Mussolini
I looked into the guileless eyes of my son as he stood with me our backs to the vibrating, and poorly insulated I might add, door to the troll's office and didn't believe them for a second. It was amazing how he injected just the right amount of bovine into his irises to make himself look harmlessly stupid. ^The color probably helps. I heard that somewhere, easier to look stupid with brown eyes.^ Arching my brow I silently asked if he really thought *I* was stupid. I smirked when he looked away first. ^Guess not.^
"You've heard me called worse things." Xander winced, or at least the right side of his face winced, at my mild tone and fidgeted. "Since Anthony was never quiet I'm sure you heard them?" He folded his arms across his red sweater and shifted his stance once more. I could tell I was striking a nerve. I tried to contain my smirk. He was off balance. Couldn't say I really blamed him. Wasn't yelling or interrogating, wasn't doing anything remotely parental, I was acting like a friend. One who was trying to dig into her friend's actions, sort them out, trim off the bullshit, and reassemble them so they made a minimum amount of sense. I couldn't, however, keep the hint of amusement from my next question, "Did you think my honor really needed defending?"
Before I was glad that my son didn't tower over me, that I could look him in the eyes and see what he was trying to hide, now I wasn't quite so happy about it. If eyes are the windows to the soul than my son was deeply disappointed with me. My breath caught in my throat, "Xander- I-"
"You just don't get it, do you?"
There was a particularly shrill burst from beyond the door but it barely impinged on my consciousness as I stared into the face of my son. The sad thing was I really didn't understand why. I'd assumed- well actually I hadn't really known what to assume, but it never occurred to me that Xander was serious. Oh, I was certainly furious with the idiocy of trying to railroad my son for standing up for me, but to think he really felt the need to. It was just such an alien concept. Chivalry was supposed to be dead and rotting, heck I thought the corpse was hidden in our closet along with crossbows. Anthony had seemed to kill it with his very presence. Once Snyder the Troll had ejected us, politely despite all the teeth mashing, into the reception area to "confer" with his colleague I'd decided to determine why exactly I was here because I couldn't believe it was solely due to some ignoramus had calling me a whore. Now I was starting to regret my flippancy because apparently that *was* the reason, as amazing as that was. And I still couldn't comprehend why it was suddenly so important to my son. Fighting over something someone had said- I just couldn't wrap my brain around it and obviously that pained my son. He thought it was important and that was enough to make me wish I understood.
I shook my head sadly. "I'm afraid I don't honey."
"Words aren't harmless. If someone says something and no one does anything soon more people are saying it. Then you get a lot of people are saying the same thing, that's when stupid ideas don't sound so stupid anymore. Words can kill. They can kill because they give stupid people something to say. And then something to do." Fury flashed across chocolate eyes and fists clenched and unclenched. I knew my jaw was touching the floor, I did, but I didn't care. My son hadn't defied the powers that be for me, something I thought sort of pointless, he had done it for everybody on the planet.
Deep in my chest my heart gave a squeeze as pride threatened to try and burst it. It was bittersweet pride though. I hadn't taught him that, would never have considered it even. He'd learned it anyway. ^That's my kid.^ Smiling I shook my head once more. "When did you get so smart?"
Calming he whipped up a dazzler of his own. "When Woo Fong's opened downtown. Fortune Cookies man, they explain the universe." His shrug was eloquent and his delivery deadpan. I couldn't help the burst of laughter that erupted from my lips to echo strangely around the empty room. I didn't have a clue where Peggy Bundy'd gone to but with the quality of help my taxes were paying for she was probably on her forty-five minute fifteen- minute break.
"Mrs. Harris." Snyder's nasal voice cut through the almost giddy atmosphere that had been created between us like a chainsaw. ^Dang. That man must be with the fun-police.^ I turned to look at the troll a little nonplussed that I hadn't heard the door open but not willing to show it and was amused to find that, yes he really was compensating for something. I had to look down a good five inches. Slipping back into my Queen of the Universe personality I raise an eyebrow and cocked my head not dignifying him as worthy of speech. The result was a slightly flustered little man. I mentally check another point under my name. Snyder wasn't doing so well in this little game of intimidation.
