Lost at School (24 page)

“Will do,” said Mrs. Westbrook, glancing warily over at Crystal.

Minutes later, Mr. Middleton came out of his office. “Crystal, what’s going on?”

Crystal scowled. “I got nothin’ to say. You wanna know what’s going on, you better ask Captain Armstrong.”

“Crystal, please, I don’t have time to be a detective today. Come in my office and tell me what happened.”

Crystal followed Mr. Middleton into his office. “OK, I shouldn’t have called Ashlee a whore. So sue me. But Mr. Armstrong wouldn’t even listen to what she said to me first. All he did was say I had to apologize.”

Mr. Middleton sighed. “Crystal, how many suspensions and detentions have you had over the years for fighting and swearing?”

Crystal scowled again. “I thought you were supposed to keep track of stuff like that.”

“Crystal, all I know is it’s been a lot of times. And here we are again. When are you going to give it a rest?”

“I’ll rest at home after you suspend me.”

“Crystal, I don’t want to suspend you. But you don’t give me much choice. Can your grandma come pick you up?”

“Nope. She’s sleeping. Night shift.”

“Can your brother come pick you up?”

“Haven’t seen my brother in weeks.”

Mr. Middleton sighed again. “Crystal, what do you do when you’re home suspended, anyway?”

Crystal smirked. “Hang out.”

This is pointless, thought Mr. Middleton. “Crystal, I’m not going to suspend you out of school. I’m giving you in-school suspension for two days. I want you to go there now. I’ll let Mr. Strickland know you’re on your way.”

“I don’t want in-school suspension. If you’re gonna suspend me, at least let me get out of this place.”

Mr. Middleton shook his head. “Now, what good would that do? Have you sitting at home, or whatever you mean by ‘hanging out.’ No, I’d rather have you here.”

Crystal rose from her seat. “Whatever.”

*  *  *

The next two weeks went well for Joey in Mrs. Woods’ classroom. He came early again on several days and he and Mrs. Woods continued to examine new assignments that were similar to but not exactly the same as others he’d completed. Once, Joey became slightly confused on an assignment Mrs. Woods hadn’t reviewed with him in the morning, but the signal worked well. Indeed, after a few minutes of confusion, Joey was able to start working after recognizing how the assignment was slightly different from one he’d completed a few weeks earlier.

Two weeks into the plan, Mrs. Woods woke up feeling sick one morning. She asked her husband to call the school to arrange for a substitute and went back to sleep. The substitute teacher was an enthusiastic young man named Mr. Owens. He’d subbed a few times already at the school, but never in Mrs. Woods’ class. It occurred to Mr. Middleton to let Mr. Owens know about some of the kids in Mrs. Woods’ class, but he was distracted by a problem that had taken place between two students on a school bus and didn’t get to Mr. Owens before classes began. Mrs. Franco, who had been involved in an early-morning meeting, didn’t know her friend had called in sick until she stuck her head into the classroom just as Mr. Owens was introducing himself to the class.

Mr. Owens did his best to stick to Mrs. Woods’ teaching plan for the day. Around mid-morning, he noticed a student working on something different from the rest of class. It was Joey, working on something he’d taken out of his backpack, sticking to the plan. The plan Mr. Owens knew nothing about.

Mr. Owens approached Joey’s desk. “Um, that’s not the assignment you’re supposed to be working on,” said Mr. Owens.

Joey looked up, mortified. The unexpected deviation from the plan left him at a loss for words. His face reddening, he went back to working on the materials he’d taken out of his backpack.

“Um, excuse me, but that’s not what you’re supposed to be working on,” repeated Mr. Owens.

Liz, the classmate sitting next to Joey, tried to ward off impending disaster. “I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” she said. Mr. Owens noticed with dismay that several other kids were now focused not on their work but on him. Joey, looking around, saw them, too, and grew even more embarrassed.

“Thanks,” he said with a pleasant smile, “but he’s supposed to be doing what everyone else …”

Mr. Owens’ insistence pushed Joey close to the edge. But this time he didn’t jump out of his seat. He didn’t scream. He didn’t threaten to kill anyone. He just got out of his seat and walked quickly toward the classroom door.

“Hey, where are you going?!” called Mr. Owens, but Joey didn’t even acknowledge the question as he walked out of the classroom.

Eddie, trying to help, yelled, “You better get after him! He’ll run out of the school!”

