Calling the Shots by Elizabeth Karre

Author:Elizabeth Karre
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group

chapter twelve

“Ms. Maynard, sit up,” Mr. Jones droned. I sat up and looked straight ahead, but my thoughts were going out sideways to Tanaya.

Cherry is my best friend, Cherry is my best friend, I thought again and again, ignoring Mr. Jones. Then I decided to throw in, Layla is a loser, Layla is mean, Layla is mean to Cherry. I felt there might be a lot of things Tanaya was thinking that needed to be fixed.

I looked over at her. She was texting under her desk. I looked to see where Mr. Jones was, and he was watching me. And now he was looking at Tanaya. Crap.

I tried to get her attention to warn her, but it was too late. Mr. Jones was between us in a minute, telling her to give him her phone.

“You can’t take my phone away,” Tanaya said, getting mad. “I’ll put it in my bag.”

“Give me the phone, Ms. Jones.”

“No! You didn’t take Michael’s phone last week when he had it out,” Tanaya said.

Mr. Jones’ lips tightened. “The phone.”

“We gotta have them in case there’s a school shooting and our parents need to call us,” Tanaya argued, staring Mr. Jones in the face. “You can’t take my phone. It’s wrong.”

“You can take your uppity attitude to the office,” Mr. Jones said, practically running to his desk for a referral slip. He wrote something on it, fast, and tore the paper as he ripped it off the pad. His face was bright red.

Someone laughed—I was pretty sure it was Michael. I turned around to look at him, and he winked at me.

I wasn’t sure what that meant—was he happy Tanaya was in trouble? Or maybe he just thought Mr. Jones was stupid. Tanaya was right; Mr. Jones caught him texting just last week and let him keep his phone. Or was it some white person wink I was supposed to understand?

Thoughts tumbled through my mind as Tanaya slowly got her stuff, just trying to be irky to Mr. Jones. Grandma would love it if Michael was my boyfriend, but I hated those tennis guys. I should say something so Tanaya knew I was on her side. If I said something, would I be in trouble? Could I do anything to help?

Leave Tanaya alone, I thought over and over at Mr. Jones. But it was too late. He’d already written the slip and was hooking up his laptop to the projector, telling us to get our notebooks out.

I tried to get Tanaya to look at me, but she walked to the door with her head held high. She glanced at the slip and stopped.

“’Insubordination?’ That’s what I did wrong? Guess that’s a fancy way to say telling the truth,” she said loudly.

More people giggled.

“Good-bye, Ms. Jones,” Mr. Jones said, closing the door behind her.

A second later, the door opened slowly and Tanaya peeked back in. “Bye,” she whispered sweetly. Then she closed the door again very slowly, and we could hear her running down the hall. Everyone in class was busting up now.

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