"Ahem, if you would, ah join us we have things to discuss." Snyder's jerky movements combined with his no longer quite so neat and sharp looking executive's suit despite its lack of wrinkles made the man look nervous in a way I was sure he wasn't aware of. I crossed the threshold and was again inside the overly lavish office and heard behind me a rather clipped angry. "Not you." Then there was a slamming. ^Not willing to make it a fair fight, hmm.^ I smirked at the idea that Snyder was afraid of my son even subconsciously and casually tilted my head to watch him return to his chair. Once he was seated I looked at Mr. Martin. The man looked smaller, slightly deflated even, but still defiant. I could see the burning anger and resentment in his eyes and had to restrain my urge to stick out my tongue and cross my eyes. The man made the child in me want to throw a tantrum.
A long drawn out squeal drew my attention back to the little man perched upon his leather throne leaned back causing an unoiled bearing to assault our ears. The flash of satisfaction that crossed the man's face let me know it was a power ploy. It made me wonder how much of his life was devoted to deriving sadistic pleasure from torturing those under his tyrannical thumb. ^Hmm, being a bit judgmental aren't we?^ I took another look around the office. ^Nope. Just more insightful than usual.^
Snyder steepled his fingers and tried to look profound and self- sacrificing. He didn't wear it well. "Mrs. Harris I assume we can agree that both parties in this matter - have shall we say, 'transgressed'. While Mr. Martin did go over his bounds as a teacher-" Martin shot a glare at his ally. I could see that Martin thought he'd done nothing of the sort. Snyder continued as if he hadn't noticed, "but your son's insubordination was uncalled for. It could lead to other student disruptions, which are not tolerable." Eyes narrowed I thought I could see where this was going. "I believe that Mr. Martin should deliver a formal apology to you for his hasty words. I am willing to be lenient with Mr. Harris despite his record," Briefly I wondered what he was talking about, "and instead of expelling him as I intended I believe a week's worth of suspension is fair."
Well that certainly got the blood boiling. ^Bad enough he wasn't even going to make the idiot apologize to my son! But expulsion, suspension even, over a little cursing? Either things have changed dramatically from my day he's trying to hang Xander out to dry.^ I shoved the question of why away for now and once more rose up a the righteous mother about to rain down my wrath. I thought I had made it clear that I wasn't going to let a flimsy title and some fancy well rehearsed words lull me into believing that the 'right thing was being done'.
"Mr. Snyder." The man jerked forward at my subzero tone letting lose another squeal as his chair followed him. "If you think this attempt at... at *compromise*," I spat out the word, "will assuage my need for justice you are sorely mistaken. I will not let this verbally abusive, incompetent, excuse of a teacher be within a hundred yards of any classroom again. That you would even consider it makes me seriously question your integrity. When the *school board*," I emphasized the name of his bosses to remind him of my earlier threat, "hears of this I suspect that they will agree." With that said I turned on my heel ignoring the shocked face of Martin and the pinched face of Snyder and left the oppressive atmosphere of the office. I didn't slam the door. For one thing it hadn't done anything to me, for another I wouldn't give Snyder the satisfaction of showing him that his arrogant attitude made me anything other than contemptuous.
Frowning I scanned the outer office, which had a decided lack of Xanders. ^Where in the heck is he?^ I started for the door since it was pretty obvious wherever he was it wasn't here. Hand on knob I stopped short as I heard his voice through the wavy clear Plexiglas with it's huge stenciled letters ECIFFO S'LAPICNIRP that paneled the top of the door.
"- I telling you I'm fine Wills. Snyder hasn't gotten around to ripping me a new one yet. Mom's still in there arguing with him." I heard a rather feminine sigh, which surprised me because 'Wills' sounded like a man's name to me.
"Xander, you're in major trouble. You know Snyder's pissed at us for hanging with Buffy." The voice matched my expectations of the sigher. Very feminine and mixed with the right amount of exasperation and love to show she, whoever she was, was his friend even though she thought he had done something unconscionably stupid.
