Earth Angel (Falling Angels Saga) (10 page)

Later, as I was leaving French class, Ashley Scott cornered me by the door. She was eyeing me with the kind of fake concern a cobra must have just before it devours a helpless mouse.

“Hey, Megan. Is everything okay with you and Guy?” I had almost forgotten that Ashley had been witness to my outburst outside the basketball game.

“Yes. But thanks for asking,” I replied quickly, hoping that would put an end to it.

She stepped in front of me, blocking my escape, and lowered her voice. “You were getting pretty heated out there. What did he do?” Again with the bogus concern.

“Oh, you know, the usual.” My fake smile matched her fake concern. I wagged my head back and forth. “Boys!” I muttered, playful, yet sarcastic.

“I know,” she said, as if were had been sharing some dark secret. “They are such babies.” She chuckled for a moment, and then went right back to digging for dirt. “Who was that
girl
?” The extra emphasis she put on the word girl, made it sound like she was asking:
Who was that monster?

It was clear Ashley thought Rocky was the reason for my outburst (good guess), and was looking for a way to get me to admit it.

“Sister,” I said dismissively.“Just his older sister, in town for a few days. I think she lives in London.” When you’re lying, add a detail. It makes it sound more believable.

“Really?” I could tell from the disappointment in her voice she was totally buying into the lie. “She’s beautiful,” she added.

“I know,” I said with a sigh. “Looks run in that family. Oh well, I better get going if I don’t want to be late.”

“Of course.” As I started away she grabbed me by the arm. “Megan, if you ever need a shoulder to lean on, I’m here.” She looked at me with soulful eyes.

Right.

“Thank you. That is so sweet.” About as sweet as a vat of rat poison.

French class had taken my mind off Guy; leave it to Ashley to bring him back up.

Two periods later, when I walked into calc, I got what I was looking for: A distraction. A hall monitor was standing by the door waiting for me.

“Hi, Megan. I’m supposed to escort you to Principal Lockhart’s office.” This request came from Lenore, a freshman AP student who hadn’t yet figured out how to control her raging acne.

Everyone in ear shot looked up. Megan Barnett was in trouble. This was big news on a Monday morning, fodder for the G.U. gossip mills until something juicier came along.

“Okay. Sure. Escort away.”

I couldn’t imagine what it could be. Maybe I had forgotten to fill in one of the sections on my SAT forms, or perhaps I was getting some type of honors award, and they wanted to alert me to it in private, before the big announcement. One thing was certain; I wasn’t in trouble.

As soon as I walked into Principal Lockhart’s outer office, I realized I was wrong about being in trouble. My mother was seated on one of the molded plastic chairs across the room.

“Mom! What are you doing here?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” she said in a guarded tone, looking around nervously, as if she was embarrassed to be sitting in the Principal’s office.“They called me at work about an hour ago. I got here as soon as I could.” Lines of worry were cast across her face, but there was something else, just beneath the surface.

I flopped onto the chair next to her. “I don’t know. Umm, maybe I won an award or something.”

Her expression clouded over. “I don’t think they’d drag me all the way here from work to tell me about an award, Megan. What did you do?” Now I realized what I’d seen just beneath the surface—anger.

“Nothing! I swear!” my voice swelled with indignation.

“I’m going to find out in a few minutes. You might as well tell me now.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” My own mother was looking at me as though she didn’t believe me.

“It’s that boy isn’t it? Are you pregnant?” Her voice nearly dropped out when she said the word
pregnant
, as if she was having a hard time squeezing it up her throat.

“Of course not! How could you think such a thing?” Tears sprang into my eyes.

Her expression changed from anger to pain. She sat back in her chair and waited.

A few moments later, Principal Lockhart’s door opened. An expressionless Lockhart stepped into the doorway.

So much for winning an award
, I thought.
That is not an award-winning face.

“Come in,” she said in an even tone.

