I ran up to the top floor and stopped to catch my breath. The last thing I wanted to do was give Miller the satisfaction of seeing me rattled. A few deep breaths and I stepped into the hallway. My room was right in the middle of the floor, across from the bathroom, and it was currently open with Miller standing beside it. His arms were crossed and a crotchety expression was etched onto his butt-ugly face.
“Mr. Dupree,” he practically snarled as he spotted me. “Stand back until we’ve completed our search.”
There was a bark from inside, and a German shepherd the size of a small bear burst from the room and barreled straight toward me. I braced for impact, and Butch hit me like a cannonball, knocked me off my feet, and proceeded to lick my face like I was a rawhide.
“Sorry,” Gary, the school’s baby-faced security guard, ran after his charge.
“It’s ok,” I slipped Butch a treat from my pocket as Gary pulled him off me. It was always a good idea to have the drug sniffing dog like you.
Miller looked on with disdain, and entered my room. “What do we have here?” the amusement in his voice made me cringe, but I followed. All the stuff Gary found was laying on my unmade bed. Miller picked up a stack of porn and waved it in my face.
“Those, Mr. Miller, are naked women. I know you haven’t seen one in a while but . . .”
Miller’s face went beet red, and he looked ready to burst. “Stow it you little shit,” he snapped, and I shut up, but couldn’t stop grinning.
In truth, the stuff on my bed could probably be found in the room of any other eighteen-year-old boy. There was porn and a vape stick with interchangeable canisters of various flavors. I knew smoking was bad for me, but I’d have time to quit when I was older. Other than that, the only other thing was a small wooden box with a heart carved on it.
“And what is this?” Miller continued, grabbing the box and wrenching it open.
The movement drove a spike of rage through my gut. The box was the only thing I had left from my biological mother. It was full of a few trinkets and pictures, which were all I had to remember her by. Miller discarded the valuable personal possessions on my bed like trash, and I felt the rage boil to the point of bursting.
“Get your hands off that,” I growled. The amount of intimidation, and threat of violence, surprised me as much as Miller. He dropped the box like it was on fire.
Embarrassment spread across the teacher’s face, quickly followed by anger. He started to get riled up, his chest expanding like a fat pufferfish, as he opened his mouth to yell at me. I cut him off.
“Don’t touch me!” I yelled, taking a step back. “Don’t touch me in my special bathing suit places!” I couldn’t keep the grin off my face.
There wasn’t much that scared a tenured teacher like Miller, but sexual misconduct was one of them. There were rules in place to avoid that type of thing, and one of them was to always have two school officials present when in a student’s room. Currently, Butch and Gary were outside, giving me a perfect opportunity to turn the fucker into the fuckee.
“No means no, Mr. Miller!” I added theatrically, as Gary came rushing into the room.
“What’s going on?” the security guard looked around with a confused look on his too-young face.
I raised an eyebrow at Miller, allowing him to take the lead. “Nothing,” the old man grumbled, as he glared at me with a new level of hatred. “Remember you have detention this Friday, Mr. Dupree. We’re going to have a lot of fun.” The threat was clear, but it was Wednesday, so I still had forty-eight hours until that particular torture session.
Miller stormed out, and Gary followed with Butch, not sure what just happened. I approached the bed and carefully started putting stuff back in the box. One trinket was an antique pocket watch. I’d gotten it appraised awhile back, and it wasn’t worth much. It had more sentimental value, and besides, it didn’t work. I flipped it open to see an engraving that was probably more at home in ancient cave paintings than a fifty-year-old watch. I tried to have it deciphered, but it was most likely an old proto-language. Not spoken or known anymore by the community-college level professors I’d taken it too, and I wasn’t willing to track down a specialist and pay an arm and a leg for something that might just be chicken scratch.
Next was a rosary made of pearls. I remembered mom being religious. She was French-Canadian, thus the last name Dupree, and had taken me to mass every Sunday. I barely remembered the sermons, and now, I even have a hard time picturing her face. It had been a decade since she died, and the river of time was slowly eroding my memories.
Last but not least was an old polaroid picture. It was taken before my mom had me. She was happy and smiling with a group of friends during a night out on the town. Most people wouldn’t have thought she was my mom. She had tanned skin, dark hair, and was short with a heart-shaped face and kind eyes. I had light skin, blonde hair, and had much more rigid features. The one thing I did get from her was the striking blue color of my iris. Although, mine was the color of the artic sea, while hers looked like the water off a Caribbean beach. I assumed I got my language skills from her. Being born in Quebec, she was fluent