"It'll be fine. You know I've seen you less worried about the Apocalypse." He sounded fondly amused and that seemed just *wrong* with Apocalypse and what the heck did he mean by that.
"I'm usually more forewarned." I heard a muffled smack. "What did you think you were doing?!"
"I think I was calling an asshole what to do with himself. I could've said, 'Zhri govno i zdohni!' #Eat shit and die.# but I don't think he understands Russian." Silence followed my son's sardonic words. I have a lot of experience interpreting silences. The family get-togethers I gone to in England until I was ten- when Grandma Lindsey the matriarch of the family died releasing mom from even the obligation of facing our British relatives once a year- used be basically a bunch of long silences strung together. This one felt pained and shocked and I could tell my son regretted what he'd said.
"Xander," I could barely hear the soft whisper and I realized I was almost pressed up against the door. A feeling of guilt swept through me. ^What am I doing?^ Releasing the knob I took a step back. However the girl on the other side inconsiderately regained her volume so my gesture was moot. "When did you learn to speak Russian? Or French for that matter? The last time Mr. Martin asked, 'Quelque chose tu besoin partages avec nous Etienne.' #Something you wish to share with us, Etienne?# You said, 'Mon oncle a un jeune stylo.' #My uncle has a yellow pencil.#"
Admittedly I didn't understand a word of what either of them had said, I was never a language person despite all my world traveling, but I got the feeling this friend of my son was very surprised. My first thought on learning my son spoke French was 'how appropriate' but languages aren't hereditary.
"Wills, I can speak fluently Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, and Russian." ^Cripes.^ "Soldier Boy came up with the weirdest hobbies when he was bored. There's not much you can really do locked in a ten by five room except watch tv and after a while even that can drive a guy insane. He started watching cartoons in other languages to learn them, that's how I know... well, all of them except Latin. Poor sucker went to Catholic school for Christ's sake." He paused then went on caustically, "I also now have a rampaging fear of rulers." And *I* now had about a dozen questions floating around in my head. Eavesdropping was bad bad of me and it hadn't even gotten me anywhere. The conversation had been Greek to me. ^And that's not even one of the languages my son speaks darn it!^
I looked into the guileless eyes of my son as he stood with me our backs to the vibrating, and poorly insulated I might add, door to the troll's office and didn't believe them for a second. It was amazing how he injected just the right amount of bovine into his irises to make himself look harmlessly stupid. ^The color probably helps. I heard that somewhere, easier to look stupid with brown eyes.^ Arching my brow I silently asked if he really thought *I* was stupid. I smirked when he looked away first. ^Guess not.^
"You've heard me called worse things." Xander winced, or at least the right side of his face winced, at my mild tone and fidgeted. "Since Anthony was never quiet I'm sure you heard them?" He folded his arms across his red sweater and shifted his stance once more. I could tell I was striking a nerve. I tried to contain my smirk. He was off balance. Couldn't say I really blamed him. Wasn't yelling or interrogating, wasn't doing anything remotely parental, I was acting like a friend. One who was trying to dig into her friend's actions, sort them out, trim off the bullshit, and reassemble them so they made a minimum amount of sense. I couldn't, however, keep the hint of amusement from my next question, "Did you think my honor really needed defending?"
Before I was glad that my son didn't tower over me, that I could look him in the eyes and see what he was trying to hide, now I wasn't quite so happy about it. If eyes are the windows to the soul than my son was deeply disappointed with me. My breath caught in my throat, "Xander- I-"
"You just don't get it, do you?"
There was a particularly shrill burst from beyond the door but it barely impinged on my consciousness as I stared into the face of my son. The sad thing was I really didn't understand why. I'd assumed- well actually I hadn't really known what to assume, but it never occurred to me that Xander was serious. Oh, I was certainly furious with the idiocy of trying to railroad my son for standing up for me, but to think he really felt the need to. It was just such an alien concept. Chivalry was supposed to be dead and rotting, heck I thought the corpse was hidden in our closet along with crossbows. Anthony had seemed to kill it with his very presence. Once Snyder the Troll had ejected us, politely despite all the teeth mashing, into the reception area to "confer" with his colleague I'd decided to determine why exactly I was here because I couldn't believe it was solely due to some ignoramus had calling me a whore. Now I was starting to regret my flippancy because apparently that *was* the reason, as amazing as that was. And I still couldn't comprehend why it was suddenly so important to my son. Fighting over something someone had said- I just couldn't wrap my brain around it and obviously that pained my son. He thought it was important and that was enough to make me wish I understood.