There was someone else in her office, a man seated in the chair opposite her desk. He was wearing wire-rimmed oval shaped dark glasses and a ratty blazer. A large thigh-to-ankle plaster cast was on his left leg, splayed out in front of him like a trophy. He didn’t turn to look at us.

Lockhart gestured for us to sit on her couch and returned to her desk.

“Well, as you both know, Megan is one of our finest students,” she said, smiling in my direction before sitting. “For a year and a half, Megan, you have led an exemplary student life. So you can imagine how much it pained me when I heard that of all students,
you
attended the ditch day party known as The Explosion.” I opened my mouth to protest. “Do not lie to me, young lady,” she said evenly, without raising her voice. “I am trying to get to the bottom of things, and it would help if I didn’t have to sort through lies.”

As she spoke, she absently picked up a snow globe paper weight from her desk, and began turning it over in her hands. Her eyes bore into me.

“Okay,” I rasped. I looked at my mother, and could see confusion mixed with disappointment on her face.

Satisfied that I wasn’t going to lie, Principal Lockhart nodded. “There was an altercation at the ditch party, wasn’t there?” she probed.

I looked over at the man with the cast on his leg. He hadn’t moved.
Do I know him? Was he at the party? 
“Umm, no. Not really.” My voice was small. I continued staring at the man.

“Well then, what happened?” She set the snow globe down and leaned forward.

“Umm, some people came in who weren’t invited, and Ga… one of the guests asked them to leave. That was it.”

A satisfied smile spread across her face. “So you
were
there?”

I realized in that moment if I had lied, I might have avoided what was to come.
If only I had a nefarious mind.

“Told ya.” I recognized the voice of the man seated at Lockhart’s desk. It was Danny Tambor. He faced me, removed his dark glasses and smiled. “Hey there, Meg.” There was an ugly bluish mark beneath his right eye. The eye was bloodshot.

I looked from Danny to Principal Lockhart. Now
I
was confused.

Lockhart went on. “Mr. Tambor was attacked at that party, wasn’t he?”

“No.” My voice was shrill.

“He was beaten by some students from our school.”

Again I looked from Danny to Principal Lockhart. “No. If he said he was, he’s lying.”

“Perhaps.” She leaned back in her chair. “The only way we’re ever going to get to the bottom of this is to question the others in attendance.” Her eyes dove into me. “I need names, young lady!”

And there it was. Principal Lockhart hadn’t brought me to her office because someone had been injured. She brought me there to rat out everyone who attended The Explosion.

“Umm, I don’t remember,” I replied softly. My head was spinning.

Danny chuckled.

“I thought you’d say that.” She turned to my mother. “That’s why I summoned you, Ms. Barnett. I don’t know if you are aware, but there is a rule at Glendale Union that states any student attending a ditch day party will be expelled.”

My mother let out an audible gasp. “No.”

“Not to worry. Megan is one of our best students. I am certain this is the first… troublesome thing she has ever done.” She looked at me and smiled. It was a chilling smile. “And so I am going to make an exception. As of this moment, your daughter is suspended—
just
suspended. My hope is that once you get her home, you will be able to persuade her that it is far better to turn in the miscreants who flaunt the school’s rules with a forbidden party, than to be expelled mid-semester. You can only imagine what an expulsion would look like on her college transcript.”

Y… yes,” Suze replied weakly.

“Good.” She turned her dark gaze on me. “So, Megan, you have the rest of the week. If I do not have a list of names of who attended that party on my desk by Friday morning, I will be forced to start the expulsion proceedings. Do I make myself clear?”

I didn’t respond. I sat staring off in a daze. I had been looking for something to take my mind off my troubles. I found it.

We got in the car. When she was sure we were out of snooping student ear shot, she started in.

“Boyfriends! Ditch parties! It’s as if I don’t know you anymore. And just when I thought you had finally redeemed yourself!” There was a time when the pain in her voice would have hurt. Today, it only angered me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I didn’t care how she was feeling. She was only dealing with this
one
disappointment. I had a whole boat load of problems—angels, demons, Satanists.

