Secret Saturdays (10 page)

Going down the stairwell, we saw the back of my Advisory teacher's dreadlocked head. I pulled Vanessa out of sight mad fast. The last thing we needed was Ms. Feeney turning around and spotting us on her way to supervising the cafeteria. She probably would've walked us to lunch and kept us there.

“I think she's gone,” Vanessa said after about a minute of us sitting quietly on the steps.

When we got to the lunchroom, we found Kyle waiting for us outside the doors. He must've missed Ms. Feeney.

“We need to go to the principal's office,” I said. “Jackie came in and took Sean home. He might be suspended.”

Kyle's jaw dropped. He knew what I knew. Sean hadn't ever gotten into this much trouble before.

“Let's go,” Vanessa said, grabbing Kyle's wrist because we didn't have time for him to be standing there with his mouth open.

As we headed to the principal's office, we passed Big Eddie, who said, “I heard Sean got suspended.” He smiled. I was so pissed. I wanted to say something to him, but I couldn't think of anything. So I turned and gave him the middle finger.

 

When we got to the main office, we stopped at the counter.

It was the week before December break. Christmas decorations were up everywhere. Gold and silver glittery garland was taped on walls in upside-down rainbows. Fake candy canes were stuck on windows.

But it didn't feel like Christmas was coming. The holidays were in the back of my mind. I was more focused on Sean's craziness.

The counter that blocked visitors from walking into the secretaries' area had swinging doors at both ends.

The plan was to rush through one of those swinging doors, fly past the three secretaries without them seeing us, and get to Principal Negron's open door. We checked on the secretaries. I couldn't completely see them, which meant they couldn't really see us. They had black computers on their desks with big, flat screens standing straight up like little walls. Their desk printers were tall and wide. Almost as huge as their desks. It was like they wanted to hide. They had to lean to the side to see people come into the office.

One secretary chatted with two lunch ladies. The second secretary spoke with a UPS man with packages. Two distracted secretaries meant we only needed to sneak by the third secretary, Ms. Dotson.

“You see Ms. Dotson?” Vanessa whispered at me and Kyle.

“Only the top of her head,” Kyle said.

“Now then,” Vanessa said. “Let's do this.”

Me and Kyle nodded and we opened the swinging door closest to Ms. Dotson and snuck past her to Principal Negron's office.

We were almost at Principal Negron's open door when we heard, “Can I help you?” Ms. Dotson's head flew from behind her computer screen. She flashed a fake smile and asked, “Why are you three in here?”

We froze, but then Principal Negron walked out of the bathroom in his office wiping his half-wet hands with brown school bathroom paper and saw us. He pointed at me, straightened his tie, and started walking my way.

“Can I help you?” Ms. Dotson asked us again. Meaner. She probably didn't appreciate us not answering her.

“Ms. Dotson, it's okay,” Principal Negron said. “Justin, Vanessa, and Kyle,” he said real sweet. “Come in.”

We followed him and stood near his long conference table. When he closed his wooden door, we all heard it click shut. My stomach growled from nervousness. His friendly grin made me more afraid. Usually, he was straight business.

There was this school rumor that Principal Negron used to be a police captain. I believed it. He had that mean cop walk, talk, and face. His mouth smiled but his eyes didn't. Both kids and teachers called his stare “the look.” His stare was worse than getting yelled at or being asked a million questions. Whenever his eyes met mine, I felt like a criminal on a cop show on television. In a small, dark room under a hot lightbulb, being grilled.

He had an almost Santa Claus white beard. Instead of being big and puffy it was trimmed real close to his cheeks and chin. Little prickly white needles everywhere.

“Is it true Sean got suspended?” Vanessa asked him.

“Maybe I should ask Justin,” Principal Negron said real calm. “Does Sean deserve to be suspended?”

“How would I know?” I asked.

Principal Negron looked at me suspiciously and crossed his arms. “Ms. Feeney tells me she sees Sean being mean a lot lately. Putting kids down so nastily, she'd almost call Sean a bully. And she says you're there when he does it. Is that right?”

I smiled but didn't know why I smiled. Maybe because I was nervous.

“Something's funny?” Principal Negron said.

“No,” I answered fast.

“It better not be. If I see you acting like Sean . . . or if I see any of you putting kids down, I'll get your parents up here and you'll be suspended.”

I knew Vanessa and Kyle's hearts were pounding like mine from what he had just said. Sean's mom was sometimes easy, sometimes hard. If she punished him, she sometimes got soft and let him do what he wanted. She'd tell him he couldn't be on the phone, then let him use his cell. She said no TV and video games but let him watch TV and play video games anyway. Other times, she was strict.

Our mothers didn't play that. They were always strict if we got into trouble. They hit us. Took away our privileges.

“I'm not going to speak to you like you're in kindergarten,” Principal Negron said. “You three are getting older, right?”

We nodded.

“Do you know what's wrong with Sean making fun of kids?” he asked. His face looked as concerned as mine, Vanessa's, and Kyle's. Like he had Sean's back. “There are reports on my desk that all say the same thing. Putting someone down is verbal abuse. Kids who do this become adults who start verbal conflicts. Adults who verbally abuse are more likely to have problems with the law because they put the wrong person down and that person either responds with violence or they get the police involved.

“I told Sean and his mother where his nasty mouth might lead. If he keeps bullying now, he might grow into an adult bully and verbally assault people or more. She's upset about the trouble Sean's gotten into and says she'll turn Sean around. I hope she does, but he also needs your help. You're his best friends. Get him to cut it out.”

