Falling (The Falling Angels Saga) (24 page)

*

“Megan,” Principal Lockhart said as I was ushered into her office. “I see you’re back.” She was standing next to her desk. Her hair was pulled back in a chignon, making her look more severe than normal. There was a faint smile lurking not far from her lips. She was pleased to have me in her office again. Happy to have another crack at me.

“Yes, I’m back. But I don’t know why,” I said my words filled with indignation I didn’t feel.

“Ah,” she replied. She glanced at the security guards standing in the doorway behind me. “You can go now. And please shut the door after yourselves,” she said in a cordial tone.

The security guards left, shutting me in. Instantly, I began feeling claustrophobic. As soon as they were gone, the ghostly smile fully materialized on Principal Lockhart’s lips.

“Well, well, well,” she said, relocating behind her desk. She moved with royal grace, and sat, eying me standing across the room. It was as if she were a queen upon her throne eying an unruly subject. “There’s an old saying; you can run but you can’t hide.” I knew she was still upset over the outcome of the expulsion hearing and was letting me know she had me this time.

“Is my mother on her way?” I asked in the snarkiest tone I could muster. I was worried. I was practically quaking in my flats because I had no idea what she had in store for me this time. Yet there was absolutely no way I was going to allow her the satisfaction of seeing me sweat. I had been dragged into her office on a false charge.

“No. Not this time. This time it’s just you and me,” she responded as she picked up the snow globe from her desk and absently began playing with it. “My mistake last time was in making the entire thing public. And as we both know, that backfired.” She seemed amused, allowing my torment to play out as slowly as possible.

“Why am I here?” I demanded.

“This time there’s not going to be a hearing. There’s not going to be an expulsion committee for your handsome stranger to waltz in and manipulate with his clever words.” She placed the snow globe back on her desk and picked up the pages the security guard had left there. “These printouts of answer keys for the history and calculus final exams were found in your locker,” she said, brandishing the pages at me.

“Wha…What?”

“It’s bad enough that
you’re
a cheater, but I have it on good authority you’ve also been selling these answers to students.” She again flagged the pages through the air. “The penalty for cheating is suspension. However, the penalty for stealing answers and then selling them to students is much greater. Immediate expulsion,” she said pointedly. “No hearing necessary.”

“My mouth was hanging open. “It’s… it’s not true. I’ve never cheated. Where did you get those?” She had me in retreat. Moments earlier I was holding my own, going toe-to-toe, and suddenly I was reeling.

“From your locker,” she replied, amusement dancing in her eyes.

“S… Someone must have put them there,” I squawked.

“Oh? Who else has a key to your locker, Miss Barnett? Does Miss Salley have a key?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Maudrina? No, of course not!”

“Then who?” she asked with a self-satisfied smirk.

Satanist.

The word sprang into my mind. I recalled last semester Maudrina had wondered if Principal Lockhart could have been a Satanist. At the time the idea seemed ludicrous. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

Make her life a living hell until she has no choice but to submit to hell.

“I’m assuming the answer is no one,” Lockhart said when I didn’t respond.

“Someone set me up,” I complained. My voice was getting weaker by the moment.

“Of course you’d say that. When the guilty are caught, they always plead their innocence.” She was toying with the snow globe again, just as she was toying with me.

“Who told you to search my locker?” Despite the weakness in my voice, my eyes were storming. She looked into them and her expression faltered momentarily.

It was then I knew for certain Maudrina’s hunch had been dead on. Principal Lockhart was indeed a Satanist. She was behind planting the false evidence in my locker. The obvious culprit was Ashley Scott. Ashley was offended when I chose to run against her for junior class president. She’d want to do something to put me in my place, to show me how insignificant I was. The Poplarati were powerful… but they weren’t
that
powerful.

Pulling off something of this magnitude took someone with real power—
adult
power. It took someone who had access to the school at night and who also had access to all the teachers’ answer keys. That person could come in the night, snip off my lock—who would hear the commotion in an empty school?—place the evidence against me in my locker, then seal it with a new lock. In the morning she’d summon the security guards with an anonymous tip. And who would suspect the school principal of such treachery? No one.

