Spitfire
Chapter I
"I'm no Superman," - Lazlo Bane.
Please don't let it be who I think it is, he thought to himself with a grimace. Not today.
His approaching footsteps caused each cluster of students to glance up at him, their conversations momentarily forgotten. Whispers diminished into silence as they parted for him in shuffling waves, only to begin again once he had passed. He couldn't catch much of what was being said, but the tones in which the students were speaking did not sound critical, merely curious. Young, Newbie, Sort of cute; the partial descriptions of himself he managed to hear caused a smile to tug at his lips. Meeting the eyes of those who observed him, he readily returned whatever shy giggles and nods of acknowledgment were thrown his way with the level expression of someone who was used to and completely comfortable with being the center of attention.
However, his composure faltered as he slowed to a halt before the loose circle that had formed in the middle of the hallway. There was no question as to what the observers, their necks craning as they jostled against one another, were trying to get a better look at, and setting his jaw determinedly, he began to tap and tug at whatever loose arms and shirttails he could find. Shuffling through the grumbling students, he made his way into the throng and clumsily stumbled into its center.
Trying to ignore the unnerving silence that had followed his unexpected introduction, William Owens observed the scene before him, his eyes stop-starting as the connections began to form in his head. It took him only a moment to deduce what had happened. Nothing about this particular scuffle was hard to understand; it followed the pattern of every fight he had ever broken up that involved, and was almost always instigated by, Antonia Marez.
Pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation, Owens let out a sigh. "Antonia." He focused his gaze on her, hoping that it was steady enough to convince her that he was tough and wise in the ways of dysfunctional teenagers instead of nervous and scrambling to understand the students who were, at the most, only seven years younger than he was. "Why am I not surprised?"
The tiny girl in question glanced up at him as he spoke, though her eyes never directly met his own. Blood dribbled from her wounded nose in a thin river, dripping off the rise of her pouting bottom lip and pattering against the floor in rhythmic rainfall. Strands of her hair stuck to the olive skin of her face due to the mixture of sweat and blood that stained her cheeks like war paint, and as she attempted to brush them away, she only managed to get the tips of her fingers dirty. She scowled as she dropped her hands to her sides in defeat.
Across from Antonia sat the captain of the varsity football team, Derek Indo. His chest rose and fell with labored breaths, his cheeks were gouged with scratches and his nose was pouring blood, a waterfall compared to Antonia's stream. His eyes were narrowed with something that swayed between hatred, fright, and embarrassment, and he shot Antonia quick, skittish glares that, despite the fact that he was flanked by a friend on either side, were filled with unease.
Searching the senior's twisted expression, Owens couldn't help but pity him. He obviously hadn't known that Antonia Marez could pack such an intense punch when she wanted to. She was so small, so thin; the top of her head did not even clear the boy's elbows, let alone his shoulders. Who would have thought that she could K.O Derek Indo?
Varsity jock versus short Spanish spitfire, he thought, and for a moment, he was sure that he would collapse into brays of exhausted laughter. Let the battle begin: DING DING.
God, he needed an aspirin.
"Eff diss ducking ditch doke my dose, I - "
"You'll do nothing," Owens interrupted, glaring pointedly in Derek's direction. "You'll also keep your 'ducking ditches' and all other curse words, mispronounced or otherwise, out of my office. Is that clear, Mr. Indo?"
The senior scowled and mumbled something unintelligible as he sank further into his seat. Although he childishly refused to make eye contact, he obeyed.
Letting out a sigh, Owens glanced from one to the other, from victim to antagonist: muscle-bound Derek Indo seated in the short, leather chair on the left and tiny Antonia Marez, her face clean of blood, curled in the chair on the right. Every other moment or so, Derek's eyes would dart over to Antonia as though expecting her to finish what she had started. Antonia, however, remained still and quiet.
"We must decide what should be done about this situation," Owens said, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence. "But before I hand out any punishments, I would like to hear both sides of the story. Despite the fact that you two were stupid and immature enough to wail on each other, I would appreciate it if you let one another's stories be told without any interruptions, no matter what's said. If you object to something that the other has said, you will wait until they're completely finished before you say a single word. Is that clear?"
"Yes," Antonia replied. She was the epitome of restraint, her expression blank. Her unusual reaction unnerved him.
"Yeth, thir," Derek muttered, dejectedly rubbing the ball of his wounded nose with his thumb. As Owens observed him, the pity he had felt upon seeing Indo collapsed against the lockers with a dull expression of surprise sketched on his face returned with a vengeance. His eyes glancing from Indo's swollen bottom lip to his bruised cheeks and, with a wince, to the dried blood that created maroon rings around his nostrils, he finally locked gazes with Derek and nodded, gifting the senior with a small smile. "All right, buddy. You go first."
Derek smiled gratefully, a charming grin that Owens realized with a start was marred by a chipped front tooth, undoubtedly another of Antonia's gifts. He brushed a hand through his short crop of blond hair and gave Antonia a wary glance before shifting his chair forward a few inches. Then, letting out a deep sigh, he began.