I shook my head sadly. "I'm afraid I don't honey."
"Words aren't harmless. If someone says something and no one does anything soon more people are saying it. Then you get a lot of people are saying the same thing, that's when stupid ideas don't sound so stupid anymore. Words can kill. They can kill because they give stupid people something to say. And then something to do." Fury flashed across chocolate eyes and fists clenched and unclenched. I knew my jaw was touching the floor, I did, but I didn't care. My son hadn't defied the powers that be for me, something I thought sort of pointless, he had done it for everybody on the planet.
Deep in my chest my heart gave a squeeze as pride threatened to try and burst it. It was bittersweet pride though. I hadn't taught him that, would never have considered it even. He'd learned it anyway. ^That's my kid.^ Smiling I shook my head once more. "When did you get so smart?"
Calming he whipped up a dazzler of his own. "When Woo Fong's opened downtown. Fortune Cookies man, they explain the universe." His shrug was eloquent and his delivery deadpan. I couldn't help the burst of laughter that erupted from my lips to echo strangely around the empty room. I didn't have a clue where Peggy Bundy'd gone to but with the quality of help my taxes were paying for she was probably on her forty-five minute fifteen- minute break.
"Mrs. Harris." Snyder's nasal voice cut through the almost giddy atmosphere that had been created between us like a chainsaw. ^Dang. That man must be with the fun-police.^ I turned to look at the troll a little nonplussed that I hadn't heard the door open but not willing to show it and was amused to find that, yes he really was compensating for something. I had to look down a good five inches. Slipping back into my Queen of the Universe personality I raise an eyebrow and cocked my head not dignifying him as worthy of speech. The result was a slightly flustered little man. I mentally check another point under my name. Snyder wasn't doing so well in this little game of intimidation.
"Ahem, if you would, ah join us we have things to discuss." Snyder's jerky movements combined with his no longer quite so neat and sharp looking executive's suit despite its lack of wrinkles made the man look nervous in a way I was sure he wasn't aware of. I crossed the threshold and was again inside the overly lavish office and heard behind me a rather clipped angry. "Not you." Then there was a slamming. ^Not willing to make it a fair fight, hmm.^ I smirked at the idea that Snyder was afraid of my son even subconsciously and casually tilted my head to watch him return to his chair. Once he was seated I looked at Mr. Martin. The man looked smaller, slightly deflated even, but still defiant. I could see the burning anger and resentment in his eyes and had to restrain my urge to stick out my tongue and cross my eyes. The man made the child in me want to throw a tantrum.
A long drawn out squeal drew my attention back to the little man perched upon his leather throne leaned back causing an unoiled bearing to assault our ears. The flash of satisfaction that crossed the man's face let me know it was a power ploy. It made me wonder how much of his life was devoted to deriving sadistic pleasure from torturing those under his tyrannical thumb. ^Hmm, being a bit judgmental aren't we?^ I took another look around the office. ^Nope. Just more insightful than usual.^
Snyder steepled his fingers and tried to look profound and self- sacrificing. He didn't wear it well. "Mrs. Harris I assume we can agree that both parties in this matter - have shall we say, 'transgressed'. While Mr. Martin did go over his bounds as a teacher-" Martin shot a glare at his ally. I could see that Martin thought he'd done nothing of the sort. Snyder continued as if he hadn't noticed, "but your son's insubordination was uncalled for. It could lead to other student disruptions, which are not tolerable." Eyes narrowed I thought I could see where this was going. "I believe that Mr. Martin should deliver a formal apology to you for his hasty words. I am willing to be lenient with Mr. Harris despite his record," Briefly I wondered what he was talking about, "and instead of expelling him as I intended I believe a week's worth of suspension is fair."
