Confused and shaking, she looked up at the principal, whose face was contorted into an ugly triumphal smile.
“Follow me,” ordered Petty. They filed back to the office. The principal showed Angela a chair with a wave of her hand. Looking as though she were savoring the moment intensely, Petty pulled a camera out of her desk and took pictures of the offending clothes wrapped around the lights and phone. She also shot the dance shoes, which Angela now saw were perched coyly on the file cabinet. The principal put the camera away, pulled the clothes off the lights and phone, grabbed the shoes, and set them in a neat pile on her desk. Examining the bands on the tights and other items, she read off: “Angela Fournier” for each one. She sat down behind her desk with what appeared to Angela to be glee, even giddiness.
“I’ve been thinking over what to do about you,” said Petty.
“Ms. Petty, I did not do this. Somebody took…”
“Silence! What do you take me for? Now, in spite of your repeated maliciousness and your cavalier attitude” – Cava-what? – “I am inclined to be generous as it is early in the school year and maybe I can get you to come around, though I doubt it. You will have detention in the front office every day for a week at lunch time and during dance.”
Angela felt a sick, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She felt herself turning red. She opened her mouth and then thought better of saying anything, deciding to accept the injustice, at least for the moment. She left the principal’s office with a rising sense of anger at whoever had opened her locker and used her own things, her dance things, against her, and at Ms. Petty, always ready to think the worst of her. Why was it that schools never punish bullies but only their victims?
Between classes, Angela told Fiona and Benjie what happened. After their indignation, voiced in loud protestations by Benjie, subsided, Angela put to them her question about bullies always going scot free.
“Because they’re sneaky and well connected,” offered Benjie.
“Yeah,” agreed Fiona, “and because people like the powerful and look down on the weak. They see the bullies as powerful and their victims as weak.”
“But that’s cynical and wrong!” protested Angela.
“Maybe so,” Fiona went on, “but the school is a power structure and the principal is the most powerful person. Power always protects power. I got that from Michael Crighton. Really!” she insisted, when Angela made a doubtful expression. “The principal always rules for the teachers over the students and the school board always supports the principal in any conflict with the teachers. It’s human nature!”
Angela felt dissatisfied and she thought Benjie looked like he did, too, but she couldn’t think of any examples to the contrary.
“Wait a minute!” said Benjie. “What about last year when Angela won at the board?”
Angela frowned.
“She had the teachers supporting her,” reasoned Fiona, “and the Petty wasn’t even there!”
“It makes sense,” commented Angela, feeling defeated, “but it’s so wrong, unfair, for people to be that way.”
She took her friends’ silence as agreement and support.
***
Lunchtime was drab and the food, which was brought to her from the cafeteria by the secretary, tasted like cardboard. Without her friends, Angela felt devoid of purpose. When time for dance class came, she stopped by on her way to the office to let her teacher know about the detention. Ms. Amberg, however, was not in a mood to accept losing Angela for a week without putting up a fight.
“Come with me,” she said. “Jo! Put the ladies – and guys too, sorry, guys – through the usual warm-up stretches. I’ll be right back.”
Jo smiled, looking pleased and in her element and started the exercises as Angela and Ms. Amberg left for the office.
“Come in!” said Petty when Ms. Amberg called at the door, but she frowned when she saw Angela. “You’re in detention, young lady. Go sit in the front office and start on your homework.”
“Just a minute, Mara,” pleaded Ms. Amberg in her most reasonable voice. “What is this? A week without dance! She’s the kindest and one of the best behaved and most respectful students in our school.”
“I’ll decide that, Tanya, and the detention is not negotiable. Apparently Little Miss Perfect has you fooled. Angela is rebellious and conniving and needs to be taught a lesson.”
“Mara, that’s absurd! Besides, a lunch detention I can understand, but you cannot pull students out of classes for detention, only for suspension.”
“Academic classes, you’re right,” countered Petty. “But dance is not an essential.”
The two women stood looking at each other, Petty smug and Ms. Amberg struggling to control herself.
“Very well, as I cannot do anything about it. But I do want you to understand that I disagree and I am not happy about this. Come on, Angela,” the dance teacher added, leading her into the front office. “Let’s just move forward. I’ll make sure you don’t get behind. Do the exercise routine at home every day and I will e-mail you the choreography we’re working on. Ok?”
“Thanks, Ms. Amberg,” said Angela as she sat down and placed her things on a desk. She watched her teacher disappear into the hall, feeling calmer and much less angry knowing she had Ms. Amberg’s support. I’ve got to stop being angry, she thought, it really does bad things to me.
***
On the way home, Angela told her mother about being called into the office, about her dance things wrapped provocatively around Petty’s belongings, and about her detention. Susan thought about it a minute and then said:
“I think you’re wise not to challenge your detention and I’m glad you kept control. That’s good. It seems to me that the important thing here is to find out who did it. Taking things from your locker is not a prank, it’s a serious offence! Petty larceny or some such.”
“That’s funny, Mom!”
“What is?”
“Petty larceny.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Susan, laughing when she realized what she had said. “Anyway, it can’t be tolerated at a school. If we need to later, we can hold that over Ms. Petty with the school board and it will help that you’re doing your detention without complaint. But what is the motivation of whoever did it? And what may they do next? That’s what bothers me.”
They prepared tea when they got home. Angela asked for chamomile. She sat sipping the tea in silence. The day’s events and her mom’s reaction had given her a lot to think about.
The next day during lunch detention, Fiona and Benjie walked in. Angela smiled happily, but before she could say anything, Petty materialized perversely and ran them off.
“Sit there and eat. Alone,” she instructed Angela. “If you’re done eating before the next period, start on your homework.” She turned and reentered her office. Angela stabbed furiously at the oven-roasted potatoes, which she loved but which at the moment lacked any detectable flavor. Determined to eat slowly so as to make the food last the entire lunch period, she chewed morosely with tears in her eyes. She was disappointed with herself for getting so angry. Why did injustice always seem to win out? Right then she saw the newspaper at the corner of the administrative assistant’s desk. “Plans for Sargasso Beach Pipeline Go Forward” proclaimed the headline. See? There’s another example. It’s everywhere! she told herself. She leaned over and picked up the paper, not sure if