The Accidental Bad Girl by Maxine Kaplan

Author:Maxine Kaplan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amulet Books
Published: 2018-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

All day at school the next day, I started at loud noises, instinctively positioning my body in a defensive stance. Every whisper or dumb-ass comment from my classmates, even the ones not directed at me, was like someone using my own hand to slap my face and saying, “Stop hitting yourself. Why are you hitting yourself?”

Finally, the clock struck three. I grabbed my bag and bolted to the lockers. I wanted out of that building, preferably before anyone else had the chance to talk to me. An odd feeling, like something was boiling, had started in my head, and I wanted to be alone in case it exploded.

I ran down to my locker and began shoving books in as fast as I could. The hallway was still empty.

“Yes,” I breathed. I stood up, turned, and walked smack into Ellie Kurtz.

“Sorry,” I muttered and dodged around her, still heading toward the door.

Behind me, she said with a quiet, nasty laugh, “What, does the two-for-one special at the liquor store end at 3:15?”

And pop goes the weasel.

I dropped my bag off of my shoulder, pivoted, and launched myself at Ellie, knocking her to the ground.

When I caught my breath, I was lying on top of the wriggling Ellie, hands burning from the fall on the rough carpet runner, kicking at her ankles to keep her down. She managed to get a slap in, and the shock rolled me to my side, scratching and pulling at her hair, until our flailing, interlocking limbs blossomed into a full-on girl fight of smacking wrists and shirt-pulling, our legs tangling in the struggle, both of us horizontal on the floor.

Someone grabbed my free arm and yanked me to my feet. I stood over Ellie, still scrambling upright, listening to the yelling that had taken over the hallway. It wasn’t until I was led through the double doors toward the administrative offices that I realized the yelling had mostly been me.

Some middle-school teacher I didn’t know dumped me in a chair outside the principal’s office and turned to Ms. Lowery. “She started a fight in the hallway,” he said, jutting his finger in my direction. “Can I leave her with you?”

Principal Meyers walked in but stopped short when he saw me. I reached up to smooth my hair down.

“What happened?” he asked, sounding exhausted.

“Uh . . . I think I just got suspended.”

“What?”

I told the story, from Ellie’s comment to getting dumped in his office, mechanically, factually. It didn’t take long: It was a pretty simple story.

He shook his head, not in negation but in confusion. “Ellie Kurtz said something snide, so you knocked her down? That’s it? That’s all you have to say about it?”

I shrugged and nodded.

He sat back, dumbfounded. “What were you thinking? What is happening inside your head?”

A significant upswing in serotonin and endorphins. “That’s rhetorical, right?”

“I am sincerely and seriously disappointed in you,” he said, on the knife-edge of yelling. “You are most definitely suspended. We’re going to have to start talking about a disciplinary plan going forward.

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