Aelia

Darcie kicks Val's leg under the table, noticing her spaced-out expression.

“Val! You need to pass the next test so you can keep your average up so you can convince your parents to unground you so you can play in our next D&D meeting!” she whispers aggressively fast across the table. Val shakes daydreams from her head to look across at Darcie. She was furiously taking notes, her tongue sticking out from between her teeth, her untamed curly red hair bouncing with each stroke of her pencil. Her notes were detailed, with neat handwriting, diagrams, and color coding to the extreme, noting down just about everything Mr. Daegon was lecturing about.

“Relax, Darce. We all know that Val has a way of passing every test. It's me you should worry about! I haven't understood anything Mr. Dragonface has said all year! How am I possibly going to pass this final?” Albert says, visibly panicked. He runs his hands through his short hair twists, wiping the sweat off his brow and looking at his scrabbled, untidy notes. His messy handwriting is barely legible.

“Oh, don’t worry, we both know that Darcie is gonna let us use her notes, right, best friend?” Val says, smiling devilishly at Darcie. Darcie grinds her teeth and pushes her glasses further up her nose, her handwriting becoming slightly less neat.

“You ALWAYS use my notes. Honestly, if it weren't for me, there is no way that you’d pass anything.”

“Yeah but you want me to pass so we can graduate together, right?”

Darcie doesn't respond but keeps writing, somehow listening to both Mr. Daegon and her at the same time.

“Also because you love me, right?” Val presses, trying to convince her best friend to help her.

Just then, the bell rings, cutting off Mr. Daegon mid-sentence. Darcie slams her notebook shut and walks swiftly out of the room, covering her face with her mass of hair.

“Yeah yeah. Find me during lunch.” she agrees before disappearing down the hall into the sea of people.

Val and Albert pack up their things and leave the room together.

“Does Darce seem…off to you lately?” Val asks.

“Oh, um, no I don't think so. She might just be stressed about finals and about you still being grounded for that.. Incident in history. You know how she gets sometimes.” he replies, scratching the back of his neck.

Val thinks of her little prank last week that landed her in detention and got her grounded. She’d simply tripped a girl going to her seat. It’s not her fault the girl hit her head and had to spend the rest of the day in the nurse's office. Well, not entirely her fault.

Suddenly, someone bumps into her.

"Excuse you, Valerie,” says the snobbiest voice Val has ever known. Megan. She has always seen herself to be above Val and her friends just because they like to play D&D and watch Lord of the Rings while she spends her time at dance practice or bullying those she thinks to be lesser. She gives the two of them a sweeping glance, surveying Val's slightly chubby body, oversized clothes, and bright teal hair; and Albert's dark skin and second-hand clothes, and scoffs.

“Don’t touch me” she sneers, wiping invisible dirt off her white blouse and skinny jeans.

“I- well we- are so sorry!” Albert stutters apologetically but Val glares at the girl. Unlike Albert who tends to be shy and timid, Val isn’t so easily pushed around.

“Uh, no we aren't. It was YOU who bumped into US. So why don't you apologize?”

Megan looks shocked at the implication and looks at Val as if she were a piece of gum on her shoe.

“How dare you!” she says loudly

Before Val can reply, a lower voice says “Problem here, babe?”

Megan's boyfriend had come over, wrapping a buff arm around her slim waist. He was tall, wearing his lacrosse letterman jacket, and his blonde hair was disheveled. If he weren't so stupid and into Megan, Val might have found him cute.

“Ugh, they totally just bumped into me and then insulted me about it!” she says, pulling the victim card.

“Oh,” he says, obviously disappointed that he did have a valid reason to beat them up. “Did they apologize?”

“Yes,” Val answers testily

“Okay. then let's go, babe. No point in fighting this.”

He grabs her hand and leads her to class, practically kicking and screaming as she goes.

“Embarrassing.” Val scoffs with an eye roll. “Come on. We’ll be late for English.” She grabs Alberts hand and leads him to class.

When the lunch bell rings, Val, Darcie and Albert meet up at their usual table, their red plastic trays full of ‘healthy’ food. Darcie immediately pulls her sketchbook and a pencil out of her bag and starts on an intricate drawing she'd been working on. Val had always loved watching Darcie work, each stroke creating a piece of art. She loved Darcies particular art style as well. It started by looking like abstract squiggles but by the end, it creates a face, or a landscape, or an animal. Val had many drawings pinned to her wall that Darce had drawn. She even carried a small portrait of the three of them in her phone case. Next to her, Albert stuffs half of his cold pizza in his mouth complaining about how he’d been starving since breakfast. Darcie takes a quick bite of her apple and goes back to making her delicate, precise lines.

“How did you guys feel about that math test today?” Val asks, taking a bite of her chicken nugget and trying to ignore the dry, flavorlessness of it.

“Man, I know I failed that shit. Ms. Hernandes always fails me bro.” Albert says through a mouthful of food.

“You mean YOU failed you. Ms. Hernandes taught you the materials. You were asleep.” Darcie says, not looking up from her work.

“Well I’m passing all my other classes and I sleep through them too.”

Darcie rolls her eyes but doesn't respond.

“Hey, if it works, it works.” Val replies, making Darcie laugh and shake her head.

“Whatcha working on, Darce?” Val asks, leaning over the table and poking the page.

