Tiara left Mrs. Ross standing there flabbergasted and moved past her. On her way out of the classroom, Ericka stuck her foot out in the aisle to trip Tiara. Tiara saw it just in time and shot Ericka a mean look.
“Bitch, don’t get fucked up,” Ericka sneered at her rival. “Your father isn’t here to protect you right now.”
Tiara finally had had enough of Ericka’s smart mouth. She slapped her so hard that a red imprint immediately formed on her light-skinned cheek. But Tiara didn’t stop there. She threw her book bag off of her back and commenced to beating Ericka’s face in. The whole class had gathered around the two girls, and Mrs. Ross scrambled to call security. A few of Ericka’s friends saw her getting the life beat out of her and tried to intervene. One of them grabbed Tiara’s hair while the other one tried to get a few hits in. But Brandy wasn’t having any of that.
“Uh-uh! You whores aren’t about to jump my bitch!” she yelled and got the girls off of Tiara.
It wasn’t the first fight Tiara and Brandy had gotten into together, but they always shut things down. As usual, the two girls came out with a few scraps and bruises, but they always looked better than their opponents.
“Come on, let’s go before those fuck boys show up,” Tiara said and grabbed her book bag off the floor and Brandy’s hand so that they could run out of the classroom together.
When they were out in the hallway, they decided to go to the usual spot where they cut class together, behind the stairwell in the very back of the school.
“Fuck!” Brandy said when they sat on the cold marble floor. “We weren’t even in that class for fifteen minutes! My mom is going to kill me if the principal calls home again.”
“Fuck it,” Tiara said and unzipped her bag. “I’m rich. If I’m good, you will always be good. I promise that. This school stuff? I hate this shit. I can’t wait to graduate. That shit just gave me the biggest attitude! They got me fucked up! Where’s the trees at?”
She took out a pack of regular Cigarillo Swisher Sweets and removed one from the pack. She gutted it, and Brandy took out her weed and broke it down with her pink grinder.
“This is some good shit!” Brandy said. “I got it from my brother’s stash.”
“One day he’s going to find out you’ve been stealing his weed,” Tiara giggled.
“Well, for your sake, you better hope he doesn’t. Here,” she handed the broken-down weed to Tiara who put it in the brown wrap.
“I’m about to pearl this bitch; watch,” she bragged.
She rolled the blunt so perfectly that a pothead would have envied it. The two girls took turns hitting the blunt and passing it.
“I’m glad you finally beat Ericka’s ass,” Brandy said. “I don’t know why she thought that today was the right day to try you. Now she’s in the nurse’s office leaking!”
Tiara simply nodded her head. Her father had taught her how to fight, despite her mother’s displeasure, when she was very young.
“I hate that bitch,” Tiara said. “She’s such a hater! Mrs. Ross too. My mom said she tried to trap my papi with a kid and . . . Well, you don’t want to know what my mom did. Anyways, what did you say this shit was called again? ’Cause it’s hitting the spot!”
“I didn’t say,” a high Brandy laughed. “But my brother said it’s called Starburst or some shit like that. I told you it was some good shit!”
When they finished smoking, their eyes were low and bloodshot red. Knowing that they had more classes to go to, Brandy took out some eyedrops for them to use and some perfume spray.
“That’s why you’re my bitch,” Tiara said and put two drops in each eye.
Just as they finished getting rid of the evidence and took one step from behind the stairwell, they saw one of the security guards of the school and the principal headed their way. Brandy hurriedly stuffed the grinder in her book bag, and the girls walked toward the two men headed their way.
“What’s up, Principal Schroeder?” Brandy asked, her voice low and even.
Principal Schroeder was a man in his early forties with a head full of white hair. His face held many wrinkles from frowning at the students who frequented his office every day. That day he’d heard an urgent request for security being called for Tiara Rogers over his walkie-talkie. From the sounds of it, he knew he’d better be present for the pickup, but upon arriving to the class, he was informed that she and Brandy had fled. He searched the empty halls of the school for the two girls for more than thirty minutes before he finally found them.
“Hey, Principal Schroeder,” Tiara greeted him in a stoner trance.
He looked back and forth between the two young women and noticed something was off about them. By the grins on their faces and the fact that the top of their eyelids were basically touching the bottom he knew they were high out of their minds. He breathed deeply and looked at the security officer standing slightly behind him.
“Take Brandy and escort her to her next class,” he said. “Tiara, you come with me.”
The girls went to protest, but one stern look from Principal Schroeder silenced both of them.
“See you at lunch, boo,” Brandy said to Tiara before she was led off by the young security guard.
“Follow me,” Principal Schroeder instructed Tiara.
She followed him, already knowing that he was about to take her to his office to have a one-on-one talk with her. It never failed. He either saw Tiara in his office every other week or once a month. Either way, it was
