What Was Left At Camp

Chapter 17. Making amends

Principal Myers has been with the district almost ten years now. She is known for her feisty personality and sharp tongue. She was fair but direct. She's never one to beat around the bush and I admired her for that.

She is a petite Latin woman who fought her way through the biased bureaucracy of our district. Despite her stellar resume, it was well known the school board didn't want to hire her at first. They claimed her academic ideas differed from what they were looking for in a principle but I'd argue the lack of diversity on council played a part. Nevertheless, she broke through and is loved by the student body and their parents.

"You could imagine my shock when this was emailed to me yesterday evening. It appears to be a video of you two fighting? Principal Myers ended her comment posing it as more of a question. "I was up late watching this over and over again. The sender of the video insisted it was a fight but I had to watch it a dozen times to try and understand what type of fight this was. It looks more like the two of you are dancing!"

"If I may Principle My-" I started.

"No you may not Mr. Price" Principle Myers cut me off. "Do you know what I did all morning?" She asked but neither William nor I replied. "No, didn't think so" she leaned back in her big leather covered green desk chair and crossed her legs. One stiletto heel tapping against the side of her desk. "I spend it looking for incident reports. Disciplinary documents. Crap I haven't needed in a long ass time!" She was annoyed.

"When I first came to this school I had delinquents in and out of this office daily. Then, magically, about four years ago everything changed." She was now looking directly at me as she spoke. "I couldn't tell you the last time I had to discipline a student. I guess I have you to thank for that Christian." She said it in a mocking tone. She was telling the truth but wasn't trying to give me praise at the moment.

"You have no idea what I've been able to accomplish for this school without spending half my days in meetings like this one. Being able to do the work principles should be doing and not dealing with bullshit like this." Yes, she cursed and wasn't ashamed of it. "And I'll be damned if you two are going to ruin that!" She glanced between William and I who stayed silent.

She repositioned herself in her chair so that she was sitting upright learning forward a bit. Her long straight black fell over her shoulders as she angled her head down to give us a stern look. "I was going to call your Coach in for this meeting and show him the video but to be honest, the man gives me a headache. He's more dramatic than Mrs. Abernathy, our drama teacher. I was also going to call your parents" she paused "and your grandfather, William. But to be honest, your Mother can be a bit emotional at times, Christian and quite frankly, your Grandfather scares me a bit, William. So what do we do?" She asked and started taping her freshly manicured nails on the desk.

An awkward silence followed. She just sat tapping her nails glancing at William and then to me and then back at William and so on. This continued for a solid thirty seconds. I think she was trying her best to make us feel uncomfortable and was succeeding. "No suggestions?" She finally broke the silence.

William, thinking it was a genuine question, went to speak and quickly shut his mouth as Principle Myers helped her pointer finger in the air stopping him. "No, no. That was a rhetorical question." She put her finger down, pushed her seat back and stood. She walked around her desk to stand in front of William and I, peering down on us. She leaned back on the front of her desk crossing her arms and began to shake her head back and forth.

"You're both lucky the student who recorded this and sent it to me is a kiss ass and promised me they'd delete it. If this got around the school, things could be a whole lot worse." She continued and looked over at William and I. "Seeing as that's the sorriest excuse of a fight I have ever seen and it doesn't appear either of you have a mark on you, here's what you're going to do. For my amusement and your embarrassment, I want you to turn to each other and say something about the other you like!" She smiled amusingly.