Mr. Owens was torn between following Joey and leaving the class unmonitored. He decided on the slightly lesser of two evils and began rushing toward the door of the classroom.

Mrs. Franco was helping a student when she saw Joey in the hallway rushing past her door. “Oh, no!” she said under her breath. She dashed into the hallway, almost bumping into Mr. Owens. She started walking quickly down the hall after Joey with Mr. Owens in tow.

Mrs. Franco felt the urge to yell “Joey, get back to class, now!” but resisted the temptation. Instead, as she rounded a corner, she did her best Bridgman imitation and yelled,
“Joey, what’s up?”

Joey stopped dead in his tracks. He turned around and looked at Mrs. Franco and Mr. Owens.

“He … he …” Joey sputtered, pointing at Mr. Owens.

Through intuition, or sheer luck, or perhaps because she couldn’t think of anything else to say, Mrs. Franco tried to empathize.
“He doesn’t know the plan!”

Joey looked as if he were about to cry. “He doesn’t know the plan,” Joey mumbled.

Mr. Owens made a move forward to grab Joey while he had the chance. Mrs. Franco, knowing the possible effect of that course, hissed, “Leave him alone!”

“You know him?” asked Mr. Owens.

“Why don’t you go back to your class and I’ll handle Joey,” Mrs. Franco said without looking away from Joey. “And stick your head in my class and let them know there had better be silence in there when I come back.”

When Mr. Owens was gone, Mrs. Franco walked slowly toward Joey, who was leaning against some lockers. “Joey?”

“Leave me alone.”

“Joey, Mr. Owens didn’t know the plan, did he?”

“He’s a moron.”

“I don’t know if he’s a moron, but—”

Without warning, Joey spun around and punched one of the lockers with all his might. Stunned, Mrs. Franco suddenly wasn’t so sure about Plan B or anything else Dr. Bridgman had said. She had no idea what Joey would do next. “Joey, please don’t hit the locker like that. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Joey lied.

Mr. Armstrong stuck his head out his classroom door. “Everything OK out here?”

“I think we’re OK.”

Mr. Armstrong looked hard at Joey, then at Mrs. Franco. “You let me know if you need any help.”

Mrs. Franco focused on Joey again. “I’m sorry Mr. Owens didn’t know the plan. Mrs. Woods must be really sick today and probably didn’t have a chance to tell him. But I think you did the right thing not to run out of the school.”

Joey was silent.

Mrs. Franco struggled to think of what to say next. She tried not to think about the chaos that might be ensuing in her own classroom. Empathy, empathy, she thought. What would be empathy? “I bet you don’t want to go back to class right now.” Joey didn’t respond.

Now what? Mrs. Franco’s mind was racing. “Joey, your hand is bleeding. It must hurt really bad. Will you let me take care of it for you?”

Joey was suddenly acutely aware of the extreme pain in his hand. “Where?” He looked around warily. “I don’t want anyone to see me walking with you.”

“That would be embarrassing,” empathized Mrs. Franco. “How about you walk over to the nurse’s office? If anyone sees you, you could tell them you don’t feel well. No one will know what happened. I’ll go check in on my class and meet you at the nurse’s office. What do you think?”

Joey pondered the proposed arrangement. “My hand really hurts.”

“I can imagine. You hit that locker really hard.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“Well, the locker doesn’t look any worse than it did before you hit it.”

“I’ll go to the nurse’s office, but don’t walk next to me.”

“No problem.” Mrs. Franco waited for Joey to pass by before turning to follow several paces behind him. She ducked into her classroom on her way to the nurse’s office. Her students were silent. “Kids, thank you for continuing your work while I was out of the classroom. I’m going to be a few more minutes. I’ll be right back.” Then she stuck her head inside Mrs. Woods’ classroom, where things were a bit more chaotic and Mr. Owens looked frazzled. She glared at the students and they immediately fell silent. “You all will be very sorry, and I mean
very
sorry, if I have to stick my head in this classroom again today. You need to be on your best behavior for Mr. Owens or you’ll have to answer to me. Mr. Owens, can you check in on my classroom in a few minutes?”

“Sure thing,” said Mr. Owens.

“What happened to Joey?” asked Liz.

“Joey is fine,” said Mrs. Franco.

“Is he suspended again?” asked Taylor.

“I do not think he is suspended again,” said Mrs. Franco. “Now get back to work.”