Make her life a living hell until she has no choice but to submit to hell.

“I do not answer to you, young lady,” Principal Lockhart replied, placing the snow globe back on her desk. “As of right now you’re under investigation. I’m not going to suspend you and allow you to rally the student body behind poor, innocent Megan Barnett.” She said this last part making her voice high-pitched and weepy. “You’ll be suspended from all extra-curricular activities until my investigation is complete. No mathletes, no junior class president. After the investigation proves what I know it will, you’ll be expelled.” Joy is the only word I can use to describe the look on her face in that moment.

“I thought you had all the evidence against me you needed.” My voice was supposed to be filled with outrage. I meant for it to be filled with outrage, but it’s hard feeling outrage when under such a barrage. I sounded the way I actually felt—a drowning person grasping for a lifeline.

A menacing smile crept onto Principal Lockhart’s lips. “Of course… there is a way out of this for you. If you care to choose it.”

I stiffened. I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly. “A way out? How?” I asked, hope rising in my voice.

She fixed me with an ironic smile. “That will be all, Miss Barnett. The first bell is about to ring, and we wouldn’t want you to be late for class, would we? Besides, I believe you know what you need to do.”

“‘I believe you know what to do.’ Those were her exact words.”

I was seated on the quad during lunch break-filling Maudrina in on my run-in with Principal Lockhart. “Can you believe she actually said that? The nerve!”

Maudrina eyed me calmly as I frantically told her of my morning’s exploits. When I was all talked out, she finished unwrapping her veggie wrap, then took a sip of her cranberry juice before replying.

“She had you alone where no one else could hear her,” she said, taking a bite of the wrap. “And she knew if you complained that she was the one who’d put the answer keys in your locker because she was a Satanist who wanted you to marry the devil, no one would believe you. And it’d probably win you a trip to the district shrink.”

“I know,” I replied exasperated. “Now I’ve got both Armando
and
the Satanists to deal with. And this time they’re on the same side.”

“It’s like you said earlier. Armando’s worried. You beat him before and he wants to insure it doesn’t happen again.”

Maudrina’s tranquil demeanor in light of my world turning upside down was just what the doctor ordered. I could feel myself calming. “
We
beat him before,” I said, correcting her. I smiled. “I can’t believe this is the first month of junior year. And I thought the toughest thing I’d have to worry about would be my grade point average, or which college to choose, or my SAT scores. Sheesh!”

Maudrina slid over, put an arm around my shoulder, and pulled me in. I didn’t realize until then how much I needed the closeness of a friend. “It
has
been a very… interesting semester,” she said in a low, comforting tone.

“’Interesting’ is
not
how I’d describe it. Try horrific. And to make matters worse, I think Guy broke up with me,” I said, resting my head on her shoulder.

Maudrina snorted out a laugh. “Now you’re being dramatic. Guy would never break up with you, especially now.” She released me and went back to eating her lunch.

“Oh, yeah? I think he did,” I said, recalling Guy refusing to look at me, and then speeding out of the school parking lot without so much as a goodbye.

“Guy loves you. And you love him. He has absolutely no reason to break up with you.” She took another sip of cranberry juice.

“Maybe… one,” I said haltingly. “I told him about Orthon’s feelings for me.”

Maudrina, who’d been about to bite into her veggie wrap, stopped mid-bite, hitting me with an incredulous expression. “Why would you tell him that? You know boys can’t handle emotional stuff like that,” she said, instantly transforming from a comforting friend into a parent chastising an unruly child.

“I had to tell him,” I said, defending myself. “When we came outside this morning, Orthon was in front of my house. Guy wanted to know why he was taking such an interest in me.”

Maudrina shook her head. “That’s not a reason to tell him, Megan. You should never tell a boy that another boy likes you. Ever!”