“Oh, just another one of my projects.” she says vaguely, blushing slightly as she closes her notebook. But before she can return it to her bag, the bitch of the school snatches it off the table.

“Oh, what's this?” Megan asks, dangling the book between her long, lavender nails.

“Hey! Give that back!” Darcie says, standing up.

Megan steps back, flipping amusedly through the pages.

“Wow. these are, like, really good.” she says sarcastically.

Then, without warning, she rips out a handful of pages and throws them in the trash before tossing the book in too.

“Whoops.” she smiles

“NO!” Darcie yells, tears forming in her eyes.

Darcie and Albert start trying to retrieve the book and Val goes straight for Megan. Without a single word, she pounces, jumping on her back and grabbing her hair. The girls crash to the floor. Val lands punch after punch, screaming at Megan who starts yelling that Vals a lunatic. In her rage she could barely hear the accusation. She takes a wild swipe at Vals face and scratches her cheek. Val bloodies her nose and bruises her eye, but doesnt stop punching Megan until the lunch teacher pulls her off, holding her around the waist as she struggles to try to get back to the fight.

“MS. KING!” the teacher yells in her ear. She doesn't know what teacher it is, nor does she care. She successfully breaks free of their grasp and lunges back at Megan. She manages to land a few more punches before she feels multiple people pulling her back. They drag her all the way to the principal's office and lock the door.

“What happened this time Ms. King?” the principal asks, exasperated.

She was very familiar with this room; the mahogany desk that she rests her boots on, the red cushioned chair she sat on, the old patterned rug she wished to burn. He leans toward her and pushes her feet off his desk. He should know better than to do this, however, since she just swings her feet back up and looks at him, testily.

“Valerie,” he sighs, rubbing his temple with his huge sausage fingers, his small rectangular glasses falling off his face. He runs his hand over his shiny bald head and stares at her with an expression of loathing and asks

“What am I gonna do with you?”

She decided to take that as a challenge.

“One: Don’t call me Valerie.” she says with as much contempt as she can muster.

“And isn't that your job to figure out?” she puts her feet down on the ugly rug and places her elbows on the desk, leaning as close to his as she can.

“So tell me, what are you gonna do with me? Expel me? You’d be doing me a favor.” she says.

He sighs.

“How many times have you been here this week alone, ms. King?”

“I don't know, three, four times?”

He lets out a long, deep sigh.

“Val, I'm going to be straight with you. You are here more than you are in class. You are always fighting, breaking dress code, cheating, sleeping in class. I’ve been extremely lieniate with you because you are so smart Val. You're in the top ten percent of your class and surround yourself with great people. But I can’t keep letting you off the hook like I have been. I’m sorry but I have to suspend you for two weeks.” he picks up his phone and checks his computer, no doubt about to call her mom.

“Woah, woah, woah lets not be hasty Mr. Montello,” she says with a nervous laugh, holding down the hang up button on his phone. “Surely you can find it in your heart to give me one more chance,” she says with a sweet, yet forced smile. "There's no need to contact anyone. Let's just talk about this.”

She had been able to talk him out of calling her parents many times in the past but he didn't seem to be budging this time.

“Hasty? Ms. King I’ve let you get away with throwing pencils at a substitute and vandalize the bathroom with no punishment other than a stern talking-to. But beating up ms. Alden like that? What were you even thinking?”

“She threw Darcie’s sketchbook in the trash! What was I supposed to do?”

“Listen, I will talk to ms. Alden and she will be given consequences as well, but you still broke her nose and gave her two black eyes so we have no choice but to suspend you.'' He removes her hand from the button and dials her moms number. After a few tense moments of the phone ringing, she hears her moms voice.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this Mrs. King?”

“Yes,”

“This is Mr. Montello, the principal of Valerie's school”

Val flinches, both at the situation, and the sound of the name.

“Yes?”

“Your daughter has been causing a lot of problems at school lately and got into a fight today. I regret to inform you that this kind of behavior is not tolerated at our school and so unfortunately, we have to suspend her for two weeks. After her suspension she will be on probation for the rest of the year. Any more poor behavior will be met with expulsion.”

“What? She got in a fight?” her mom sounded bewildered and angry. Val shrunk back in the chair, sitting on her hands anxiously.

“Yes ma’am. She punched another girl and broke her nose. We need you to come pick her up.”

There was a stony silence that made Val’s breath stop.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” her voice was so cold that it made Val sweat.

The next ten minutes were torture. She sat in that room with her principal in complete silence other than the clock on the wall ticking down the seconds. Then, there was a knock at the door. When it opened, Vals mom was standing there. She was still in her work uniform, a gray pencil skirt and blazer with a white button down shirt and black heels. Her curly brown hair was held up in a tight bun. Her eyes fell upon her daughter and Val saw nothing but pure anger in her gaze.

“Thank you, Mr. Montello.” she says, her eyes never leaving val. “Valerie, let's go.”

“Don’t call me Valerie” She huffs, walking towards her mother.

“You are my daughter and I will call you whatever I please, Valerie Alzero King. Get in the car. Now.”

The car ride home was dead silent. Val could practically feel her mothers stern disappointment. When they arrived home, Val walked straight to her room while her mom explained to her father what had happened. Val opens her phone to see texts from Darcie and Albert, asking where she is and thanking her for standing up to Megan. She sent them a text quickly explaining what happened before falling asleep, feeling, in equal parts proud of herself, and angry at the situation.