17. Anthony
seventeen
anthony
This day is taking place in the Twilight Zone, and no amount of blinking my eyes or pinching my skin will force me to wake up.
First, we got yanked out of class because of a fire alarm. Naturally, since I’m helping with administrative duties for the time being, I had to watch the cameras while Nate dealt with the firemen. After we’d found the culprit in 4K technicolor, he asked me to go outside and manage crowd control as everyone was let back into the building.
I never realized how much envy could lie in wait until it all came rushing to the surface, seeing Penelope Barker leaning in close to talk to a firefighter—who was, objectively good looking—I almost wanted to light a neighboring building on fire just to send him away.
Next, I have been seemingly yanked out of any actual teaching for the remainder of the day to deal with said fire alarm ringer. His name is Dominic Lupica, and he’s new to the district. I know nothing about him. Nate fills me in pretty quickly.
“I’m not sure what the protocol is here. In- or out-of-school suspensions are both options. Lucy mentioned that Dominic is new to the district because his father recently passed, and he and his mother wanted a fresh start.”
He shakes his head, steepling his fingers in front of his lips.
“That’s not sitting right with you, is it?”
“No. If I had lashed out after my parents’ death, making me sit in a room all day to ‘think about my actions’ would be the opposite of productive.”
“I agree.” My knee bounces, the bees already raging to come out of my mouth. Sometimes, I wish I could put a lid on my impulsiveness. Right now seems like a good time to let it go unchecked. “What about neither?”
“Hmm? What did you have in mind?”
“It’s something we did at my old school—before I started at Meadow Ridge. Instead of doing what you just said and giving unrelated consequences, we find out what’s truly wrong, and let the punishment fit the crime. In this kid’s case, does losing his dad really call for more punishment?”
“No. No, I guess not. Keep going.”
I do, standing to pace while I do it.
“He needs to see Lucy, first and foremost. Get him into counseling. Something else we did was paired students up with a mentor?—”
“A check in system?” he interrupts. I nod. “Lucy and I have been building on something similar in the past few years. It’s still in the working stages?—”
“Oh, brother, have I got great news for you.”
My smile is beaming with electricity. I open my phone, swiping on screen until I can find the Google Folder that stores my behavior management baby that I crafted during my Master’s program. Nate’s eyes light up.
“This is great. This is excellent , Ant. We’ll need to loop Lucy in later, but we’ll be coming back to this.”
The bees in my brain zoom around excitedly, and I stay standing.
“So, the situation at hand. Suspension isn’t something I want for Dominic,” Nathan says.
“Me neither. But the fire department fined us. Could we possibly pair before- or after-school community service?—”
“With counseling, and the community service could be done with a mentor.”
“Bingo!” I shout, slapping his desk. I extend my hand for a high five, and then remember that Nate Harding isn’t exactly the high five kind of guy. He tentatively touches his palm to mine, and a knock on the door interrupts our little brainstorm session.
Putting me face to face with my brother, Ian.
You are now entering the Twilight Zone .
Our eyes widen at the same rate before he looks over to Nate.
“His mom is on her way. She’s held up at work. Asked me to come down just in case he needs to go home or something,” is all we get, after Nate signs off that Dominic’s mother authorized Ian to be here and act as a proxy. I level him with a look that says We will be talking about this later, to which he gives me the eyeballed version of the middle finger.
“I’ll get right to the point then,” Nathan says, hands folded on top of his desk. “Dominic pulled the fire alarm today. We have him on camera. He has admitted to it.”
Nate swivels the computer screen around where he shows several snapshots of Dominic caught in the act.
“Aw, Dom,” Ian says, shaking his head. He sighs, scrubbing his hand through his dark, scruffy hair. “Did he say why?”
Nate shakes his head, then peers out his office window over Ian’s shoulder, where Lucy and Dominic are waiting. When they enter, Dominic has his hood over his head, but pulls it off when he sees my brother.
“What are you doing here?”
Ian steels himself, but in a way I’ve never seen before. Where he would typically snap straight to the point, he instead plants his feet firmly, sits up slowly, tilts his head cautiously, and speaks with carefully chosen words.
“Your mom is on her way from work. I am only here in case someone needed to take you home before she could get here. Here, call her if you want.”
He extends his cell, but Dominic eyes Lucy first.
“Go ahead,” she nods. “You can call her.”
He turns his back, pacing along the back wall of the office. We all do our best not to eavesdrop, but in a room half the size of a classroom, it’s hard not to. His clipped, I’m sorry, Mom… I know… I just don’t want to be here… makes all of our collective hearts break. You can hear it happening in the silence.
“Okay,” he sniffles, still facing away from us. “Fine. I can ride home with you?”
This seems to calm him down, and Lucy leaves her phone facing upward on speaker so that Dominic’s mom, Andi, can be present while driving across town. Nathan introduces everyone who is present, then starts in.
“Mrs. Lupica, first and foremost, we want to look out for Dominic’s well-being. As the interim principal, I have a little bit of leeway in making these decisions, and with your approval, we’re going to recommend mentorship and counseling services to Dominic. He will, as part of that, be required to complete community service until the fine from the fire department is paid off, which can be a combination of in-school and out-of-school. Those are details we can sort out later.”
The bees puff out their chests, and I can’t hide the fact that I am a little bit proud. Andi says she’s parking, then hangs up while we all wait in limbo for her to check in. In those few minutes, I chance a look at my brother. His knee is bouncing, eyes wide as he looks from Dominic to the door and back. The moment Dominic’s mom steps in, I see his breath catch in his throat, and his eyes grow into the shapes of bleeding hearts. She, on the other hand, falls to her knees in front of her son.
