Zero Tolerance (18 page)

The door opened.

“Sierra, Luke,” Ms. Lin said, “come on in.”

“Should we take off our shoes?” Sierra asked. “They're snowy.”

“Yes, please do.”

Sierra let go of Luke's hand as she removed her shoes and hung her coat on the coat stand. But she took it again as they sat down together on the floral-patterned couch facing a matching floral armchair.

The first surprise of the visit was that Ms. Lin was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that had a picture of a zebra and the word
KENYA
printed beneath it. In the office Ms. Lin had worn only pantsuits that looked as if they had come from a Proper Secretary catalog.

The second surprise was that the only word to describe Ms. Lin's apartment was “cozy.” A gas fire burned in the fireplace. A teddy bear—a teddy bear!—sat in a small rocker beside it. On the wall hung a yellow-and-blue quilt that looked homemade. And the view of the mountains from the large picture window was breathtaking.

“Have you been to Kenya?” Sierra asked once Ms. Lin had seated herself in the armchair, not that they were paying a social visit. But she did want to know.

“Three times.”

“Wow,” Sierra said.

Ms. Lin didn't volunteer any details about her trips. She also hadn't offered them any tea or set out a plate of cookies.

“I'm here to apologize for something,” Sierra said.

“I thought as much.”

“I'm the one who wrote that letter to the
Post
.”

“And I helped,” Luke added.

“No,
I
did it.”

She knew she wasn't supposed to provide the explanation she had offered Mr. Besser:
But I just did it because you were so mean and hateful, such a horrible petty tyrant.

“And I shouldn't have done it. I'm sorry. I really am. So that's what I came to say. That I'm sorry.”

“How were you able to get into my e-mail account?” Ms. Lin sounded more puzzled than angry.

“It was the day Mrs. Saunders wasn't there. Because of her son's wisdom teeth. And you had gone to the bathroom or something. And you had taken Luke's Game Boy. And we wanted to get it back, so we went over to your desk. And you had your computer on, opened to your e-mail.”

Sierra kept on babbling since she didn't know what else to do.

“So you didn't have to quit. And I know Mr. Besser would give you your job back. I know he would.”

“What makes you think I want my job back? Do you know what I said to myself as I walked out of there for the last time? Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, I'm free at last.”

That she said exactly the same words Luke had said when he was contemplating his own expulsion made Luke laugh out loud.

“You think that's funny, don't you,” Ms. Lin said. She still didn't sound angry. “Well, let me tell you, I'm glad to get your apology, but after today I'd prefer never to see another middle school student again as long as I live. Or another middle school principal.”

Ms. Lin didn't look at Sierra and Luke as she spoke.

“I've spent eighteen years in a job I hated,” she went on, “and yesterday I took some of my ample savings—I call it my blood money—and I bought myself a ticket for a monthlong vacation trip to Nairobi.”

“Nairobi?” Sierra asked.

“The capital of Kenya. I guess Mr. Besser's astonishing educational initiatives haven't reached as far as teaching world geography. I'm leaving in two weeks.”

“I hope you have a good time,” Sierra said.

“Oh, I will. Believe me, I will.”

“I guess we should go now.”

“I guess you should.”

Sierra and Luke stood up.

“Your apartment is pretty,” Sierra said.

“Thank you,” Ms. Lin said. “Now go, both of you. Just go.”

Sierra and Luke put on their coats and their shoes and left.

 

38

 

Luke offered to walk home with Sierra.

“But you live in the opposite direction,” she protested.

“So?”

“Oh, Luke,” she said. “Right now I need to be by myself for a little while to sort things out, okay?”

And he didn't get huffy or touchy. He just said, “Sure, I'm cool with that,” and gave her another hug.

Sierra started her long, cold walk. She knew that all she would have to do was call her mother on her cell phone and her mother would be there in five minutes, but she needed some time to think.

The hearing was tomorrow morning at ten.

