“Hey,” Lindy called, wading through the group. Jess followed. He was taller and bigger than either of them, which might give him an advantage to see what was going on. By the time Addie reached the center of the crowd, Lindy had pulled one boy back and Jess had hold of another.
The first boy had a bloody nose—the second would have a pretty good shiner tomorrow morning.
“Everyone back to class,” Jess instructed. After the kids all groaned a bit, they trudged away, discussing the fight.
“You two.” Addie pointed from one boy to the other. “My office. We’ll call your parents. Lindy, get the first-aid kit.” They didn’t have a school nurse. They shared one for the entire district, but she was really here only when they were giving out vaccinations or holding a special event. Most crises were handled by the administration, or the teachers.
Lindy was better at first aid than the rest of them, since gym class tended to be the place everyone got hurt.
The taller of the two boys, the one Jess had by the arm, just snickered and shrugged. She recognized him—Nick Haldon. He’d been in her office before, a couple of times. She remembered his parents, as well. The Haldons were decent people, but the father seemed absent in the boy’s life. Meeting with the pair was never a pleasant experience.
The other boy was smaller, but not by much. He didn’t have the perpetual smirk on his face. If nothing else, he looked a bit shocked, perhaps scared. Was he afraid of her? Of getting in trouble? Of his parents? She looked at him for a minute, knowing she’d have the answer soon enough.
She led the way to the office, with Lindy bringing up the rear, and seated the boys far away from each other in the reception area. The receptionist, Gina, was there to make sure they didn’t take off. Lindy took care of the bloody nose the best she could, but there was no getting the blood out of the boys’ shirts.
Addie groaned. Visible evidence—blood, specifically—set parents off, with good reason, but that would only make it worse. Probably for them all.
Once the bandages and ice packs were in place, Lindy put the first-aid kit away, and Jess headed to his class, leaving Addie to deal with the two boys. She stood looking at them for a long minute.
She’d start with Nick. At least with him, she knew what to expect. “You—” she pointed at the new boy “—stay here until I call you. Nick, come with me.” She headed into her office.
Seated, she looked across her desk at Nick. If he’d been in her office multiple times already, how many times had he been here with her predecessor?
His shoulders were hunched, and he held an ice pack to the bridge of his nose. It wasn’t broken. Lindy had assured her of that. But Addie had to admit, the new kid—she really needed to figure out his name and use it—had a pretty good left hook. She wondered where he’d learned that.
“You want to tell me what happened?” Nick wasn’t going to answer, but she’d give him the benefit of the doubt.
“No.” His voice was muffled by the ice pack.
“I’m giving you the opportunity to come clean. But I understand that you might be in too much pain to talk clearly.” She really needed to work on her penchant for sarcasm. She blamed her brothers and their own various busted lips and noses for it. “If so, you can sit in the outer office and wait until your parents get here.”
She walked him to the separating door and had him sit, then turned to face the other boy. He had his own blue ice pack shoved against his right eye. Nick could slug pretty good himself. “Come with me,” she told the other boy.
She didn’t wait for him any more than she’d waited for Nick. She sat while he got comfortable.
“You want to tell me what you were fighting about?” She tried to keep her voice even and her face neutral.
“No.”
“You know, someone’s going to tell me what happened.” She wouldn’t even have to use the good cop/bad cop routine, though Lindy would be disappointed. She loved playing the bad cop.
“Nick won’t tell.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about Nick. I’ve dealt with his type plenty. No, the other kids who were standing around watching. They’ll eventually tell me.”
He looked at her, his eye wide as if that had never occurred to him. How had he gotten to eighth grade and not realized his fellow students were not always to be trusted?
There was definitely something about the boy that intrigued Addie, and she wasn’t exactly sure why. “What’s your name?” she asked softly. Since he was a newcomer to the school, she didn’t have a clue what to expect from this boy, unlike Nick.
“Ryan.” He didn’t say anything more, and she waited for a long minute.
“Do you have a last name?”
“Yeah.” Another long silence, and in the one eye she could see, she saw his thoughts. She was pretty sure he was actually considering lying to her.
“Lying’s a bad idea, just so you know.”
“Uh... Skylar.”
“Thank you, Ryan.” She leaned back, knowing that Gina was even now pulling his file to get his parents’ phone numbers. Addie pondered how to approach him.
Westbrook Middle School wasn’t huge. When Addie had been growing up, she’d gone to school here. Back then, attendance had nearly overflowed halls. Now, with an aging population in the area, and the new system of charter schools and choices that weren’t around when Mom was raising them, the headcount was lower.
There weren’t many new kids each year, so Ryan Skylar was notable in a sea of the same faces each year. Something about him interested her, and maybe it was because she’d spent way too much time staring at budgets.
She tried again. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
He shrugged. “Do I have to?”
She fought back a smile. “You don’t have to, but it might make things better for you. Ms. Hanson is calling your parents, and I’d like to be able to tell them you were cooperating with me.”
He shrugged, and that single uncovered eye looked at her. If she’d ever seen pain, it was in that one brown eye. It jolted her. So strong. And almost familiar. She shook her head and sat forward again, crossing her arms on top of the budget papers. “You know, I grew up with three brothers. And a couple sisters. There’s not much you’re going to get past me.”
He looked down, studiously examining his tennis shoes. She waited for him to look up again.
“I’m an only kid,” he said softly.
“There are times I would have liked to be that.” Flashes of all the craziness in her family flitted through her mind. “Does that have something to do with the fight?”
He shrugged again, but still didn’t look at her. “Bet your house wasn’t quiet.”
“Uh, no.” She laughed. “Not very often anyway.” She gave him a couple of minutes, but she needed to find out what happened. “We’re calling your parents—”
“You gotta call my dad,” he interrupted.
“Okay. Is there a reason?”
“Mom.” The boy took a deep breath. “Mom passed away...”
Well, she’d muddled into that one. “I’m sorry.” Addie felt the knife in her chest for the boy, and from her own recent loss of her mother. That’s what she’d seen in his gaze. Grief. It resonated with her. She knew how much it hurt. Faded memories of her father, and the resulting emptiness, were still too real.
“Then