“Dominic, baby, what happened ?” she asks, stroking his head and his face and squeezing his hand with her other.
“I don’t know, Mom, I just…”
He breaks down. Collapses against his mother. It’s such an intimate moment, I feel like I shouldn’t be here.
“I’m so sorry. He just lost his dad, and these changes have been a lot , which I know is not an excuse, but…”
Lucy shifts, taking control of the meeting.
“Why don’t we move over to the conference room?”
As the meeting shifts across the hall, Andi and Ian share a few private words, and Nathan dismisses me as well.
“Thanks for your help. If you wouldn’t mind holding down the fort while Lucy and I proceed…”
“No sweat.” I clap him on the shoulder, then meet my brother in the hall as the door quietly snicks shut before us.
“We gonna talk now or later?” I ask. His eyes become coal.
“Later.”
Shoving his good hand into his pocket, he turns to leave, but I grab him before he can.
“Hey. Let me know when later becomes necessary, yeah?”
He nods gruffly, then signs out at the front desk, leaving a trail of smoke in his wake.
As if the day could not get any weirder, mine wraps up with detention duty, something I somehow couldn’t weasel my way out of, even with my shiny new fake-administrator badge.
Worst of all? It’s with Pen.
Which sounds crass, I know. But we haven’t talked about last night, which means the next hour of our lives is going to be awkward as hell, and there is no way of stopping it.
I make my way to our classroom just in time for the eighth grade stragglers to check in. As they’re all slumping into their seats, I break the ice right away.
“How goes it, boss? Day go alright without me?”
She levels me with one of those gazes that could flatten pancakes.
“Yes, Anthony, contrary to popular belief, I can manage teaching math without you.”
I puff out my cheeks, blow out an extended breath, and swipe the detention clipboard from the front desk to take inventory—and also, to have something to do with my hands.
“Alright. How does this work?”
She swipes the clipboard from me and takes out the sheets that are on the inside of the plastic contraption.
“They fill out a reflection sheet, and when they’re finished, they have to come share it with one of us. Then, they’re free to work on homework or do a challenge packet. Here. Make yourself useful.”
She slaps my chest with the stack of forms, and I hand them out to the six students, explaining the rules before I join her at her perch in front of the classroom. As pencil scratches begin filling the silence, I open my big dumb mouth.
“So uh, did you get that firefighter’s number or what?”
I will not call him a fire man because “man” would imply that he has balls that I don’t. Then again, said balls just sucked up into my stomach at the look Penelope Barker just doused me with. The one I rightfully deserve.
“Ex cuse you?”
I giggle breathily, awkwardly, then shrug, trying to hide.
“I don’t know. Saw you talking to him before we came inside. You looked pre tty cozy…”
I don’t know what my voice is doing. I don’t know what my body is doing. It’s as if the bees are controlling me and I have nothing in my power to stop them.
That thought alone brings me pause.
It’s the excuse I’ve used my entire life.
Ant has bees in his brain and they make him do dumb shit .
No. Not anymore. Ant has bees in his brain, but he can control his actions.
“Anthony Ellis, there is absolutely no reason you get to comment on who I do or do not speak to, especially if it is a dating prospect.”
“I know, I know , that was a stupid thing to say, and I’m sorry,” I say, scrubbing my hands over my face to stifle my groan. “You’ve just got me all sorts of messed up, Pen. I saw you with him, and jealousy lit me like gasoline on a fire. I’m sorry. That was rude of me. Especially after I messed up your dinner thing last night. I’m sorry .”
I shake my head, deflating a little when I tick my gaze to look at her. She is red with anger, but it seems to be stifling down to shades of pink, the lines around her eyes and the divot between her brows warring, like she wants them to stay, but they’re fighting to fade as she processes what I’ve had to say.
“No,” she shakes her head. “That wasn’t your fault. I didn’t even tell you?—”
“I could have texted,” I say softly. “I could have let you know I was going to be late.”
“You shouldn’t have to—” She pinches her eyes closed, cutting herself off. Opening them, her voice is smaller. “ I’m sorry, Anthony. I have been terrible to you lately. I wanted to make you dinner as an apology, but didn’t communicate. This is my fault.”
“ Ahem .”
We both startle, realizing that a few of the kids are finished and waiting for one of us to review their reflection form, leaving me no time to ruminate on what just happened. Penelope and I part, heading to our respective desks.
I go over the questions with Eliza, a student in our sixth hour class: What was your unexpected behavior? What did you expect to happen? What happened as a result? In theory, it’s not a bad system. Her form reads “Off Task Behavior” at the top, and the remaining questions seem to match up.
“I’m interested in this,” I say, pointing to the section that asks why it was hard for her to stay on task. “What do you mean by, ‘I already know how to do this?’’
“Exactly what it says,” she scoffs. “It was a review day. I don’t need to review the material, so I got bored.”
“And turned your study guide into a paper airplane?” I ask. She smirks. I sigh, then follow up, “Okay. Take the test early then.”
“What? I can’t do that.”
“Sure you can. Did you ask?”
“No.” She crosses her arms, eyes wandering as she thinks it over.
“If you’re confident in the material, and know that reviewing is going to bore you into getting into trouble, why not ask to take the test while everyone else reviews?”
“And you really think that’ll work?” she asks, raising a brow.
“Wouldn’t hurt to try.”
I promise to email her science teacher and explain that the idea came from me, then click my pen so I can add my teacher signature to her reflection form. I pause.
“What are all these tallies for?” I count fourteen.
“Oh. Those are all the times you and Barker made googly eyes at each other.”
I send my googly eyes straight over to her, hoping she doesn’t catch me again in the crossfire.