Just Maria by Jay Hardwig

Author:Jay Hardwig
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

19

Trouble

Forty-five minutes later, I was back in that hallway, plunked down in a seat outside of Mr. Zukowski’s office. We were just going over our science vocabulary when word came over the intercom: Mr. Smith, will you please send Maria Romero to the office? My heart jumped into my throat. I had never been called to the principal’s office in my life, never done anything but what I’d been told. And here I’d stepped out of line just once—just one tiny little time—and sure enough I had been caught.

I wasn’t surprised. One thing about being blind is, you never know who’s watching you. I thought I had been alone in that office—nobody made a peep—but I couldn’t be sure. A custodian could have seen me, a receptionist, another kid. That’s the way it is with me in public places: if you don’t speak, squeak, wheeze, shuffle, or grunt, there’s a good chance I won’t know you’re there. Which is why I try not to pick my nose anywhere but in my own room.

So someone had seen me, somehow, somewhere, and now I’d been called down to Zukowski’s office. I was scared witless but determined not to show it. I pulled out Roxie, stood up just as straight as I could, and walked out the door to meet my fate.

When I got to the office, Betty Jo Huddleston, the assistant principal, greeted me in a voice that was, at best, half-warm. She invited me into her office for a “little chat.” (I’ve been around the block enough times to know you should be very careful when an adult invites you for a “little chat.” Something bad is on the way.) Mrs. Huddleston told me the school surveillance cameras had caught me on tape, snooping around the back hallways while everyone was outside watching JJ up on the pole. And while there wasn’t a camera in Mr. Zukowski’s office, she wondered if I had anything to do with a strange and rather unsettling item he found on his desk.

Cameras, I thought. Of course. Stupid me. I can’t see them, it’s true, but Mr. Torres told me a long time ago that just about everything you do these days is caught on camera, at least if you’re in a public place. Which is another reason to be careful where you pick your nose.

Mrs. Huddleston said that my behavior that morning was strange indeed, and that Mr. Zukowski had some questions for me. She said that he wanted to talk to me about what in the world I was up to, but that he was a little busy right now with another matter. I was to sit and wait until Mr. Zukowski was ready for me.

I sat down on the tiny bench right outside Zukowski’s door, the same bench Roxie had found not sixty minutes earlier. I sat there for maybe ten minutes, but it felt like ten hours. I was scared, with tiny tears in the back of my eyes. (Yes, blind people can cry.

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