"I was with my fwendths in the hallway, jus' goofing oth, getting ready to go home. Then, all of a thudden, Antonia," her name spoken with bitter emphasis, "giveths me thove and thays 'Who do you think you are?' I wath like, 'What are you talking about?' becauth I didn't understanth.
"But thee didn't ansthur. Inthead, thee tharted hitting me, kicking me, punting me. I only hit her back onceth becauseth...Well, it...It really hurt. She wath really hurting me." This was amazingly hard for Derek to admit; Owens could actually see the boy's jaw working with the effort he needed to say it. The idea that being hit by a girl could possibly hurt someone like him was quite obviously a foreign one.
"I justh...I don't get it, you know?" He scowled and shifted uneasily in his leather seat. "What the hell have I ever done to her?"
Owens merely stared at him in silence, the frown on his face mirroring Derek's own. You're right about one thing, he thought, letting out an internal sigh. You didn't do anything to her.
You did something to someone else.
He pitied Derek Indo and felt compassion for him on a level that was more fellow teenager to fellow teenager than adult to teenager. But he also knew that Derek was not the innocent victim. Boys like him never were.
Forcing himself to keep that fact in mind, Owens turned to Antonia. The facade of serenity she had upheld since being brought to his office was beginning to disappear. She was impatient and fidgety, tapping her fingertips against the thick arm of the leather chair. Her eyes were shadowed, unsettling, and the choppy bangs of her black hair acted as an umbrella that cast her expression into the dark.
Proceed with caution, he warned himself, fixing a tentative smile on his lips. It was not returned. "Let's hear your side of the story, Antonia."
The small girl leaned forward, her wide eyes sparkling with emotion. He could see the white highlights against her pupils, shining through the shadow cast across her thin cheeks. "What he said? Yeah, it's all a load of bull shit," she said, slamming her fist against the desk top for emphasis.
Derek let out a soft hiss, his thick fingers digging into leather. His jaw worked as he attempted to say something, to interrupt in his own defense.
"Hey." Owens glared at him, silencing the senior before he could spit out a single word. "Remember what you agreed to earlier."
Derek fell moodily against the chair, his mouth snapping shut with an audible click.
Satisfied that he would keep his peace, Owens turned to Antonia once again, a single eyebrow raised. "Oh? Is that so?"
"You know it's so, Mr. Owens. Derek Indo wasn't just 'with his fwendths in the hallway'," Antonia continued, mocking Derek's broken nose-induced lisp; Derek's fists clenched and unclenched, resting against the arms of the leather chair. "He was beating the crap out of Zachary Rone for no reason that I could see. So I shoved Derek away from Zach and gave him a taste of his own medicine."
A ghost of a smile rose to her lips. "Mr. Indo doesn't take his medicine well."
Owens let out an internal moan, his smile faltering before disappearing completely. Zachary Rone was the definition of the word "geek". He had thick, square glasses, freckles scattered across his pale face, and blond-red hair that was constantly cork-screwed up in silly tufts. Although he didn't have braces or retainers of any kind, the lack of metalwork only helped his image slightly as, more often than not, his lips were pulled into a constant frown, hiding whatever nice smile he might have had. Despite the fact that he would never say so aloud, Owens didn't blame him either, for being so depressed. Considering the amount of humiliation handed to him every day, from immature insults to shoves and punches, he didn't have much of a reason to smile.
This situation is about to become messier than it already is. After wiping his hand down his face, feeling the cool, purple half-circles of exhaustion hanging heavily beneath his eyes as he did so, Owens turned back to Derek Indo.
"Derek." The senior glanced up, his eyes wide and hopeful. "I'd like you to go to the nurse's office. She'll do whatever she can for you, and then she'll most likely call up your father and send you both to the emergency room."
Before Derek could protest, Owens dealt him another glare. "Your nose is broken. You'll need it fixed if you plan on staying a football star." He pointed him in the direction of the office door. "Go."
Without another word, Derek shoved himself to his feet, pushed away from the stout leather chair and snatched his backpack up from where it lay in the corner. He slammed the door on his way out, causing the glass in the office windows to rattle. Owens winced, his ears ringing in the noisy aftershock. Antonia did not. She merely stared at him, her jaw slack.
"That's it? That's all?" she whispered in disbelief. "He doesn't get punished for what he did?"
"I can't punish him until I learn whether or not the story is true, Antonia," Owens replied slowly. He sensed Antonia's growing irritation the same way one could sense an approaching lightning storm, the air fizzling with electricity, setting one's hair on end. Instead of provoking that anger into full force, he decided to tread as carefully as possible. Not that his desperate treading would last very long. "I'll have to call Zach in, see what he has to say..."
"He won't say a word! He can't!" she protested, her voice beginning to rise. "If he says anything, anything at all, he'll just get the crap kicked out of him again! You know that!"
