Wrath

“And why come to me with this information? Why not the vice principal, or someone else in the administration?”

“Well, I figure they must have used the newspaper equipment to print the flyer, and you are the sponsor. It seemed like your department.” Harper hoped it sounded convincing. She wasn’t about to admit that when you’re turning in your former best friend for stabbing you in the back, it’s more palatable to do so with the hottest teacher in the history of Haven High. Besides, Vice Principal Sorrento had a creepy birthmark on his forehead that had already eaten most of his hair and would surely soon get started on his face. Mr. Powell, on the other hand, could have been Hugh Grant’s stunt double-and pretending she was starring in one of those movies where the sassy American falls into bed with the dapper Englishman was almost enough to distract her from the task at hand.

She’d woken up that morning determined to act. Striking back was the best way to keep from obsessing over Miranda’s words and what it meant that the one person who knew her best had decided she wasn’t worth knowing.

“Beth Manning and Miranda Stevens are two of my best students,” Powell said dubiously. “Are you sure-”

“It was them, Mr. Powell. I’m positive. Just look into it-you’ll see I was right.”

For a moment, Harper pictured how Miranda’s face would look when she got summoned to the vice principal’s office to receive her punishment, sure to be especially harsh under the new “no-tolerance” regime. But she pushed the image out of her mind.

Miranda had no regrets, right?

Fine. Good. Then neither would she.

In her backpack, Beth carried: four sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, and a pale pink pencil sharpener in the shape of a rose. Just in case. One Mead notebook and one matching folder for each class, color coded. A folded-up picture of her twin brothers, stuffed into the front pocket. Two dollars in quarters, for vending machine snacks. A pack of wintergreen Eclipse gum, to help her stay awake in history class, where the teacher had a bad habit of droning on and on about his long-ago European vacation. A Winnie the Pooh wallet she’d gotten on a family trip to Disneyland and had never had the heart to replace. And today, Beth carried two neatly typed, four-page-long speeches on the subject of education, each bound together with a single staple positioned in the upper-left-hand corner.

One speech was eloquent, witty, and succinct, seamlessly shifting back and forth between heartfelt personal anecdotes and powerful generalizations. It was a sure winner.

The second speech was awkward, wordy, and nonsensical, filled with run-on sentences and the occasional misspelling. It was hackneyed and repetitive and made stunningly obvious pronouncements such as, “Without teachers, there could be no schools.” It was a loser, from beginning to end.

The first speech was written by a Jane A. Wilder, of Norfolk, New Jersey. The second speech was written by Beth Manning, hastily spit out in the early hours of the morning because, at four A.M., she’d finally given up on sleep and decided that she needed a backup plan in case she decided not to let Jane A. Wilder unknowingly save the day.

As she approached the principal’s office, she took both essays out of her bag. There was a box, just inside the door, marked SPEECHES FOR THE GOVERNOR. It was almost empty-but lying on top was one titled “Education: You Break It,You Buy It.” By Harper Grace.

Beth resisted the temptation to pull it out of the box and read it-she’d rather not know. And she resisted the even stronger temptation to take it from the box, stuff it in her backpack, and run away.

Instead, she focused on her choice: Do the right thing or do the smart thing.

What good would it do her to be an ethical person if she was stuck practicing her ethics in Grace, California for the rest of her life, earning a junior college degree in food preparation and then working at the diner for the next fifty years until she dropped dead of boredom in the middle of a vat of coleslaw? On the other hand, what good would it be to wow the admissions committee, earning her ticket to a bright and better tomorrow, all the while knowing she was living a life that, in truth, belonged to Jane A. Wilder of Norfolk, New Jersey?

She did what she had to do.

She flipped a coin-and in the flicker of disappointment that shot through her as soon as she saw Abraham Lincoln’s stern profile gazing up from the center of her palm, she realized the decision she wanted to make. She ignored the coin, and put one of the speeches back in her bag. The other went into the box.

Right or wrong, it was, in the end, her only choice.

Adam shuffled into the coach’s office and slouched down in the uncomfortable metal folding chair, doing his best to avoid the coach’s hostile stare. They sat in silence for a moment as Adam waited for the shouting to begin. He’d been waiting all week for the coach to summon him about the big fight and finally dish out his punishment. But that didn’t mean he was looking forward to it. And he had no intention of speaking first.

“I assume you know why you’re here?” Coach Wilson finally asked.

Adam nodded.

“Instigating a brawl with the whole school watching?” He shook his head. “Not smart.”

Adam shrugged.

“The Weston Wolves’ point guard broke his nose, and their center will be out for half the season with two broken fingers.”

Adam shrugged again.

“Well?” the coach asked, his face reddening the way it did at Saturday morning practice when it was obvious half the team was too hung over to see the ball, much less send it into the basket.

“Well what?” Had there been a question in there somewhere? Adam hadn’t been paying much attention. He just wanted to get this over with.

“Well, don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

Adam shook his head.

“Damn it, Morgan!” The coach slammed his palm down on the desk with a thud. “What’s wrong with you? When I took over this team, all anyone could talk about was Adam Morgan, how talented he was, what a great team leader he was-and do you know what I found instead?”

Silence.

“I found you. You screw up in practice, you screw up in the games, you’re surly, you’re unfocused, and on the night you finally start playing to your capacity, you start a damned fight. What’s wrong with you?”

Having made it this far into the meeting without saying more than two words, Adam suddenly found the inertia too much to fight.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you, Morgan, but I don’t like it. I’ve got no use for hotheads.”

Just get to the point, Adam thought.

“I should probably throw you off the team.”

Adam searched himself for shock, despair, or any of the other reactions you’d expect at the thought that basketball, the last good thing in his life, could disappear. But he couldn’t find any. He just felt numb. And if getting thrown off the team meant he didn’t have to confront Kane’s smirk, day in and day out-maybe it would be for the best.

“But I’m not going to.You’re too good. I’m giving you one last chance, Morgan. Don’t screw it up.”

Again, Adam waited for the flood of emotion, relief. It didn’t come.

“Don’t thank me yet,” the coach continued, ignoring the fact that Adam hadn’t moved. “You know the administration is cracking down this month. Everyone involved in the fight gets two weeks’ detention-except you. As the instigator, in addition to the detentions, you’ll be suspended from school for five days.”

Suspended, while everyone else, including Kane, got off with detention? That was enough to slice through Adam’s apathy.

“Coach, the other guys were all in it, just as much as I was. I saw Kane Geary snap that guy’s fingers-” It was a lie, but who cared?

“And I saw you take Geary down, so I wouldn’t be throwing his name around if I were you. At least he had too much class to come in here and tattle on you like a little baby.”

“Class?” All Kane had was the ability to charm any gullible adult who crossed his path. “He had it coming, Coach,” Adam protested, rising from his chair. “You don’t know him, he’s-” But there was nothing he could say, not here. The frustration building, Adam swept his arms in a long, swift arc, knocking the folding chair off balance. It