Abandon - Meg Cabot [60]
And it all happened so fast, I might have thought I’d imagined it…if his image hadn’t been caught on tape.
Mr. Mueller denies there was anyone else in the room, of course. He says that I just went completely berserk as we were going over SAT study guide questions and attacked him without provocation.
That’s the explanation everybody at the Westport Academy for Girls chose to believe. So instead of Hannah Chang, they all started calling me a slut, a liar, and a skank online.
This was fine with me, since Mr. Mueller got put on permanent suspension. “The incident,” as they all called it, is still under investigation.
And at least no one’s doing the Mueller Shout-Out anymore.
But, as Dad’s lawyers point out, Mr. Mueller has plenty of incentive to stick to his story. Even if he never teaches again — and he may not, unless he can do it one-handed — he should be able to get a decent settlement out of the civil suit. After all, he got attacked by Zachary Oliviera’s half-crazy daughter (or so he claims). Everyone knows people who’ve died and come back return…well, a little off.
Still. While no one can agree what exactly went on during “the incident,” thanks to the poor lighting and Mr. Mueller’s moaning, the recording of everything Mr. Mueller said before he started screaming has the DA — not to mention the Changs — intrigued.
And then there’s my statement.
“Why did Mr. Mueller try to put his hand over my mouth?” I asked the police at the scene. I was shaken — anyone would have been. But I had John’s words to comfort me. Hannah was with people who loved her. “If he wasn’t doing anything wrong, then why was he so worried I might scream?”
“That’s a very good question,” they said.
After what happened, Mrs. Keeler gently “suggested” that my parents find an “alternative educational solution” for me, a school better able to handle a student with my “issues.”
I burst out laughing when she said that, right there in front of my parents.
Issues. Right.
“It’s one thing to protect yourself,” Dad yelled at me during our very next lunch. “That, I get. Have I ever told you not to defend yourself? No. But did you have to permanently maim him? I spent all that money on that fancy school for girls — not to mention all that money for shrinks — and what did it get me?”
I shrugged. “A seven-figure civil suit?”
“I even bought you that damned horse,” he yelled, ignoring me, “from the Changs, because you said you wanted it so much. And what did you do? You turned around and donated it to some home for mental cases!”
“It’s a school for autistic children, Dad,” I said calmly, playing with the straw in my soda. “Double Dare will be part of their equine therapy program. He’ll make a lot of kids really happy, and he’ll get ridden and petted and fawned over every day. It’s a tax write-off for you, and the Changs won’t have the financial burden of supporting a horse no one rides anymore.”
“Not to mention,” Dad roared, loud enough to make all the other businessmen in their three-piece suits turn around and stare, “what happened to all my shoes? All the ones with tassels on them are gone! What am I going to have to lock up next time I see you? If it’s not my Japanese throwing stars, it’s my shoes. Please tell me. I worry about you sometimes, Pierce, I really do. Do you even fully understand the consequences of your actions?”
“I don’t know, Dad,” I said to him. The truth was, for the first time in a long time, I felt good. Even being yelled at by my dad over Cobb salads in a fancy restaurant in midtown Manhattan.
Sure, I’d been kicked out of school. I couldn’t seem to go more than an hour without craving a caffeinated beverage. And a guy I’d met while I was dead had popped by unexpectedly and caused me to be slapped with a seven-figure civil suit.
But I was feeling positive about the future.
“You can’t say nothing good’s come out of this,” I told him.
“One thing,” Dad challenged me, holding up a stubby index finger, “name one good thing that’s come out of this.”
I shrugged. “At least,” I said, “I finally found an interest