Well that certainly got the blood boiling. ^Bad enough he wasn't even going to make the idiot apologize to my son! But expulsion, suspension even, over a little cursing? Either things have changed dramatically from my day he's trying to hang Xander out to dry.^ I shoved the question of why away for now and once more rose up a the righteous mother about to rain down my wrath. I thought I had made it clear that I wasn't going to let a flimsy title and some fancy well rehearsed words lull me into believing that the 'right thing was being done'.
"Mr. Snyder." The man jerked forward at my subzero tone letting lose another squeal as his chair followed him. "If you think this attempt at... at *compromise*," I spat out the word, "will assuage my need for justice you are sorely mistaken. I will not let this verbally abusive, incompetent, excuse of a teacher be within a hundred yards of any classroom again. That you would even consider it makes me seriously question your integrity. When the *school board*," I emphasized the name of his bosses to remind him of my earlier threat, "hears of this I suspect that they will agree." With that said I turned on my heel ignoring the shocked face of Martin and the pinched face of Snyder and left the oppressive atmosphere of the office. I didn't slam the door. For one thing it hadn't done anything to me, for another I wouldn't give Snyder the satisfaction of showing him that his arrogant attitude made me anything other than contemptuous.
Frowning I scanned the outer office, which had a decided lack of Xanders. ^Where in the heck is he?^ I started for the door since it was pretty obvious wherever he was it wasn't here. Hand on knob I stopped short as I heard his voice through the wavy clear Plexiglas with it's huge stenciled letters ECIFFO S'LAPICNIRP that paneled the top of the door.
"- I telling you I'm fine Wills. Snyder hasn't gotten around to ripping me a new one yet. Mom's still in there arguing with him." I heard a rather feminine sigh, which surprised me because 'Wills' sounded like a man's name to me.
"Xander, you're in major trouble. You know Snyder's pissed at us for hanging with Buffy." The voice matched my expectations of the sigher. Very feminine and mixed with the right amount of exasperation and love to show she, whoever she was, was his friend even though she thought he had done something unconscionably stupid.
"It'll be fine. You know I've seen you less worried about the Apocalypse." He sounded fondly amused and that seemed just *wrong* with Apocalypse and what the heck did he mean by that.
"I'm usually more forewarned." I heard a muffled smack. "What did you think you were doing?!"
"I think I was calling an asshole what to do with himself. I could've said, 'Zhri govno i zdohni!' #Eat shit and die.# but I don't think he understands Russian." Silence followed my son's sardonic words. I have a lot of experience interpreting silences. The family get-togethers I gone to in England until I was ten- when Grandma Lindsey the matriarch of the family died releasing mom from even the obligation of facing our British relatives once a year- used be basically a bunch of long silences strung together. This one felt pained and shocked and I could tell my son regretted what he'd said.
"Xander," I could barely hear the soft whisper and I realized I was almost pressed up against the door. A feeling of guilt swept through me. ^What am I doing?^ Releasing the knob I took a step back. However the girl on the other side inconsiderately regained her volume so my gesture was moot. "When did you learn to speak Russian? Or French for that matter? The last time Mr. Martin asked, 'Quelque chose tu besoin partages avec nous Etienne.' #Something you wish to share with us, Etienne?# You said, 'Mon oncle a un jeune stylo.' #My uncle has a yellow pencil.#"
Admittedly I didn't understand a word of what either of them had said, I was never a language person despite all my world traveling, but I got the feeling this friend of my son was very surprised. My first thought on learning my son spoke French was 'how appropriate' but languages aren't hereditary.
"Wills, I can speak fluently Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, and Russian." ^Cripes.^ "Soldier Boy came up with the weirdest hobbies when he was bored. There's not much you can really do locked in a ten by five room except watch tv and after a while even that can drive a guy insane. He started watching cartoons in other languages to learn them, that's how I know... well, all of them except Latin. Poor sucker went to Catholic school for Christ's sake." He paused then went on caustically, "I also now have a rampaging fear of rulers." And *I* now had about a dozen questions floating around in my head. Eavesdropping was bad bad of me and it hadn't even gotten me anywhere. The conversation had been Greek to me. ^And that's not even one of the languages my son speaks darn it!^