Raine (Gods of the Fifth Floor #2) - M.V. Ellis Page 0,110

pulled me away from Jett, and then I couldn’t stop. Even after she’d hooked her arms under my armpits and lifted me up off the ground like a scarecrow boy, I still kept flailing my arms and kicking my legs.

Mostly I hit out at fresh air, and sometimes even hit myself instead of her, but a few times I would connect with some part of her body—her legs, her arms, her head even. I wasn’t trying to hurt her, but somehow, now that I was fighting, I could seem to stop.

Eventually she carried me off to Mr. Morgan’s Office. Mr. Morgan was the principal. I guessed he was kind of okay as far as principals could be, but I wasn’t a fan. I sat in the waiting area outside his office staring at my hands, and the cuffs of my frayed and dirty denim jacket, and tried to make a plan. All I could come up with was the fact that I needed to say whatever I needed to say to get out of there, but at the same time, not say too much.

It seemed like a long time before Miss Barnes came back, and when she did she waved me into the principal’s office in a way that didn’t seem like she was angry, or I was in trouble. That was kind of weird, because I was going to get at least a week of detention, if not an even worse punishment, not only for fighting, but for hurting a teacher.

“Hi Nathaniel. Take a seat.” I didn’t sit down right away. It seemed like a trick. Why was Mr. Morgan also being nice to me? “Go ahead, sit. The chair won’t bite. At least it hasn’t bitten anyone for a few weeks, anyway.” It was a lame joke, but I fake laughed, because I thought he’d want me to.

Miss Barnes sat down also, smoothing her skirt over her and looking hella nervous.

“I need to ask you a few questions that might seem a little strange, but don’t worry, just answer them as honestly as you can. Okay?” I nodded, but I wasn’t going to be answering any questions. If it was one thing Mom always said to me is that I had no business letting strangers know our business.

“Okay.” Miss Barnes squirmed like Lee Jones did when he had to poop right after recess, and was scared to ask to use the bathroom because he knew he was going to be in trouble.

“Umm…so, Nathanial…it’s come to our attention that…Can you tell me when you last ate a meal?” What? My whole body was suddenly hot, and the room was spinning. Why had she asked me that?

I stared at the hole in my sneaker where my big toe poked through. I wasn’t wearing any socks, as I didn’t have any clean. I wondered how long I could sit in silence before they tried to make me talk.

“I’m going to need an answer from you, and remember, you’re not in any kind of trouble. It’s totally okay to tell the truth. You can trust myself and Mr. Morgan.” Well obviously I couldn’t trust her one little bit, because another thing my mom always said was not to trust anyone. Ever.

“Okay. Let’s try something else. Are you hungry?” She held out her hand, and there in the middle was a Mars Bar. I palms itched, I wanted to reach out and grab it so bad. I stared at it, quickly swallowing the spit that had formed in my mouth at the sight of it. “Go ahead, take it”

I reached out. I didn’t want to, but somehow I couldn’t help it. I made myself move slowly, and took the candy as though I wasn’t so bothered if I had it or not. “You can eat it now.” Miss Barnes smiled as she spoke.

I moved slowly again, unwrapping the candy as though I didn’t really want to tear it apart and shove it into my mouth all at once, which was exactly what I wanted. I nibbled on the chocolate around the edge. Oh my God, it tastes so good.

I took a small bite. “Am I in trouble?”

“Um…well, ordinarily, you would be, because you know, we don’t allow fighting in any form here at but like I said before, we did just want to ask you a few questions, so no, you’re not in trouble as such.”

“So I can go?”

She blinked lots of times, and her freckly face got went all kinds of red,