by S. J. Smith
When they reached his office, she took a seat in one of the visitor’s chairs on the other side of his desk, dumping her school bag at her feet. McNeil took his seat, unbuttoning the single button on his jacket.
Alexis had always wondered why it was that men wearing suits would do up that single button on their jacket when they stood up, only to then unbutton it the second they sat down again. Especially when those two things were barely minutes apart. Her wonderings were interrupted when he finally spoke.
"Do you know why I've called you in today?"
"As part of a new regime to discourage students from being late to homeroom?"
"You're very funny, but no. Alexis, this is very serious, so I'm going to need you to pay attention." And just like that, all the humour left her. Maybe it wasn't what she'd thought it was. Maybe it was something else that she hadn't actually been a part of. "Now, I think we should wait until your parents get here before we get into it, but there's been some trouble getting a hold of them."
Nodding slowly Alexis pulled out her phone. There was a text from her mum.
"Don't worry, my mum's already here." Looking up and seeing the look of confusion on the man's face, Alexis explained. "I texted her when I first got told to come to the office. She'd only just left from dropping me off."
"Okay, well that certainly makes things easier."
As if on cue, they heard the outer office door open and Carmen Angelo's voice floated down the hall.
"Hi, I'm Alexis Angelo's mother, she's meant to be here."
McNeil stood from his chair, did up that one single button on his jacket and left the room. A few moments later he followed her mother into the room.
"Lex, are you okay?" Carmen didn't take her eyes off her daughter, scanning over every inch that she could, looking for some kind of injury or sign that she wasn't okay.
"Actually, Mrs Angelo, that's somewhat why we're here this morning. If you'd like to take a seat I'll explain." But she didn't. Carmen ignored the man. She knew that he had been a friend to their family, always looking out for each Angelo that came through over the years. He was a smart man. He didn't know if the rumours were true, but on the off chance they were, he wanted to be seen as an ally. Even so, her first concern would always be her daughter.
"Mum, I promise, I'm fine." This seemed to calm Carmen enough that she took the seat next to Alexis.
"Now, I'm sorry to have to disrupt your day Mrs Angelo, but this is quite a serious matter we have on our hands. Alexis, what can you tell us about your human bio class on Tuesday, in particular, what happened with April Hale."
Alexis didn't look away from the principal, instead she adopted a look of confusion. "What do you mean? She fell."
"Yes, she fell, but she is claiming she didn't fall on her own."
Maybe it is what I thought it was, Alexis thought to herself.
Before she had a chance to reply or he had a chance to continue, Carmen interrupted. "Um, excuse me, can someone catch me up on what happened to April?"
"During class on Tuesday, there was an incident in which April fell and hit her chin on the edge of the work bench. She's had to have stitches." While that answered Carmen's question, it also raised another.
"Well that's unfortunate, but what does it have to do with Alexis?" Never one to beat around the bush, Carmen was slowly growing frustrated. She hated small talk and distractions, actually hated anything that hindered someone from getting to the point of the matter at hand.
"Well, April is claiming that Alexis caused the accident, and Mr and Mrs Hale are prepared to press charges."
"They're what? I didn't do anything. That's insane!" Alexis felt her mum’s hand over hers and realised that she'd been gripping the arm rests of the chair. Taking a deep breath and releasing her grip, she went to speak again, with a much calmer tone, but her mum beat her to it.
"Wait, how did this April girl fall? Did she trip? Slip? Fall from the sky?"
"Well, they're saying that as April was sitting down, Alexis pulled her chair out from under her."
The hand on hers tightened. Alexis knew she had to keep her cool and couldn't start shouting about how bullshit that story was. Instead she waited for Mr McNeil to look to her for a response.
"Does that sound like what happened?"
"Not even close. Sir." She added the 'sir' as an afterthought. "I'd be happy to tell you what actually happened, if you'd like."
"Please, by all means."
So Alexis launched into a retelling of the events of two days ago.
"Well for starters, no one was standing up. The teacher had gone to her office because the assignment sheets hadn't printed properly and we were all working through the tasks for that lesson. I sit behind April who sits behind Emilia, and at one point when I looked up I saw April leaning forwards to say something to Em, but it wasn't anything nice. This kept going so I told April to shut up. She turned around and said something to me and went back to harassing Em. Then she rocked her chair forward so she could lean over her desk to grab Em's hair. She must have over balanced because the next thing we all knew she was on the floor next to her chair. Everyone around us saw it."
"So, April was bullying Emilia?" Her mother's tone said it all. She was angry. Alexis couldn't tell if it was at her for supposedly doing nothing to stop it, or if it was purely directed at April for being such a bitch.
"I promised Em that I would stay out of it, she wanted to deal with April her own way. I didn't like it, but I promised."
Carmen's eyes softened, realising that her anger was being misinterpreted.
