Bird Song (22 page)

“Well, Miss Shelly, I suppose you know why you’re here,” Vice-Principal Kenner told me as I sat down in front of his desk.
 
He was a short man, slightly balding with a thin, wispy mustache situated off center, directly below his nose.
 
He wore thin-framed glasses perched midway on his nose and though he smiled often, you just knew that it was out of habit and not from genuine happiness.

“It’s because of what happened yesterday,” I replied, watching as he brought out a folder from under a large pile on his desk.
 
He opened it and pointed to a few things with one of his stubby fingers.

“Yes, it is.
 
I’m afraid that there is some confusion as to what exactly started the whole mess, but your name was brought up by Miss Hamilton, and I’m going to need to hear your side of the story.”

“Okay…”

He started to read from the top sheet, a basic laundry list of incidents that led up to yesterday’s fight.
 
“Basically I’m being told that Miss Hamilton’s intended target yesterday wasn’t Miss Kim, but rather you.
 
It took much coaxing on my part for the truth, but Miss Hamilton seems to feel that you have wronged her in some way.
 
I want to know what exactly it was that was said or done—from your own point of view—that could have triggered such an uncharacteristic outburst.”

I felt my jaw drop.
 
“Erica’s blaming this on me?”

“Please, let’s not focus on that right now.
 
I just want to hear your side of the story.”

Accepting this, I began.
 
“Erica hates me.
 
I don’t know why.
 
I’ve only spoken to her twice.
 
She used to date my best friend, but they broke up almost four months ago and now he’s dating Stacy.
 
I thought that was why she went off on her.”

Vice-Principal Kenner leaned back in his chair and pressed his fingertips together, forming a pyramid beneath his chin.
 
“That’s the same story that Miss
Bellegarde
and Miss Kim told me, as well as Mr.
Hasselbeck
.
 
Unfortunately, Miss Hamilton’s version makes mention of your relationship with Mr.
Bellegarde
as one of the reasons she feels such ill will towards you.”

I frowned, the direction his tone had taken sounding more like an accusation.
 
“Well, I certainly don’t know why.
 
She made Graham end our friendship because she hates me; this was before school had even started, before I had even met Robert.
 
Whatever her reasons, if Robert is one of them, it’s definitely not the main one.”

“Miss Shelley, certainly even you can see why she’d feel so…put off by your relationships.”
 

I shook my head, the reasoning completely lost on me.
 
He smiled and turned the folder that was in front of him around, his fat finger pointing to an image printed in the bottom corner of the top page.
 
It was of me.
 
“Take a good look at this picture, Miss Shelley and-” he reached to the side and pulled out another folder and opened it up, revealing an identical sheet of paper, the image at the bottom now replaced with Erica’s “-look at this one.
 
Do you see the difference between the two?”

I nodded.
 
“Yes.
 
One is of me and the other is of someone completely off her rocker.”

He clicked his tongue, shaking his head in a grandfatherly sort of way.
 
Well…it would have been grandfatherly if it didn’t feel so condescending.
 
“Grace—do you mind if I call you Grace?
 
All this formality is wearing on me.
 
Thank you.
 
Grace, you’re an intelligent girl.
 
Your grades are always top-notch, and your academic future is definitely promising.
 
But that’s to be expected for girls like you.

“What do you mean, ‘girls like me’?” I asked as I felt my hands clenching against my knees.

“Don’t take this as an insult, Grace, because it’s not.
 
You’re the kind of girl that has to do well in school because you’re just not cut out for other things that require the assets that someone like Miss Hamilton has.
 
She’s popular, and attractive, her family is well-known, and her status in the community is above par, while you’re-”

“A freak,” I finished for him.

“I wasn’t going to say that,” he insisted, but I shook my head at his denial.

“Yes you were; don’t try to insult the intelligence that you just said I was expected to have, Mr. Kenner.
 
I’m not conventionally beautiful—I already know that.
 
The whole school knows that.
 
I’m different, but you know what?
 
I’m okay with that now.
 
I wasn’t before, I admit it, but I am now, and so are my friends.

“I don’t have to be beautiful to warrant the same kind of admiration that you seem all too eager to give to Erica, but if that’s what it takes then I don’t want it.
 
Yes, Erica is beautiful and popular, but she’s also mean and spiteful.
 
She’s a vindictive person who cannot accept that she cannot get everything she wants.”

“And you know what she wants then, Grace?” he asked, leaning in this time, anxious to hear my answer.

“Of course I do.
 
She wants Robert.”

He smiled.
 
It was one of satisfaction; I recognized it right away.
 
“And are you willing to give her what she wants?”

I snorted at his question, the notion too ridiculous to even consider.
 
He didn’t approve.
 
“Grace, I’m almost certain that you’ve spent quite a deal of time questioning why someone like Mr.
Bellegarde
would be with someone like you in the first place.
 
I know that I certainly have, as has pretty much everyone else here at Heath.
 
It’s not that you don’t deserve to be happy, it’s just he’s out of your league, and-”

I’d had enough.
 
“And what?
 
Where are you going with this, Mr. Kenner?
 
What does any of this have to do with Erica attacking Stacy?”

He seemed pleased that I had cut through the unnecessary conversational filler and got right down to the point.
 
“Erica has agreed to take a suggested suspension for her—error in judgment if you agree to break things off with Robert.
 