Tomorrow her father was going to squish Mr. Besser like a bug, and Sierra was going to find out if the superintendent of schools was going to expel her or let her stay at Longwood Middle School.

So one way or another, this had been her last day ever of suspension. By Monday she'd be either reinstated or expelled. And she had spent her last day in suspension falling in love with Luke Bishop!

If she was expelled, she'd be starting either at Beautiful Mountain or at some other, more “academic” school chosen by her father. He hadn't mentioned anything about what school he'd like her to attend once she was expelled from the public school district. Apparently he was so confident he'd prevail at the hearing that it wasn't worth his time to consider any alternatives. Probably, if he had to, he'd pick Braxton Country Day School, the fancy private school north of town. Sierra would never fit in with the snobby rich kids there.

But even if she was reinstated at Longwood Middle School, it would never be the same. She'd never again be Sierra Shepard, fine student leader. She'd be Sierra Shepard, who was almost expelled for bringing a knife to school. Sierra Shepard, who didn't get to go on the big choir trip. Sierra Shepard, who had already missed a week of work in every class and would never be able to catch up. Sierra Shepard, who hung around with Luke Bishop.

Sierra's fate would be decided tomorrow morning.

Though her fate had really been decided the minute she opened her lunch bag at school on Wednesday, January 23. No, even before: when she had picked up the lunch bag that morning. And Mr. Besser: his fate had been decided when he had told that other principal that zero tolerance meant
zero
tolerance, with no exceptions ever. No, earlier, when he had drunk too much and gotten behind the wheel of a car on the evening of November 29. Ms. Lin's fate had been decided when she stepped away from her desk on Monday, January 28, to go to the bathroom.

And Sierra's parents: their fate had been decided when her father had laughed during her mother's play. If that hadn't happened, they wouldn't have gotten married, and Sierra wouldn't have been born, and she wouldn't be twelve years old right now and ready to find out whether or not she was going to be expelled from Longwood Middle School.

Tomorrow at ten.

 

39

 

At eight-thirty the next morning Sierra awoke to find her bedroom filled with the dazzling brightness of sun after snow.

Still not fully awake, she checked her phone: five texts. She had turned it off the previous evening, unable to face any messages from anybody.

Celeste:
Good luck today. I wish you were going with us.

Colin:
I hope you win. You deserve to.

Lexi:
Em told me about C and C. Are you okay?

Em:
OMG, was that you walking with Luke B? Call me!

Luke:
Suspension sucks without u. Miss u bad.

Sierra wasn't going to text anybody back. But then she did text Luke:
miss u 2.

In the kitchen, her father was seated at the breakfast table, handsome in his gray attorney suit, reading
The New York Times
. He looked up from the paper to give her a confident smile.

“In less than two hours, all this will be behind you, sweetheart.”

Then he seemed actually to see her, still in her pajamas. “You're not dressed yet. Wear something preppy. The school uniform look. Do you have a plaid skirt? White blouse? Dark blazer?”

Her mother was wearing a dress—less long and flowy and Beautiful Mountain–ish than most of her other clothes. Maybe Sierra's father had coached her, too, on what to wear to a daughter's expulsion hearing.

“Breakfast first,” her mother said. “Eggs today, I think. How about a small omelet with spinach and cheese?”

“I'm not really—”

“Yes, you are,” her mother said. “You need to eat.”

Apparently it wasn't a good idea to go to an expulsion hearing on an empty stomach.

“Where is the hearing?” Sierra asked.

“At the Board of Education complex,” her father replied. “That big new bunch of buildings they built after the last bond issue. Over on Twenty-ninth Street and Pine.”

“Who else will be there? Besides us, and Mr. Besser, and the superintendent?”

“Probably the attorney for the school district, because this has become such a high-profile case.” A flicker of pleasure passed over his face: he knew who was responsible for its having become “such a high-profile case.”

“And the press, of course. It's a public hearing, thanks to the ‘open air' provisions of the board charter.”

