Death, Doom and Detention

By the time we got to detention, all I wanted to do was get back and check on Jared. Instead, I was stuck at school even longer.

Turned out, detention was like prison too, only without uniforms or the constant threat of being shanked. Though Hector Salazar—math geek, chess champion, and all-around overachiever—sat on the opposite side of the room, wearing the angriest scowl on his face I’d ever seen. Maybe shanking was a real possibility after all. He didn’t want to be there any more than I did.

Brooke and I had never been in detention, so we had no idea what to do. Thank goodness Cameron and Glitch had the routine down. They sat at one of the many desks that lined the walls, leaving a space only where the door was and the warden’s desk. Each desk was enclosed on three sides so the students’ backs were to the warden, but allowing the warden to see what the students were doing. That would certainly cut down on note passing.

“I hope I’m not claustrophobic,” Brooke said, sitting at a carrel next to me.

Due to the partition between us, we could see each other only if we leaned back. So, naturally, we leaned back.

“Me too. Now what?”

The moment the words left my mouth, the warden walked in. No, Ms. Mullins walked in. Humiliation burned my cheeks. She now knew my dark secret. My time in the big house was not going as unnoticed as I’d hoped.

“Okay,” she said, her voice a little sharper than usual, “Mr. Gonzales has been detained. Until he gets here, you got me. So get out your homework and get busy.” I figured she had to become a bit harder with us problem students. We were being locked up for a reason.

“You girls better hop to it,” she said to Brooke and me. Pointing us out. Drawing attention our way. We’d be labeled do-gooders in no time. Or worse, snitches. I’d seen enough prison movies to know that was bad.

“Detention or not,” Brooke said, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Didn’t you go before we left?”

She ignored me and walked to Ms. Mullins. They spoke for a moment, then Brooke headed out.

“Two minutes,” Ms. Mullins said, her tone edged with warning. She was taking her job as prison warden very seriously.

I dragged out my homework.

“This is ridiculous,” I heard a voice say from the hall. A female voice with a distinctive nasally twang. It was her. The creature.

But …

She walked in accompanied by the saucy click of her heels, clearly appalled at having to be in detention. I couldn’t help but wonder what she did to end up there. What dark path she’d taken, what bad hand fate had dealt her.

But …

She stopped at the warden’s desk. “I was tardy. I’d been at the dentist. Really? That requires after-school detention?”

But she didn’t even come to school this morning. She must have shown up that afternoon. This day just got better and better.

“No, but the five tardy slips before today does. Take a seat, Tabitha, and get out something to work on. You aren’t going anywhere for the next hour.”

After exhaling a sigh that lasted longer than my attention span, she headed to a seat with all the fuss and flourish of a Hollywood starlet. It was the most dramatic entrance I’d seen since the Riley’s Switch rendition of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

I couldn’t help but notice the look of horror on Cameron’s face as he watched her settle in. He wasn’t good with people. If he were, he’d realize his look of horror would be wasted on Tabitha. No look, horrific or otherwise, would faze the creature whose name shall not be spoken aloud.

But she glanced over at us, like she’d been ignoring us but just couldn’t manage it anymore. Her cheeks turned pink. Just barely before she looked away. And in that instant, I felt bad for her.

Not bad enough to offer her solace, but bad.

Glitch leaned over to me. “We can pass notes underneath the partitions.” He wiggled his brows, and I realized he was right. The partitions were just sitting on the desks. Sweet.

Just when I was about to write him, ask him how he’d been since sixth hour, Brooke came back. But not just back. She tore into the room and skidded to a halt by my chair.

“Brooklyn,” Ms. Mullins said, her tone admonishing, but Brooke didn’t seem to notice.

She stood panting with a hand on her chest. “Mr. Davis must have spilled something,” she said before swallowing and trying again. “He’s coming.” The fact that she was out of breath didn’t alarm me. Brooke could be just as melodramatic as Tabitha when she put her crazy little mind to it. It was the look of sheer terror on her face. The genuine fear in her eyes.

A feeling of dread crept over me.

Cameron knelt beside my chair and looked up at her. Glitch cast a quick glance toward Ms. Mullins, then leaned over to listen.

Brooke stopped, forced herself to slow down, and leveled a panicked gaze on me. “Mr. Davis changed ties.”

“What?” I asked, wondering what that had to do with anything.

“It’s red. He’s wearing his red tie.”

Then her meaning sank in. No. That was impossible. It was Wednesday. He only wore his red tie on Fridays. It was tradition, practically an unwritten law. As sure as the sun rose each morning, Mr. Davis wore his red tie on Fridays. And then I remembered there were no desks in the middle of the room in my vision. Nothing we could use for cover. All four of us turned to look around the room.

Everyone was staring at us. Ms. Mullins stood and started toward us when Hector stood, turned, and raised a gun. His expression turned into a sneer. I almost fell back in my chair, but Ms. Mullins stepped between us.