"You did what she asked you to do." Then she turned to Mr McNeil. "So this person is trying to cover up the fact that she was bullying another student by saying that my daughter caused her to fall?"
Mr McNeil started to nod in agreement but shook his head at the last moment. "There's more. She's also saying that you threatened her."
So the little bitch thinks she can throw me under the bus but come away unscathed. Oh honey...
"And when is she claiming that I did this?"
"After she fell. She said you were the first one to get to her and that you threatened to do something worse to her if she told anyone."
"So did I threaten her before or after I asked if she was okay? Do I like April. No. Am I sad that she got hurt after being a bitch to my best friend? Also no. But when someone hurts themselves, I'm going to check if they're okay, whether I like them or not. If I'd known she was going to try and pin the whole thing on me I wouldn't have bothered."
Before Mr McNeil had a chance to respond Carmen raised a very valid question. "Does she have any proof to back up her absurd allegations against Alexis?"
"I... don’t know, they never said. April and her parents are actually waiting in the conference room. If you'd like we can continue this conversation with them. Perhaps we'll be able to get to the bottom of this."
"Yes, let's."
And with that the three of them rose from their seats. Alexis grabbed her bag from the floor and the trio made their way to the conference room with Mr McNeil leading the way. When they got to the closed door, he held it open for them as they stepped through.
Alexis hadn't seen April since she got taken to the office, trying to staunch the blood flow with a bunch of tissues. Back when they had been friends, Alexis had considered April to be a pretty girl. Now though, any attractive physical qualities she had were overshadowed by what a terrible person she was. Her parents sat on either side of her, and Mr Hale had his left arm over the back of her chair. Her parents had always been nice enough to her back in the past. You could tell that they were a family. April had the same dark brown hair as her mother, and they shared the same large build which in itself was a sign of what was to come if April didn't take care of herself. Mr Hale had darker hair, closer to black than brown, but he shared his eyes and mouth with his daughter. All of the Hale children were like that. They were all a mix of their parents and you could tell they all belonged to
gether. Alexis had always felt out of place when looking at pictures of herself with her parents. Sure, they looked like they were related, but not like she was actually their daughter. A cousin, maybe.
Alexis took the seat to the right of her mother, who sat across from Mr Hale. Mr McNeil took a seat at the head of the oval table closest to them.
"I've asked Alexis and Mrs Angelo to join us so that we can get to the bottom of what happened."
Drew Hale didn't waste any time voicing his opinion, "What happened is that delinquent assaulted my daughter."
"As far as I'm concerned the only delinquent here is your kid," Carmen said as calmly as she could.
"April doesn't go around assaulting other students!” Mrs Hale all but leapt from her seat.
"Bullshit," Alexis scoffed. She hadn’t realised she’d said it loud enough for everyone to hear until she looked up to see everyone looking at her she looked to her left at her mum who just nodded at her encouragingly. Mr and Mrs Hale just sat there as though her curse had frozen them in place and April glared daggers at her. Mr McNeil didn't look as though he was going to interrupt either, so she went on.
"April is a bully. That day, she was harassing Emilia, calling her names, saying horrible stuff about her going to hell. I told her to shut up, so she spat some crap at me before she went back to being a horrible person to someone who was once her best friend. Then she leaned forward in her chair, grabbed Em's hair and pulled it. Em didn't do anything to provoke this, and she didn't retaliate. April must've leant too far forward and since she was trying to balance the chair on two legs it didn't end well for her. When she fell, I went to see if she was okay, and that's when the teacher came back. Everyone around us saw what happened."
"You're just making that up to try and get out of trouble," Sue Hale finally spoke, her words were laced with disgust.
"I don't have to lie. There's at least six other people who saw April being a bitch if you don't believe me. I didn't make her fall, she just fell all on her own. Instant karma."
"You did make me fall! I was balancing just fine, and then you pushed my chair or something, and now my face is scarred forever!"
Alexis couldn’t see the extent of the injury due to the bandage covering the girl’s chin.
"Honey, it wasn't such a treat to look at before either," Carmen muttered quietly enough that only Alexis could hear. It took all her self-control to not laugh. She waited another few moments for someone else at the table to click on to what April had said. And she wasn't disappointed.
Mr McNeil was the first to speak. "April, you said originally that Alexis pulled your chair out from under you as you went to sit down. But just now you've admitted to not only already being seated, but also rocking on your chair which is quite dangerous."
"I... she... you..."
"I think it's time that we investigated this matter further. Carmen, Alexis, if you wouldn't mind, I'll have Mrs Poole escort you to our new cafe so you'll be a bit more comfortable while I'm speaking to the other students."
"What about us?" Mr Hale didn't look as high and mighty as he had when they had walked into the room.