He wasn't exactly rubbing his hands together in smug anticipation of the media's likely reaction to his brilliantly timed little bombshell, but he might as well have been. Instead he straightened his already straight tie and ran his hand through his neatly trimmed gray hair as if readying himself for military inspection.

Sierra's mother set the omelet and toast in front of her, as well as a small glass of orange juice. Sierra took a sip of the juice. She didn't think she could handle something eggy and cheesy and spinachy right now.

When she was little, she used to have to leave the family room during any movie that had scary music in it. Even if it was a kids' movie with a guaranteed happy ending, she couldn't stand the suspenseful parts that happened on the way to the happy ending; she had to skip over all those tense, awful, nail-biting, knuckle-whitening bits. She'd hide out in the hall until it was safe to return and watch the closing scene of the faithful dog reunited with his little boy master.

“You haven't even touched your breakfast,” her mother scolded.

Sierra took one nibble from one half of her piece of toast.

“Take just three bites of the omelet. Two bites.”

Sierra took one bite and tried not to gag on it, washing it down quickly with another swig of the orange juice, which tasted suddenly bitter, so acidic that she could feel it burning a hole in the lining of her stomach as scary music pounded inside her head, music for the scary movie of her own scary life.

*   *   *

At the Board of Education building, her father led the way down the hall to the small auditorium where board meetings—and high-profile expulsion hearings—were held, without needing to consult any building floor plan or ask anyone for directions. He carried a slim, expensive leather briefcase. Sierra knew at least one thing that was in that briefcase: police reports concerning Thomas Alford Besser forwarded from the State of Massachusetts.

Sierra and her mother walked hand in hand.

Sierra was wearing the same red plaid skirt she had worn on the day it all happened, together with a navy-blue blazer she had found at the back of her closet. Her father had been right that it made the perfect costume for acting the part of Unjustly Accused Honor Student.

Yesterday afternoon, as soon as she got home, Sierra had told her mother about her visit to Ms. Lin.

She hadn't told her father.

Her mother hadn't said,
Oh, Sierra, how could you?
or
Sierra, I'm disappointed in you,
or
Sierra, I hope you learned your lesson
. She had just hugged her and made her hot tea so that Sierra could warm her frozen hands on the steaming mug and hold it against her chapped cheeks.

At the back of the auditorium stood three television cameramen with all their equipment. Sierra recognized the three reporters who had interviewed her over the past week.

“Good luck, Sierra!” the blond reporter called over to her as Sierra walked through the door with her parents.

Sierra gave a small, cautious wave in return.

Mr. Besser was already there, talking to two other men: the lawyer for the school district and the superintendent of schools?

She tugged at her blouse to make sure it was tucked into the waistband of her skirt. She smoothed her hair, held back from her face with a white headband that matched her blouse.

Should she smile or look serious? Serious was probably best. She didn't want the superintendent of schools to glare at her and ask,
And what are you smiling at, young lady?

That was the kind of thing Ms. Lin would have said.

Sierra sat between her parents in the front row on the right side of the little aisle leading from the front to the back of the room. Mr. Besser and the shorter, stouter man sat on the other side; the shorter, stouter man must be the school district lawyer. The thin man, Abe Lincoln–gaunt, sat down at the small table on the raised podium in the front of the room, so he had to be the superintendent, Mr. Van Ek.

“I suppose we might as well begin,” Mr. Van Ek said.

Sierra's mother's hand tightened around hers.

Mr. Van Ek made some opening remarks about due process of law, too boring for Sierra to listen to, even though they probably were extremely significant for her fate. She could feel her father's focused attention on every word.

“Tom?” Mr. Van Ek said then.

Mr. Besser stood up and approached the table.

For the first time Sierra noticed that Mr. Besser and her father were both wearing almost identical dark gray suits and white shirts. The only difference was that her father wore a regular long tie, while Mr. Besser wore his trademark bow tie.