"Calm down!" he snapped. "You know that my hands are tied here! If Zach won't say anything, that's his own decision. He'll do what he feels is best. But I can't punish Derek if the victim won't even admit he's been beaten up. In fact, at this point," Owens locked gazes with her, "you're the only one I can punish."
Antonia's cheeks reddened and her bottom lip began to tremble. "But - "
"But nothing!" he cried. A significant part of his brain, as well as his heart, truly did not want to punish Antonia. He knew without a doubt that Derek Indo had beaten up poor Zachary and had deserved a good, hard kick in the ass for doing so. But, as the principal, especially as the principal who had huge shoes to fill being so young, he had to do what was fair. Not what was right. What was fair.
What was fair was punishing Antonia.
"You broke Derek's nose, for God's sake! He should be practicing for football! He's got a scholarship he'll have to live up to come August! You may have just shot him down for the few months of practice that he really needs! Do you know how much that could hurt him?"
"Not as much as he hurt Zach," she replied, crossing her arms defiantly over her chest.
"Oh, get off of your high horse, Antonia!" Owens barked, feeling bitter with her, with Derek, but mostly with himself. The authority in him soured with the knowledge of what he had to do, of what he was saying and how incredibly far off of the mark he was. However, he didn't stop. Something inside of him just couldn't. On some level, he knew this was exactly what she needed to hear.
"You think you have these justifications for what you've done and you think that they're good enough to explain away kicking the crap out of someone, but they're not! Don't you understand? You're no better than Derek Indo because you hurt other people, Antonia. You hurt other people, that's what it comes down to, and even though you believe that you're mature enough to take situations such as these into your own hands, that you have what you feel to be good reasons for doing so, you don't! Even though you believe that you, you, have the authority to hurt someone else, you don't. You don't, just as Derek doesn't." He took a deep breath, running his fingers through his hair in exasperation. "You're not Superman, Antonia! You don't have any obligations to save anyone else on your own, so you need to stop thinking that you do!"
Her responding silence unnerved him, and Owens began to grasp for words, for further explanation, in desperation. "You should have told someone, a teacher, a parent! You should have told me, I - "
"Teachers don't care, my mother's never around, my father's gone and you're too stupid to do anything about it!" she interrupted brutally, her eyes narrowed. She was out of her seat now, standing at her full height of five feet, and yet, somehow, she seemed so much bigger. "I couldn't tell anyone because no one would've done shit about it! Don't you understand? No one cares!"
His eyes, which had been searching her expression in shock, suddenly gazed into her's. In them, both of them, was disgust strong enough to make him cringe.
"I'm sorry that you have these misconceptions about why I have done what I've done, why I did what I did and why I will continue to do what I do in the days to come, but I'm not sorry that Derek got the kick in the ass he deserved, and I'm not sorry that I'm trying to be human enough to save someone else when they're in trouble! And to be completely honest, Mr. Owens, your opinion of who I am and what I do are the ones that matter to me the least! Do you want to know why?"
He stared at the tiny finger focused on his chest in accusation and swallowed hard.
She didn't wait for an answer. "You act as though the advice you've given me is correct! As though I should be listening to you and what you believe even though I'm willing to bet that you've never been in Zach's shoes before!
"If you're so smart, Mr. Owens, then tell me, who is allowed to defend someone else if they're being attacked? Who, if not the people who witness it happen?"
Thin films of tears lay over Antonia's sparkling eyes like cataracts. Her shoulders, tight and narrow, were tense to the point that they trembled with the effort to stay tense. Her fists did as well. "Who?"
William Owens, his jaw quivering and slack with surprise, suddenly raised an arm. The pointer finger of his left hand was pinpointed on the door, and it trembled hard. "Get out."
Antonia didn't move.
His lips worked as he struggled to repeat himself. His face, pale and shiny with sweat, looked so juvenile that Antonia felt no immediate need to heed his words.
"Antonia Marez," he finally managed, his voice hoarse; only now did the authoritative tone sink in, but it sounded weak and meaningless, unearned. "You're suspended until further notice. I'll call your mother to come and pick you up, but for now...just...Just get out, Antonia. Get out."
She didn't scream, didn't topple his desk, didn't leap at him like a wild animal. Instead, a single tear slipped down her olive cheek, and she absently wiped it away as she hefted up her book bag and left his office. He watched her gently grip the door knob and close the door as carefully as she could behind her. A moment later, she was gone.
Letting out a shaky exhale, Owens stumbled and collapsed haphazardly into the wheeled office chair that had skittered off to the side of the room, rolling it back to his desk. He folded his arms across the desk top and rested his forehead against them, his face hidden from view.
Who is allowed to defend someone else if they're being attacked? Antonia's question repeated itself, over and over, in his mind, as loud as the blare of a horn. Who, if not the people who witness it happen?
Who?
He stayed that way, pressed against his desk, for a long time.