sound volume was all the way up, my pen barely made scratches on the paper. I couldn’t help but continually flipped my phone over every time my imagination though it saw the flashing red light of the text alert. A sigh escaped my lips. But then again, I didn’t want to be sitting downstairs either, because that would have just made it worse. So, I finished my homework and picked out a new outfit to wear to kill time. Then as I took off my fifth outfit change, the light lit up and my waiting text showed. I reached for the phone on my desk, missed it and pushed it onto the floor with my elbow, where it landed and exploded. Panicking, I quickly assembled it, waited for it to come alive, retrieved it and died: ‘I’m tired…Not going….C-ya tomorrow….’
Dragon Amour (Dragon-Half Breed Book 1) Page 15
