Charlie search in her locker for her chemistry book when suddenly Chris Hargensen slammed it shut for her. "You and your freak sister got me kick out of prom!" Chris accused. Her eyes glaring deeply into Charlie's.

"Wrong answer. YOU got yourself kick out of prom." Charlie growls.

Chris got all into Charlie's face, their noses barely touching. "I got detention because of your goddamn stupid freaky sister got her period."

"You threw tampons at us!" Charlie said, her voice rising trembling. Her body temperature was increasing. Chris saw how angry she got and used the opportunity to mock her.

"Aw what's wrong, Charlie? I'm making you cry?" Chris slaps her.

"Stop it." Charlie mutters. Chris slaps her again and again on her head and face.

Charlie bit her lip harder, not because she wanted to cry but to keep it from coming out. She could feel the heat rising from inside her. Her arms and legs were shaky.

She balled her fist, palms now calmly, and punch Chris Hargensen right into her stomach. The brunette wasn't expecting the sudden attack nor how strong it was to the point she landed on her ass.

Charlie lets out a breath of relief. Her body was cooling down now but her skin was sweaty, strands of her blondish hair stuck to forehead and neck.

Chris was groaning in pain. Her friend, Tina Blake, who watch the entire incident with several other students, help her off the ground.

"You're gonna pay for that..." Chris groans, clutching her stomach.

"Screw you, bitch!" Charlie breathes out.


John Hargensen was a tall, impressive man with a self confident way of moving and the kind of sure mobile features that said this was a man superior at the game of one-step-ahead social interaction. He was wearing a brown Savile Row suit with subtle glints of green and gold running through the weave that put Henry Morton's local off-the-rack job to shame.

Mr. Hargensen, his daughter Chris, Miss Desjardin and Morton sat in the school's office, discussing about the events that took place during Period One gym.

"Now this gym teacher was running Christy to the ground. Now that's abuse of power." Mr. Hargensen explains. "I believe the term she used was...shitty? That's abuse of power."

"You're right Daddy," Chris said. "That's what she said: shitty. She's abusive."

Morton signs inwardly. "Miss Desjardin has been reprimanded."

John Hargensen smile cools about thirty degrees. "I'm afraid a reprimand will not be sufficient. I believe this is her first year teaching?"

"Yes."

"We're busy men. I don't want a lot of unpleasantness nor mess. He's what I want. Prom tickets for my daughter. As you can see she is very distressed. Also the contract termination of Rita Desjardin and the expulsion of the girl who hurt Christy."

"For physical and verbal abuse?"

"Correct."

"Mr. Hargensen are you aware that your daughter and ten of her peers threw sanitary napkins at a girl who was having her first menstrual period? Who thought she was bleeding to death? And just twenty minutes before you came to my office several people, including one teacher, witnessed her slapping at the girl who 'hurt' Christine?"

"No I wasn't aware but-"

"Nevermind," Morton said. "This girl, Carrietta White, was called a 'dumb pudding' and told to 'plug it up' along with other obscene gestures. Her younger sister, Charlene White, was the girl your daughter verbal and physical assault just before you came here. Your daughter threw sanitary napkins as well the same time. Does that sound like verbal and physical abuse to you, Mr. Hargensen? It does to me."

"I don't intend to listen to half truths about my daughter. I know her well enough."

"Well I believe there is a video of the shower room incident." Miss Desjardin spoke. "And I believe it was your daughter."

Chris shifts in her seat uncomfortably. Color fades from her skin, hearing that Miss Desjardin figured out that she was the one who posted the video.

"A video like that would be damning to the people who are in it. And to the person who made it." Miss Desjardin continues. "Don't you Mr. Hargensen? I mean, I dunno, I'm just a gym teacher...but it seems like a video like that would affect college admissions, possibly a lawsuit, tons of bad publicity. I wonder what the Today Show would do with a video like that?"

"I think we should just look at her phone and if it's not there...I owe you a huge apology and she be allow to go to prom."

Mr. Hargensen looks over to his daughter, taking a deep breath. A thin flush had suffused his features. "Chris."

Chris lets out a laugh. "Daddy isn't this invasion of privacy? I'm not gonna give them my phone. It's a lot of personal stuff in there."

"Christy if you wanna go to prom just give them the damn phone." Mr. Hargensen signs. "I gotta get back to the office."

"Dad-"

"God dammit just give them your phone Chris." Mr. Hargensen grits.

A look of disappointment cross over her face. "No." She got up and left the office without a word.


From The Shadow & Catalyst Exploded (Appendix III):

Carrieta White passed in the following short verse as a poetry assignment in the seventh grade. Mr. Edwin King, who had Carrie for grade seven and Charlie the next year before she was allow to skip because of high IQ, English says: "I don't know why I saved her's or Charlie's. Carrie certainly didn't stick out in my mind as a superior pupil, and this isn't a superior verse. Very quiet and can't remember her raising a hand in class. Charlie was a bit more verbal but was quiet at the same time. But something like this seems to cry out."

Carrie White:

Jesus watches from the wall

But his face is cold as the stone

And if he loves me

Like she tells me

Why do I feel so alone?

Charlie White:

Hope for me,

but do not wish for me

Nurture my limbs,

But do not trap my bones

And rise up on the setting sun;

Save the sinner,

Who has done me wrong;

Lovingly for a blaze

The border of each paper on which these little verses were written is decorated with a great many cruciform figures which almost seem to dance...