Before going to the nurse’s office, Mrs. Franco knocked on Mr. Middle-ton’s door. He opened the door a crack and she could see that a meeting was going on. She whispered through the crack in the door, “Joey got a little upset with the substitute.” A wide-eyed look of concern came over Mr. Middleton’s face. “But he’s fine. Punched a locker hard. We’ll be in the nurse’s office if you’d like to join us. There’s no adult in my classroom.”

“I’ll be right out,” he said, closing the door.

In the nurse’s office, Joey sat dejectedly on a cot, holding his hand, but the nurse wasn’t there. “Your hand must be killing you,” said Mrs. Franco.

“It hurts really bad.”

“We should probably get you to a doctor.”

“My mom’s gonna go nuts.”

“What happened in there?”

“He wouldn’t listen to me. He embarrassed me in front of everyone. And I was just doing the plan. But he wouldn’t leave me alone, so I just left.”

“Mrs. Woods told me that you had come up with a plan.”

“You sure I’m not in trouble?”

“Aw, Joey, I don’t get to decide who’s in trouble around here. But I think you did a lot better this time than the last time.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

Joey stiffened as Mr. Middleton came into the nurse’s office.

Mrs. Franco looked at Mr. Middleton. “I was just telling Joey how much better I thought he handled things just now,” she said.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Well, Joey was using a plan he and Mrs. Woods came up with if he didn’t understand an assignment, but Mr. Owens didn’t know the plan so he kind of insisted that Joey do what the rest of the class was doing and that was a little embarrassing. So Joey left the classroom, and he was pretty upset, but he and I talked about it a little and now we’re talking about what to do about his hurt hand.”

“I sent Mrs. Westbrook to watch your classroom,” said Mr. Middleton, trying to digest this information. “What happened to your hand, Joey?”

“Joey hurt it on a locker,” Mrs. Franco interjected quickly.

Mr. Middleton assumed there was more to the story but decided not to pursue it. “You walked out of the classroom, Joey?”

“Yes sir,” Joey said quietly.

“Let’s take a look at your hand,” said Mr. Middleton. It was cut and already swollen. Mr. Middleton winced. “We probably should get that taken care of. Looks like you ran into a very angry locker.”

“Yes sir,” said Joey, glancing anxiously at Mrs. Franco.

“Joey, I’d suggest we call your mom and have her take you to the doctor to get your hand taken care of,” said Mr. Middleton. “On Monday morning before school I want to sit down with you and Dr. Bridgman and Mrs. Woods if she’s back,” Mr. Middleton looked at Mrs. Franco again, “and Mrs. Franco, so we can talk about this a little.”

“Yes sir. Am I suspended again?”

“Walking out of a classroom isn’t something we’d usually suspend a student for. Only you and Mrs. Franco know what happened between you and that locker. But if Mrs. Franco thinks you handled things better this time, I’m going to take her word for it, for now. So I’m going to talk a little more with Mrs. Franco and Mr. Owens and we’ll get together on Monday morning and get it all sorted out.”

Joey’s mother arrived at the school looking anxious. She found Joey and Mrs. Westbrook, the school secretary, waiting for her in the nurse’s office.

“What happened?” she asked Joey.

“Nothing,” mumbled Joey.

“Doesn’t look like nothing. Did you hit someone?”

“Some
thing,
” clarified Mrs. Westbrook.

“Great. What did you hit, Joey?” asked Ms. Lowell.

“A locker,” Joey mumbled as he rose to leave the office.

“A locker,” repeated Ms. Lowell. “Just for kicks, or were you mad about something again?”

Joey began leaving the office to head toward the car. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s great, Joey. I’m missing work to take you to the doctor because you hit a locker and you don’t want to talk about it.”

Joey turned to face his mother. “I don’t want to talk to
you
about it. All
you
do is yell at me and get all stressed out.”

Ms. Lowell was trying not to yell. “All I do is yell at you? Joey, I sure as heck hope this isn’t the straw that breaks—” She stopped herself. “Who are you going to talk to about it then?”

“Mrs. Woods. She understands.”

Though a bit hurt at the idea that Joey was more comfortable confiding in someone else, Ms. Lowell quickly considered the upside of Joey’s statement. “That’s fine, Joey. You talk to Mrs. Woods about it. Was Mrs. Woods there when you hit the locker?”

Joey got into the car. “She’s out sick today.”

Ms. Lowell was beginning to get a grasp on what had transpired at school. “So why’d you hit the locker?”