The Neighbor - Lisa Gardner [80]
“What in the world …” The principal finally arrived at the scene. Phil Stewart took one look at Jason’s bruised and bleeding face, then Ethan’s rage-filled features, and started snapping commands. “You,” finger at Ethan, “in my office. And the rest of you,” finger at gawking kids, “back to class.”
The principal had spoken. Kids dispersed as swiftly as they had gathered, and Jason found himself following Ethan Hastings down the hallway, Mrs. Lizbet’s concerned hand on his elbow. He was trying to understand what had just happened to him, and doing a lousy job of it.
“Ree?” he asked in a low voice.
“Still in the gym. I’ll have Jenna walk her to the home ec class. They spend half their time baking cookies. That should keep her busy.”
“Thank you.” They came to the nurse’s office. Elizabeth steered him inside, where he met the shocked gaze of a matronly woman wearing cat-patterned surgical scrubs.
“Playing dodgeball at your age?” she asked.
“You know, for a small guy, a computer geek can be awfully quick.”
The nurse stared at Elizabeth. “There was an altercation,” the social studies teacher explained. “Unfortunately, Mr. Jones was attacked by a student.”
The nurse’s gaze widened more. For some reason, this affronted Jason’s masculinity and he felt compelled to add, “He had a textbook!”
That seemed to break the spell and the nurse got busy, fussing over his cut eye, giving him ice for the rapidly growing knot on his head. “You need to take two aspirin,” she informed him, “then sleep for eight hours.”
He wanted to laugh. Eight hours? He needed to sleep for eight days. But it wasn’t going to happen. Wasn’t going to happen.
He staggered his way out of the nurse’s office, back to admin, where he was sure the adventures were just beginning.
Jason found Phil Stewart sitting behind a massive oak desk, the kind of furniture meant to inspire awe in students and adults alike. A small flat-screen monitor occupied the left-hand corner of the desk, accompanied by a complicated-looking phone. The rest of the desk contained nothing but a desk blotter, and Phil’s clasped hands.
Ethan Hastings was sitting in a chair in the proverbial corner. He looked up when Jason entered, and for a moment, it appeared as if he might launch a fresh attack.
Jason decided to remain standing.
“I have called Ethan’s parents,” the principal announced crisply. “As well as the police. An assault by a student is a very serious matter. I have already informed Ethan’s parents that he will be suspended for the next five days, while an expulsion hearing is scheduled in front of the superintendent. Naturally, Mr. Jones may pursue criminal charges with the police.”
Ethan blanched, then fisted his hands mutinously and stared down at the carpet.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Jason said.
“Have you looked in a mirror?” Phil asked dryly.
Jason shrugged. “I understand how high emotions might be running at a time like this. For Ethan and for myself.”
If he was hoping for a relationship with the red-headed boy, it wasn’t happening. Ethan shot him another threatening look, then the office door opened and Adele stuck her head in.
“Police are here.”
“Send them in.”
The door opened wider, and Jason had the unpleasant shock of seeing Sergeant D.D. Warren and her sidekick, Detective Miller, enter. Wouldn’t uniformed officers normally respond to this kind of petty incident? Unless, of course, the detectives heard about it on the radio and connected their own dots.
Jason glanced ruefully at Ethan Hastings, understanding now that the pummeling had been nothing compared to the damage the boy was about to inflict.
“Sergeant D.D. Warren,” the female detective introduced herself, then Miller. They shook Phil’s hand, nodded at Ethan, then regarded Jason with the kind of flinty stares most cops reserved for gang-bangers or serial killers.
Grieving husband, he reminded himself, but didn’t really feel like