"Shut up!" I shouted,
Mr. Warner, our science teacher, had just stepped out of his classroom. He turned to look our way, but I didn't care.
Randy came up behind me and tried to get me to walk away, but I shrugged off his hand.
It will probably be in the newspapers anyway, so you can't pretend it didn't happen."
"I said shut up. You say anything more about that lie, and I'll rip out your tongue," I told Ashley.
"Your mother's a thief and a terrible one at that, stealing from the very people who tried to help her," she spat back at me, and all went so bright red I can't remember what happened next, especially how I had my hands entangled in Ashley's hair, pulling her down and dragging her along the corridor floor. Her screams brought more students. In seconds Mr. Warner had his hands around my waist and was trying to lift me away, but I wouldn't let go of Ashley's hair. Suddenly Mrs. Cohen. our math teacher, was there prying my fingers back and screaming at me to let go,
When I did. Mr. Warner literally lifted me off the floor and swung me around so forcefully I thought he had broken my ribs.
"To the office, young lady!" he ordered. pointing. "Now! Go on. march!"
Ashley was crying and folded up like a baby on the floor. The school nurse had been called and was hurrying down the hallway. I didn't look back. Mr. Warner had his hand on my back, pressing between my shoulder blades to be sure I kept walking,
"Move!" he kept shouting. By now everyone coming out of every classroom was watching.
"Sit." he commanded when we entered the principal's office. "And don't move a muscle, young lady."
He went to the secretary and told her what had happened in the hallway. She looked at me as he spoke, her face full of disbelief, her head wagging and her eyes widening. She buzzed the principal, Mrs. Greenstein. and Mr. Warner went into her office first. A few moments later he came to the door and told me to get myself in there immediately.
The red stain that had formed across my eyes diminished and was gone. For a moment I didn't know what I was doing in the principal's office. My rage had been that great. Then I sucked in my breath and entered the inner office. Mr. Warner closed the door behind me. and I looked at the principal. I had seen her only in the hallway and when she had spoken to the student body during the first-day assembly. She had set down the rules she considered "holy wards," and I remember thinking she was as stern and hard looking as some of the naval officers I had met.
She wasn't much taller than I was, but she had shoulders that looked as if they were packed with football player's pads. She had a small bosom, '.vide hips, and hands that looked puffed up. Whenever I had seen her in the hallway her dark eyes were always in a scowl, and she pressed her lips together so hard tiny pockets of white formed at the corners.
"Is this true? Mr. Warner had to pull you off another student forcefully? And Mrs. Cohen had to assist?"
I nodded.
"That will be all. Mr. Warner. Thank you, and I'm sorry your lunch period was disturbed," she told him.
He glared at me and walked out.
"Sit," she said, pointing her sharp nose at the chair in front of her desk. Her mouth was small, but when she grimaced her lips stretched like rubber bands from one end of her jawbone to the other.
"I am going to see how Ashley is, and then I will return. If she is seriously hurt. I will do what I said I would do at our assembly. I will involve the police. Any assault on any of my students is as serious as it would be if it happened in the street," she said.
When she left the office she kept the door wide open so anyone walking past could look in and see me sitting there. I heard Phoebe's laugh and turned in time to see her go by with two of her friends.
How would I explain this to Mommy? I felt I had let her down and at precisely the wrong time. I lowered my head like a flag of defeat and waited, my body trembling in anticipation of what was to come.
First Mrs, Greenstein's secretary returned and placed a folder on her desk. Coming and going, she barely looked at me. Ten minutes later I heard Mrs. Greenstein's high-heeled shoes clicking down the hallway, her steps like tiny drumbeats to accompany my impending execution,
"Well," I heard a few moments later, and turned as she entered her office. "You are fortunate that she is not badly hurt."
"It wasn't all my fault," I whined,
She sat behind her desk and touched the tips of her fingers together in prayer fashion. Her eyes narrowed. She looked down at the folder her secretary had put on her desk, read, and looked up at me.
"So you are the girl who was brought up on Navy bases?"
"No, not always." I said. "When I was little we didn't live on a base. It wasn't until my father became an officer."
"An officer's daughter, and you behave like this? I thought the services ran a tight ship, especially the Navy. Protocol, proper behavior, respect for authority are all essential, aren't they? Did you think that just because you were no longer living on a base you could behave like a wild animal in my school? Would your officer father be proud of you? How is he going to feel when I call him?"
I couldn't keep the tears from coming even if there was a way to plug up my eyes. They streaked down my cheeks,