“Okay,” we all said at the same time. I could tell Principal Negron didn't want Sean to grow up to be a troublemaker.

“Go to lunch,” Principal Negron said. “And I didn't suspend Sean out of the building. Tomorrow he's back and has in-house suspension.”

As we left his office, I smiled a real smile. In-house was this room for kids who had done something bad but not so bad that they got suspended out the building and stayed home. There was still time for us to get to Sean and talk to him. Get him to stop bugging before he got suspended out the building for real because everybody knew what happened to kids who got suspended that way. They fell behind in school, would get in more trouble, their grades dropped, and soon they were left back.

BY FOUR O'CLOCK,
Sean hadn't called any of us. We went behind our building to shoot hoops on the court there.

Kyle took the ball and started doing layups. I whipped out my phone and dialed Sean's cell. It went straight to his voice mail on the first ring. I didn't leave a message. We played a game of Around the World. Then I played taps with Vanessa while Kyle dialed Sean's house. His mom picked up.

“Hello,” Jackie said.

Kyle hung up.

“You hung up on her?” I asked Kyle. I was so into hearing his answer that I dropped the ball Vanessa threw to me.

“O-U-T,” Vanessa told me. “You out.”

“Yeah, I hung up,” Kyle said. “I didn't know what else to do.”

Sean's mom might've been annoyed that he'd put his hands on someone in school. She'd probably put her foot down and kept him from using his cell.

“Vanessa,” I said. “Dial Sean's house on star 67.” Star 67 is what you punch before a number if you don't want your number coming up on someone's caller ID.

Vanessa didn't want to bug Jackie because she liked her.

“Please,” I asked her.

“Not for you,” Vanessa said. “For Sean. I want to speak with him too.” She star 67'd Sean's apartment.

“Kyle?” Jackie said. “Is this Kyle?”

Vanessa hung up. Her eyes popped out her head. “She thought I was Kyle.”

“Dang!” Kyle said, punching his leg hard. “Now she's going to think it's me who keeps calling.” He took his glasses off and rubbed the lenses with the bottom of his shirt.

We stopped calling Sean because it probably was just pissing his mom off. Maybe we'd see him tomorrow.

“Let's play a game,” Vanessa said. “I'll start a sentence, toss the ball to one of you, and whoever gets it has to finish what I'm saying. Then you say that same sentence and toss the ball to somebody and we end it.”

“Okay,” I said.

Kyle nodded, still looking pissed about Vanessa hanging up on Sean's mom. “Whatever. Go ahead.”

“Sean is fighting because . . .” She bounced the ball at me.

“. . . because he stopped taking his pills that we never knew he took to control his anger.” I repeated what she had said, “Sean's fighting because . . .” and passed the ball to Kyle.

“. . . because he's dumb.” Kyle threw the ball hard at Vanessa. “Sean's fighting because . . .”

“. . . because he's turning into his father.”

“You think?” I asked. That was really smart of her to say. I wanted to talk more about that but her cell rang.

“Hello?” she said. “Yes. Yeah. Okay.” She hung up. “I'm leaving. My mom wants me home now.”

“I should be out too,” Kyle said.

We left the court and went in different directions, but what Vanessa said about Sean turning into his pops stayed on my mind for the whole night.

 

Both Tuesday and Wednesday passed and Sean never made it to school. His mom had pulled him out early on Monday. Now he was absent two days in a row? He was supposed to be in school serving in-house suspension. A scary thought ran through my mind. Maybe his mom kept him out because she was transferring him to another school. One where he wouldn't get into trouble. First, I felt that idea was dumb. But it wasn't. If Jackie took secret Saturday trips, she probably would make other moves on the sneak too.

 

Thursday night, I was alone in my room. With no Vanessa around to make me feel bad about calling Sean's house and hanging up, I tried Sean on his cell and house phones again. It was the same as the nights before. I star 67'd. Instead of Sean picking up, his mom answered, heard my silence, and hung up. A few times I almost spoke to ask Jackie what was up with Sean, but I couldn't. I was scared of how she'd react. Plus, she was grown, and my mother taught me to watch my mouth with adults. To respect. So I kept hanging up and after a while Jackie stopped answering. She probably turned her ringer off. I didn't blame her. I called so much that even I was hearing a phone ring in my head.

 

On Friday morning, I got to school at seven thirty, before first period. Kyle was in the cafeteria eating breakfast.

Sean sat on the other side of the lunchroom with his cousin Mark, Tony, Mike, and Junito.

“Let's go talk to Sean,” I said.

“Nah. I'm curious about Sean but I'm mad hungry and I'm finishing my breakfast. Find me after at the table near the soda machine.”

I went up to Sean alone.

“What up?” I said, and asked him to step to the side with me.

At a nearby lunch table, I took off my backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out my loose-leaf binder. I popped the rings and handed Sean the four assignments he had missed while he was gone.

“Where you been?” I asked.

“Nowhere.”

“Anyway.” I didn't feel like having a back-and-forth with him. “We still have forty-five minutes. I didn't do two assignments. Let's sit with Kyle and knock these out together so you can catch up before first period.”

“Nah. I'm not doing the assignments.”

Here I was hooking him up so he wouldn't fall behind. And he repaid me by dismissing me?

“Sean,” I said, “why you gonna let your schoolwork slip?”

“Who cares if I hand in super-neat work, on time, all the time? That's corny. And nerdy.”

Was Sean trying to impress his cousin and his eighth-grade friends? They never did schoolwork. “Okay,” I said. “Fail and end up in summer school. See if I care.”