"I'll have some coffee and tea brought in for you. Excuse us." Without another word, the principal rose from his seat and held the door open for Alexis and her mum. They went back to his office briefly so she could write down the names of the other kids who sat nearby. She didn't include Emilia's name, but chances were he'd call her in anyway.
Mrs Poole, the nice older receptionist, dropped the mother and daughter at the cafe, with instructions for the cooking teacher to make sure they were taken care of. It was a weird experience for Alexis. She knew that all of this was because of McNeil's assumption that her family was involved in the Mafia and he wanted to keep her mum happy. While she always had to endure the scrutiny of being a part of a suspected crime family, she had yet to experience the perks that came with it. Her parents made a lot of money, that was true, but she didn't get to run around spending it like a lot of her rich classmates did. And she'd never had someone suck up to her because of her last name. It was unsettling, but not the worst feeling in the world.
While they waited for their coffee and whatever dessert the culinary students were preparing for them, Alexis texted Emilia to let her know that the shit was hitting the fan but she'd tried to keep her friend out of it as much as possible, and while there was a list of students McNeil was going to be questioning, her name wasn't on it. Em messaged back almost straight away, the call had already come for her to go to the office.
"So why didn't you tell me what happened the other day? Something like April splitting her chin open would normally be the biggest news you had."
"Tuesday was just a really long day I guess. I had a lot of homework, it must've slipped my mind."
"Mmmhmm." The look on her mum's face said it all. She wasn't buying what her daughter was selling. Alexis decided to shift the topic of conversation away from anything that could circle back to April's 'unfortunate accident'.
For the next half hour she managed to distract her mum with tales of Jessica's drama with her boyfriend and the new gossip surrounding the new guy that she was still yet to actually see, let alone meet. The entire time Carmen just sat there, letting her daughter stall. There was more to this whole thing than Alexis was letting on, that much she knew. What she was more concerned about though, was why Emilia was being targeted.
Bullies were bullies. Simple as that. Sure, they 'had their reasons'. She'd seen all those daytime talk shows about how bullies had been bullied themselves. That didn't give them an excuse to be assholes. She'd met plenty of people who had been through hell and were the most caring people she knew. She'd also met people who had had the perfect lives, most loving parents and family and yet, they still turned out to be pricks. Sometimes people were just born evil.
Carmen looked up to the doorway just as Mrs Poole was walking through it.
"Mr McNeil is ready for you again, ladies."
"Thank you, Helen." Alexis looked at her mum in surprise. "We'll just be a minute, I have to finish this coffee, it's wonderful." Carmen was not lying, it was wonderful.
"Well, if you'd like, I can have them make you fresh coffees to go?" Helen offered with a genuine smile.
"Oh, I would hate to be an inconvenience."
"Of course not, it's no trouble at all. Alexis, would you like one as well?"
"Yes please, that would be great."
The moment the kind woman was out of earshot, Alexis looked at her mother, a single eye brow quirking up. "Helen?"
"What? That is her name."
"Yes, I know that's her name... well now I do, but my question is, how do you know her name?"
"You should always make it a point of knowing who it is you're dealing with." It was only for a second, but her mum's face changed and her words seemed to have a serious edge to them. This wasn't just some piece of useless advice that parents gave their kids to try and guide them to becoming good adults. No, this was something that her mum had figured out the hard way. Before she could say anything back, Mrs Poole came back from the kitchen with two brand new reusable travel coffee cups.
◆◆◆
Back in the conference room, sitting in the same chairs as they had the first time, everyone was quiet, waiting for Mr McNeil to reveal what he'd learnt from his interviews with the students. From the look of the papers on the desk in front of him, he'd typed up each student’s statement and then had them sign it.
"Alright, I had some very interesting conversations with a number of the students from your human bio class, girls. To say that I am disappointed by what I've learned is an understatement. I would like to state that these students who were called in were unaware of the accusations made and were simply asked to provide their point of view for the events of Tuesday afternoon. Now, I'm going to read some excerpts from the statements that were made."
The Hales all sat in rapt silence on the other side of the table. April actually looked wor
ried about what the principal was about to say, and her parents didn't look quite so certain that their daughter was the perfect, harmless angel they thought she was.
"'I sit a few seats away and I could hear everything she was saying. She wasn't trying to be quiet about it, she was just being mean.' Onto the next page. 'She was rocking on her chair and she fell.' I then asked this student for clarification on one of April's statements about how she fell. 'No, once we sat down at the start of class she didn't get out of her seat until she was on the floor.' The next page. 'We all try and ignore her, but it's almost like she's mean just because she can be. Emilia was just sitting there trying to do her work and April was behind her, saying all this horrible stuff and pulling her hair.'" With each new excerpt Mr McNeil read out, the glaring contest between Alexis and April intensified. Drew and Sue Hale were sharing looks that were a mix between embarrassment and angry. They definitely weren't jumping to their daughter’s defence anymore.