If you don’t, she’s going to sue the school for discrimination.”

Reflexively I pounded my fist onto the desk.
 
Mr. Kenner didn’t even flinch.
 
“I’m being blackmailed by proxy?
 
On what grounds does she have to sue?”

“Her father’s attorney mentioned the fact that both you and Stacy are of Asian descent and that your actions haven’t received any form of punishment, while hers has.
 
That screams discrimination, don’t you think?”

I heard my voice rise, and I knew that anyone outside of the office would hear everything that I was saying, but I didn’t care.
 
“I have done absolutely nothing to Erica.
 
From the moment this year has started, she’s had it out for me.
 
She attacked Stacy because of me, and now you’re telling me that she’s blackmailing the school, too?
 
Whatever it is that she’s accused me of, whatever
truth
you think you’ve received from her, it’s all a lie and I refuse to sit here and allow you and Erica try and dictate who I can and cannot date.
 
I’m through.”

I stood up, prepared to storm out of the office when he mentioned something that left me unable to move.
 
“Grace, are you aware that two days after the start of the school year, Mr.
Hasselbeck
and Miss Hamilton both filed a complaint against you?”

I couldn’t say anything.
 
I simply stared at him mutely.
 
“They both insisted that you had made threats against Miss Hamilton, that you were so distraught over your friendship ending with Mr.
Hasselbeck
that you had cornered Miss Hamilton in the restroom and threatened her with bodily harm.
 
Miss Rebecca Muniz corroborated their story, stating that she had been in the bathroom during this incident.

“It seemed so uncharacteristic of you, and I was willing to dismiss it.
 
But then I remembered how you left school on the first day without authorization,” he said as he lifted the top sheet from the folder containing my school record and pointed to the date that I could never have forgotten.

“Have you asked Graham about that so-called incident recently?
 
I’m fairly certain that he’ll tell you he was simply doing it because Erica wanted him to, and that nothing like that happened at all,” I argued.

“And what does that say about him if that were true, Grace?
 
That he’s weak, and susceptible to the charms of a beautiful woman, that’s what.
 
Either way, it’s not going to help you out.
 
You’ve got a decision to make.
 
What’s it going to be?”

“Tell Erica to sue the school.
 
I’m not breaking up with Robert because she doesn’t want to accept responsibility for assaulting Stacy.
 
And,” I paused as I walked towards the door to leave, “I’d be more concerned about Stacy suing the school for discrimination.

“She was physically attacked to the point of needing to be hospitalized by a student on campus, and instead of punishing the person responsible for it, you’re telling me to break up with my boyfriend.
 
I hope you’re camera ready, Mr. Kenner, because I have a knack for getting other people into the paper, and that’s exactly where you’ll see your name if you go through with this.”

I stormed out of his office, out of the office period, and entered the hallway where an anxious group awaited my return.
 
Lark and Robert were both trying to mask the anger they felt—they had heard every single word—while Stacy and Graham held nervous expressions, the verdict still unknown.

I focused my attention on Graham, the fresh knowledge that he had actually filed a complaint with the vice-principal against me tattooing my mind with the latent betrayal.
 
“How could you?” I whispered, unable to say anything else.

Robert placed a comforting hand at the small of my back and I felt I could lean fully against it and never fall.
 
I needed that support right now.
 
“It’s going to be okay,” he said to me softly, his hand moving in small circles.

Lark spoke up then.
 
“Come on, let’s go somewhere else other than the hallway.
 
People are staring.”

“They’re always staring,” I muttered but allowed Robert to push me forward as we walked towards the front entrance of the school.
 
The crisp winter air was a welcome change to the stifling warmth of the school’s hallway.

“Now, tell us what happened,” Stacy insisted as she sat on one of the outdoor tables, patting the space beside her.

“I don’t know where to start,” I grumbled, my eyes glued to Graham’s.
 
He couldn’t have known what I was about to reveal.
 
Good.
 
Let everyone be shocked.
 
“Erica’s trying to blackmail me into breaking up with Robert.
 
She told Mr. Kenner that if I didn’t, she’d sue the school for discrimination.”

Robert and Lark remained quiet while Stacy managed to muffle a very nasty expletive.
 
Graham never took his eyes off me.
 
“I told him that I wasn’t going to be blackmailed, not by Erica, and definitely not by him.
 
And that’s when he told me that Erica had filed a complaint against me at the beginning of the school year.”

“For what?” Stacy hissed.

“For threatening her.
 
She had a co-complainant.”

“Who?”

I looked at Graham.
 
His face already spoke volumes.
 
“Your boyfriend.”

Stacy turned accusatory eyes towards him, her mouth open with shock.
 
I felt my own eyes start to burn at the confirmation I could see written in his face, the guilt that could not be hidden.

“Grace…you had been acting so strangely after—well, you know.
 
When you ran off that first day, it wasn’t like you.
 
You don’t run.
 
I knew something was wrong, so when Erica told me that you had threatened her in the bathroom…Grace I didn’t do it to hurt you, I swear.

“I thought that if I filed that complaint someone would talk to you.
 
You needed someone to talk to and I couldn’t be that person for you.
 
Not then, anyway.
 
Please, please say you believe me,” Graham said imploringly, his eyes full of hurt that mirrored my own.

Stacy reacted before I could.