Page 3 of Kings Against the World

“Yeah, good one!” adds Marcus, one of the boys on our team.

A hand suddenly slams into my butt so hard that I jump from the force of it. A loud chorus of laughter follows from all the boys and even some of the girls.

“My bad, my hand slipped,” guffaws Marcus.

Still in shock, I’m slow turning around.

Marcus wears a proud grin as everybody else continues laughing and Coach Smithers halfheartedly tells them to quiet down.

“What?” Marcus asks when he sees the look on my face. “What do you expect with that nice juicy booty in those shorts?”

He’s barely asked the question when I do what feels right.

I smash my curled fist into his face and drop him to the ground in a spurt of blood.

Everybody’s laughter turns into shocked gasps.

An achy pain throbs across my knuckles from throwing the punch—it’s not as clean and painless as the movies pretend it is—but I shake it out and then glare at everyone nearby. A few people take cautious steps back, suddenly not so amused.

“Strauss!” yells Coach Smithers, blowing his whistle. “Principal’s office. Now!”

“You may be aware, Ms. Strauss, that we have a zero tolerance policy on violence. Especially considering you’ve violated that policy before,” says Principal Moore in a listless tone. He slides a small pink slip across his large executive-sized desk. “Two days suspension.”

“And what about Marcus Ellerbee? He touched my butt!”

Principal Moore looks tempted to roll his eyes as he instead gives an exasperated sigh. He digs around in a drawer of his desk and pulls out a long form attached to a clipboard. “Fill thiscomplaint form out and the school will open an investigation on your allegations.”

“Allegations? The entire class was there!”

“Ms. Strauss, sexual harassment accusations are very serious. It’s nothing to take lightly. Fill out the form and the school will do its due diligence to get to the bottom of what actually happened. But make no mistake—violence of any kind is never the answer. Your suspension stands.”

My hand’s shaking by the time he slides the pen toward me. I can’t sit still as I wrap my fingers around it and try to concentrate hard enough to fill out the damn form that I know won’t matter.

Principal Moore will probably toss it in some filing cabinet the moment I walk out of his office so it can collect dust.

Spots dance before my eyes as I scribble my name and other information on the form. I want to rip this stupid thing up and shove it in his face. I want to give him a taste of what I gave Marcus for disrespecting me.

The anger screams from the inside to be let out. My temper has me so tight and hot that I can’t even speak. If I tried, I’d probably wind up screaming.

As I jot down the last piece of info, Principal Moore dismisses me with the same aloof indifference he’s had all along. My chair scrapes across the floor as I scoot back and snatch at the pink suspension slip.

I crush it up into a ball and then fling it at the trashcan near his office door.

Just so he can see how little of a fuck I give that he’s suspended me.

But I’m so angry, my aim is off. The paper ball misses the basket and rolls to a stop in front of a pair of shiny loafers.

Someone else has approached the doorway of his office.

I look up to find the Black woman from the FBI booth already staring at me.

“Ah, Agent Braun,” says Principal Moore, his tone pepping up. He beckons for her to enter. “I’m so glad you were able to stop by before you and the others packed up. I would like to discuss a possible presentation for our graduating senior class. Oh… you can disregard Ms. Strauss here. She was on her way out.”

The woman namedAgentBraun ignores him as she stoops low to scoop up the crumpled pink paper. “I believe you dropped this,” she says, holding out the wrinkly suspension slip. Her eyebrows have arched like earlier, clearly aware what the paper is. For some reason, she’s still wearing the same almost-smirk she’d had on earlier when I’d wandered by her booth. “Enjoy your two days off, Ms. Strauss.”

I snatch it out of the palm of her hand and then storm out, nearly checking her shoulder with mine.

It’s not until I’m in the empty hall where my locker’s located that I stop long enough to scream and kick my foot at one of the lockers. A loud clang of metal rings out as I do it again and then again, and then I realize I’m clutching more than the pink slip.

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