All Good Children - Catherine Austen [54]
Werewolf ’s head swings over his shoulder and he staggers backward into Brennan’s desk. His nose gushes blood, hot and red, spewing onto his beard and his clean white shirt, down to the floor tiles. Xavier steps through the splatter and punches Werewolf in the gut, breathing so hard he’s almost smoking.
Brennan pushes his chair back into the desk behind him. Other students shake their heads, glance at the camera, chant the rules prohibiting violence.
Xavier strikes again with an uppercut. Werewolf lands on Brennan’s desktop with his hairy neck exposed like a chicken on a chopping block. Xavier looks prepared to sever the head with his own bloody hands while the class looks on in annoyance. I almost want him to do it. I sit there and wait for it, but Brennan stands up between them.
Xavier turns his fury onto Brennan, who’s ready for it. Brennan blocks a punch and knees Xavier in the groin, then gets him on the floor and pins his arm behind his back. “Easy, easy,” he whispers.
Xavier curls up on the tiles and closes his eyes. He scratches his head like he’s trying to claw something out of it and starts to sob, raw heaving cries of torment. His hair falls across his face like a veil streaked with blood. I can’t take this. I’m on my feet. I don’t know what I’m doing.
Werewolf sops his nose with a blue mitten stained purple.
“Don’t let go of his arms!” he shouts. He looks prepared to kick Xavier in the kidneys.
I intend to take him down, but Dallas blocks me and shouts, “Help! You don’t belong here!”
Mr. Graham marches into the room with two security guards. They yank Xavier to his feet. He’s limp now, muttering, a mess of snot and confusion. The principal stares at him in disgust.
Brennan brushes himself off and sits at his bloody desk.
“Would you like our statements, sir?” I shout at Mr. Graham.
“Don’t do this,” Dallas whispers.
“We are all witnesses to the disrespect that occurred in our classroom today!” I shout. “I would like to give you my statement.”
“I don’t want your statement,” Mr. Graham says. “I have Mr. Warton and the recording.”
“I want to give you my statement,” I repeat. I push forward, but Dallas won’t let me by without a fight.
Mr. Graham walks out the door, followed by the guards dragging Xavier.
I turn away from Dallas, squeeze between desks to the back of the room and up the middle aisle. I’m in front of the camera now. I know I should stop, I tell myself to stop, but I don’t stop.
Werewolf eases his busted hand through his coat sleeve.
“Verbal and physical abuse are not appropriate responses, are they, sir?” I shout.
“What?” he asks angrily. He looks in my face and backs into his lecture projection. Words and images from history flicker across his face. His eyes glitter in the blue light.
Dallas hustles over. “Our teachers work hard every day to be role models. We owe them our respect,” he says.
I don’t glance at him. “Xavier Lavigne is a fifteen-year-old boy!” I shout at Werewolf. I want to rip his beard off with his smirk.
Dallas grabs my shoulder, shoves me to the wall, leans into me. “We are all lucky to go to a school with good role models. We would not be lucky if we had to go to school by ourselves.”
He holds me there to keep me from digging my grave. He’s risking his whole act like this, in front of Werewolf and the zombies and the surveillance camera. “We’re all lucky,” he repeats. He holds my gaze and nods, over and over, until I nod back.
Werewolf is disturbed and angry, but he doesn’t accuse us of anything. He dissolves his lecture and squeezes behind Dallas, scampers to the doorway. He holds his broken hand over the place where his heart would be if he had one. “I don’t expect to see you all here next term.”
“He’s suspended,” Celeste says. “I’d rather you didn’t come in. I don’t know what’ll set him off.”
Xavier lies on his living room carpet, staring at the ceiling.
“Don’t look so sad, Max. He’ll be okay. He