“The Megan I used to know wouldn’t have thought twice about attending a ditch party. The Megan I used to know thought school was too important to do something like that.”

“It’s not like I was ditching, Mom. It was
ditch
day. And what you adults don’t seem to comprehend is The Explosion is the most important social event of the year. Getting invited is an honor.”

“You’re right. I don’t think Principal Lockhart realizes what an honor it is. Should we go back and tell her?”

I didn’t appreciate her sarcasm.

“Yes. Let’s do that,” I replied, injecting some sarcasm of my own.

We remained silent the rest of the ride home. When we entered the house, she told me to go to my room until she called me. “I don’t want to look at you,” she snarled. She explained there were going to be some new rules around here, and she needed time to think about them.

“Fine!” I muttered before stomping upstairs. I knew I was acting like a spoiled ten-year-old, but I didn’t care.

I was certain one of the new rules would be to ban Guy.
I’m one step ahead of you, Mom. I already did.

Once I was alone in my room, rather than wallow in the misery that had befallen me, I decided to figure my way out of my predicament. I was a mathlete. My mind naturally gravitated towards solving problems.

Problem
: I had until Friday to turn-in my classmates or be expelled from school.

I remembered taking an AP workshop in problem solving. The workshop taught us to use a two-step process. Step one was identifying what the problem was really asking for. There was a fallacy built into my problem as it existed. The problem wasn’t actually asking me to turn in my classmates. My real problem was:
how do I keep from being expelled from school?

Once the problem had been winnowed down to what it was really asking—known as the request—step two was to respond to the request in the simplest manner possible.

I had recently been accepted by the Poplarati. There was no way I was going to turn any of them in. If I ratted on a classmate, it would have the same effect as being expelled. No one at G.U. would ever talk to me again.

So, if I wasn’t going to snitch on my classmates, how was I going to keep from getting expelled?

By getting Principal Lockhart to change her mind.

Yes, that was the simplest way to respond to the request. Principal Lockhart was the one who imposed the sanctions. I needed to get her to lift them. But how?

Principal Lockhart needs to see that she’s acting on false information.

Working through my dilemma systematically gave me the feeling I had some power over it. There’s nothing worse than feeling powerless, but by performing the mental gymnastics I had eliminated that. Now, all I had to do was change Principal Lockhart’s mind before Friday’s deadline, and my problem would be solved.

Right.

Forty minutes into my problem solving Maudrina called.

“What happened?” That was how the conversation started. No,
Hi, how are you? Why did you leave school early today?
From the excitement in her voice, my big news had already spread across campus like the plague.

“I got suspended. For going to The Explosion. Leave it to me to be the first person in the history of G.U to get busted for attending The Explosion,” I grumbled.

“How did Lockhart know you were even there?”

“That boy that Guy did the mind thing on, Danny Tambor. He showed up in Principal Lockhart’s office this morning with all sorts of fake injuries from a beating he said he suffered at The Explosion. Seems the only person he could remember seeing there was me.” She was silent for a few moments. “Maudrina?You there?”

“Why do you suppose Principal Lockhart would listen to someone like him?”

I hadn’t thought about it. I’d been too busy trying to solve my problem. But now that Maudrina had mentioned it, there was something unnatural about the connection.

“I don’t know,” I breathed, my eyes dancing along the ceiling searching for an answer, my mind a-whirl. “What do you think?”

“Aunt Jaz warned us there were others out there who had it in for you.”

Satanists.

I gasped audibly as the impact of what she was implying hit home. “Look, I know Principal Lockhart can be a real witch, but that doesn’t make her a Satanist,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “Satanists at G.U.? It’s absurd.”

“Is it?” Her tone was somber. “Think about it, Megan. Lockhart is a tough-as-nails principal. Why would she take the word of boy who I’m sure was a lousy student when he went to G.U.? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I don’t think she believes him,” I said, allowing the pieces to fall into place.“She saw an opportunity to put an end to The Explosion. The school board has wanted to put an end to it since it began. Danny Tambor is just a tool.”