Principal's Office

Hello! Here is a kind of random quick story I drafted today. I feel like it's still in its early stages, but on the other hand I don't think I want to put a whole lot of editing into it, because for me I would say it was more just writing practice. But it was a fun one to write!

Principal's Office

“So what happened this time?”

Jesse watched the toes of his running shoes kick the bottom edge of Mr. Burke’s desk and shrugged.  He didn’t know what happened.  He didn’t understand any of it at all.

“Do you want me to tell you what Mrs. Pelletier said?”

Jesse shook his head.  He needed new shoes – he could see his sock. He wiggled his toes.

“You tell me what happened then.”

He was going to get lace-up shoes this time.  Velcro was for kids who didn’t know how to tie their shoes.  Jesse had been tying his own shoes by himself for three years now.

“Jesse, look at me.”

Jesse looked at Mr. Burke’s tie. It was red, like a long tongue hanging down all the way to his pants.

“At my eyes.”

Jesse looked at Mr. Burke’s glasses.

“Why did Mrs. Pelletier excuse you from class?” Mr. Burke asked.  Mr. Burke’s glasses looked like his aunt’s glasses.  Was Mr. Burke wearing girl glasses?

“Jesse. Answer me.”

Jesse pushed the toe that stuck out of his shoe into the edge of the desk until it almost hurt.  Mr. Burke leaned down so that his red tie touched Jesse’s hand on the desk.  He moved it away.  Now he had Mr. Burke germs on his hand.

“Jesse – look at me – the sooner you answer me, the sooner you can go back to class.”

Jesse shrugged again.  Mr. Burke stood back up with a sigh and said,

“Well! Shall I tell you what Mrs. Pelletier said?”

Jesse shrugged, and looked back down.

“She said you were threatening some of the other students at recess.  That would make this how many times you have come to the office because you were bullying other students?”

Jesse looked up with a start.  Bullying? He, bullying?

“Yes, Jesse, bullying!” Mr. Burke said, reading his thoughts.  “The students keep saying that you told them to run away, that you are going to blow them up, and whatever else it was! How many times have we told you that it isn’t nice to make up stories to scare the other students? I know it’s hard to fit in to a new school, but you’ve been making trouble for yourself ever since you’ve come here.”

“I didn’t make up a story,” Jesse said.

“What was that? Speak up,” Mr. Burke said.  He sat in his royal principal’s throne and delicately placed his fingers together.

“I didn’t make up a story.”

“Did you tell them the truth?”

Jesse nodded.

“What was the truth?”

Jesse’s Velcro shoes were blue.  They were new this month.  His mother was probably not going to buy him another pair of new shoes.  They had broken in the last explosion.  It was a small one, not even a quarter the size of the one where Riley had – Riley –

“Jesse, are you listening to me?”

“I telled them,” Jesse started to say.

“Speak up, Jesse.”

“I telled them,” he said, “they better be careful, because I might blow them up.”

“Why did you tell them that?” Mr. Burke asked.

“Because, I was angry. Sometimes, when I’m angry, I blow things up.”

“Do you realize that they get scared when you say things like that?”

“Ye-es,” Jesse said. “I’m scared too! I’m just warning them.”

“That you might blow them up.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think you will blow them up?”

“Yeah.”

“How will you do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“With bombs? Dynamite?”

Jesse glowered at Mr. Burke.  Mrs. Findlay, the principal at his old school, had said the same thing.  Jesse knew it meant they didn’t believe him.  His mom hadn’t believed him either.  Now, two schools and fifty pairs of shoes later, Jesse was running into the same problems again.

“I don’t know how it happens, or why it happens,” Jesse said. 

“Jesse, that’s enough.  If you don’t stop threatening to blow up the other students, things will get more serious than just a detention.”

Mrs. Findlay had said that too. It had gone from detention to suspension to expulsion.  Those were big words, but Jesse knew what they meant.  SUS-PEN-SION. EX-PUL-SION.

“I didn’t threaten them,” Jesse said.  “I warned them.”

“It’s the same thing.”

Jesse didn’t think they were the same thing in his case, but he wasn’t sure how to explain why they were different.

“Can I go back to class now?” he asked.

“Are you going to stop telling your schoolmates you’re going to hurt them?”

Hurt them?

“I don’t want to hurt my friends,” Jesse said.  “If I blowed them up, it’s an accident.”

“Jesse,” Mr. Burke said, “quit playing games.”

“It isn’t a game,” Jesse replied.  “It’s real life.”

“You think you will blow people up in real life?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesse, I am being serious.”

“Yeah.”

“Am I going to have to call your mom?”

Don’t cry, Jesse told himself.  He was too old to cry.  Besides, he was used to this.

“Please don’t call my mom,” he said in a small voice.

“Are you going to stop threatening to blow up the other kids?”

“What if I did blow them up?”

“Jesse.  What have you learned about being truthful?”

Truthful? Did Mr. Burke want to hear the “truthful” he would believe, or the “truthful” that would keep Jesse in the principal’s office all day, and worse, bring his mother into it too?  And what part of the truth should he tell? The part where a force erupted out of him so strong that it ripped his clothes and split his shoes? Or the part where he watched helplessly as other kids went flying in every direction away from him, and then had to go to the hospital? Nobody had figured out where the explosion had come from, the big one that happened at his old school, and Jesse didn’t get the chance to tell them, because Jesse was in the hospital with a concussion too.  Or maybe, the truth was the part when… right when Riley had blown out Jesse’s candles – those were his birthday candles, it was his seventh birthday – Mom had said “that’s enough, Jesse,” which made him even madder – and then, suddenly –

“I am not going to threaten to blow up the other kids,” Jesse said.  He looked Mr. Burke dead in the eye.  “I promise.”

Mr. Burke paused a moment, then softly said,

“Alright, Jesse. You can go back to class now.”