Page 27 of Sleepover

Chapter 12

Elle

A few days after my conversation with the delightful Mrs. Wheeling, I’m folding Madden’s summer clothes into his dresser, stowing the winter ones on a high shelf in his closet, when my cellphone vibrates. I set down the T-shirts I’m holding and retrieve the phone.

It’s the school. These calls always make my heart beat faster. The last few have been, respectively, a sprained wrist, a broken finger, and projectile vomit in math class.

“This is Elle.”

“Ms. Dunning. This is Jim McKibben. I’m the principal at Oak Ridge Elementary. Madden is fine—”

Why do people think that’s a reassuring thing to say? My heart is going a million miles a minute.

“—but we need you to come to school. There’s been a series of incidents this week in the classroom, and we’ve just gotten to the bottom of it, and Madden is one of the perpetrators.”

“Incidents?Perpetrators?”

Madden has always been an angel at school. He’s a natural people-pleaser. Even when he was at his most sullen at home, after Trevor left, his third-grade teacher, Mr. Ketotzi, said he was doing fine at school. He saved the bad mood for me, apparently.

So at first I think, Are you sure we’re talking about Madden?

The words almost come out of my mouth, but I stop them just in time.

“I think it would be easier to explain if you came into school,” Mr. McKibben says.

“Can’t you tell me anything else?”

“He and another student have been harassing Mr. Ketotzi.”

“Harassing?”

I sound like a broken record, but that’s how shocked I am.

“Like I said, this isn’t the first incident; this is just the first time we’ve been able to figure out who’s responsible. Come on in, Ms. Dunning, and we’ll talk.”

I hang up and jump in my car. I make it to the school in record time. The secretary gives me a look somewhere between disapproval and pity—I think they get training for that—and tells me to go ahead into the principal’s office.

Mr. McKibben faces out from his desk, a sixty-something man with close-cropped hair and a distinctly military bearing. Sitting in front of him are Madden and Jonah.

“Ms. Dunning. Thank you so much for coming in. We’re just waiting for—”

The door swings open and Sawyer stands in the doorway. He’s wearing dust-covered work clothes—Carhartt khakis and heavy leather boots and a gray T-shirt—and his hair is full of dust. I imagine crossing the room and brushing my hand over the soft waves. I squelch the thought.

“Ah, Mr. Paulson. Come in. Here, let me grab a couple more chairs from—”

“Don’t bother.” Sawyer crosses his arms and leans against the back wall of the office. Everything about his appearance and body language says that this is a waste of his valuable time. He looks like a guy who spent his own fair share of time in the principal’s office as a kid.

I suspect his attitude won’t help our case. I should be irritated by it, but I’m not. I’m amused. And intrigued. He looks like the kind of boy I fantasized about in high school, the bad boy who’d never give me the time of day but who I nevertheless daydreamed would one day lure me under the football bleachers for a make-out session. Plus, I know exactly how masterful this particular bad boy is with fingers, mouth—er, yes, that, too. My body gives a silent squawk of approval.

“Ms. Dunning?” Mr. McKibben inquires, and it takes me a minute to figure out he’s asking if I want a chair.

“I’ll take one,” I say, blushing ferociously. “Thank you so much.”

Mr. McKibben exits and returns with two chairs. I sit. Sawyer remains against the wall. He doesn’t look at me, or at Jonah.

Mr. McKibben clears his throat and folds his hands. “This week, there have been several incidents of either harassment or insubordination in the classroom, but we haven’t been able to get the students to tell us who’s responsible until today. Today we told the students that they would all miss recess for a week unless someone came forward, and someone did. I won’t name names, but this student identified Jonah and Madden as the ones behind the incidents, the ringleaders.”

“And what were the incidents?” I ask, trying to get catch Madden’s eye. I feel like I’ll be able to read so much more about the situation in his face if he’ll only look at me.

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