The anger that lay dormant inside me shot to the surface. “Oh? And so now
you’re
an expert on boys? You never even kissed a boy before last semester,” I said, the cutting words erupting from my mouth as if from a geyser.

“I’m obviously more expert than you. I’d never tell Curtis anything like that. Talking about another boy messes with the male ego. And it appears to have the same effect on angel boys,” Maudrina said, standing her ground. She knew about the anger in me and wasn’t the least bit caught off guard when it reared its head.

A lie of omission
, I thought, as the anger retreated back inside. I thought I’d done the right thing by getting everything out in the open with Guy about Orthon.
Why is growing up so complicated?

When I was little, handling lies was much simpler. “Did you take a cookie?” “No!” “Who left the back door open?” “Not me.” “What are strands of
your
hair doing in
my
makeup?” “I have no idea.” And then later, all it took was a “sorry, Mommy,” and after a brief timeout, it was over. However, I apologized to Guy and it’s
not
over! In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s just beginning.
Is Guy’s silence the grown-up version of a timeout?
It was too complicated to think about.

“Unless…” Maudrina said, her expression shifting.

“Unless what?” I said, not able to read the change in her.

“Unless you do have feelings for Orthon, and you wanted Guy to know.”

“Now you’re sounding like Guy. Orthon is a demon who not only tricked me into thinking he was Guy, but also he tricked me into using my abilities, which has brought me closer to Satan.” I glared at her to make my point.

“And yet, you allow him to hang around with us.”

“I don’t have time for this. I’ve got enough to deal with right now without having to defend my feelings for Guy. You want to think I’m in love with Orthon, be my guest. Me, I need to concentrate on ending this thing with Satan once and for all.”

“It is worth considering,” she said, her tone apologetic, yet exasperating me more.

“Then, by all means, consider it,” I said, getting to my feet. I’d had enough of lunch on the quad with Maudrina. “There’s something I need to take care of,” I said.

“Oh? What’s that?”

“
Something!
” I said, and started away. I knew I was being snippy with my best friend for no good reason. I also knew there was probably more to what she and Guy had said about Orthon than I was willing to admit… at least, for now. I didn’t know what I’d find once I opened that can of worms, and now was not the time to pry into it.

*

At three o’clock, students gathered out on the quad for the meet-the-candidates rally. I was surprised at how many of my classmates stayed after school to hear the candidates speak. It was as if it were free-candy day at G.U. and not a candidates rally. The benches were all occupied. The open spaces were already crammed with students, and more were arriving and squeezing in.

It was no surprise the Poplarati were there. Jeremy Bowen and Alonzo Briggs anchored a strong contingent of jocks milling around the big eucalyptus tree. Melody Cruz was standing near the benches among some of her it-girl friends. If Melody was there, that meant Ashley Scott and Heather McNamara were nearby. The Poplarati always turned out to support their own, and today would be no exception.

For the majority of the student body, though, elections were a boring necessity of student life, a popularity contest most of them couldn’t win. Very few would take the time to participate in optional after-school activities they felt didn’t represent them, and, in fact, demeaned them. Yet, from the look of things, this semester’s class elections didn’t seem so meaningless.

I knew many of the newcomers were there because of me. I had been forbidden by Principal Lockhart to participate, practically assuring the Poplarati another victory over the little guy. Still, I was determined to have my say.

I stepped out of the main building and onto the quad looking around for Maudrina. She wasn’t among the crowd. Word that I’d been barred from participating in the election had been spreading across campus since mid-morning—no doubt, fueled by the fire-breathing tongues of Ashley Scott and her Poplarati friends. My last conversation with Maudrina had ended unpleasantly. I hoped she wasn’t angry with me. I figured since Maudrina knew I could no longer run for office, she had no reason to believe I’d show.

But I had to come.

Satan was trying to send me into a tailspin. He knew if he could weaken me mentally, I’d be easy pickings. It was important for me to send a message to him that nothing he did was going to have any effect on me, even the possibility of expulsion. But there was another, equally important reason I had to come. I also needed to send a message to the popular kids.