The Second Prophecy (Part 1 of the Dragdani Prophecies) (30 page)

“
I don’t care
about that stupid number panel or that bloody locker. What I want
to know is what the heck does that principal think he’s doing? He
can’t punish you for the damaged locker without proof that you did
it,” fumed Helen. “It’s that Weavger again! How does he get away
with it? This time he won’t!”

“
You’re
right. I’ll go see if the principal will reverse his suspension or
at least stop him from getting expelled,” said Berlanin.

“
No, I’m
going, and I’m going to end this once and for all,” said Helen
angrily.

“
And what
does that mean?” asked the Wizard.

“
What do you
think it means? I’m going to tell that smarmy git, that if he ever
touches my son again, I’ll kill him. Then I’ll go to the principal
and ask why he’s accusing my son of doing something without any
proof.”

“
But Helen,
he did do it. He admitted it to us. So we’d do better drawing as
little attention as possible to the locker incident.”

Helen’s
temper finally
broke.

“
SO
WHAT THE HECK
DO YOU WANT ME TO DO, BEN,
JUST LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT?”

“
NO, I’M JUST
SAYING THAT IT WOULD BE BETTER TO USE DISCRETION! IT’S NOT AS IF
ANY OF THIS IS GOING TO MATTER IN THE LONG RUN. AFTER ALL, WE’LL BE
OUT OF HERE SOON, ANYWAY!” shouted Berlanin, also losing his
temper. For he, like Helen, would never stand for anybody trying to
push him around. Though in his bout of anger he slipped up and
Peter had noticed.

“
What’s that
supposed to mean?” said Peter. “Where are we going?”

“Ah … We were planning on telling you later,”
said Helen.

Berlanin
threw a worried look her way, as though he was trying to say ‘no,
not yet.’

“
You see, as
part of your birthday present, we’re taking you on holiday,” she
lied.

“
Where are we
going?”

“
That’ll
spoil the surprise,” said Berlanin quickly.

It seemed
that they both momentarily forgot about Peter’s trouble in trying
clean-up the slip up. And this was proven when Helen put her thumbs
up behind Peter as he was distracted by Berlanin’s quick
recovery.

Berlanin saw
this, and a slight smirk appeared on his face.

Peter,
thinking that Helen was doing something funny behind his back,
whipped round, though by that time she had already stopped with the
thumbs.

“
Well,
a holiday sounds good. So
we’ll forget about the school for now and start packing,” said
Peter, excited by this great news and by the thought of no more
school for a while.

Helen’s
eyes lit up as the
thought of Weavger angered her once more.

“
Come on,”
she said as she grabbed Peter’s arm and headed for the
door.

“
Can I grab
my wand before we go?” Peter asked, as he pulled in the direction
of the door. “If things don’t go our way, I can try the new
transformation spell Delsani taught me and turn Weavger into a real
toad.”

“
Nice idea,”
Helen remarked, “but no time.”

“
Good luck,”
said Berlanin. The Wizard knew there was no point in arguing with
her any longer and just decided to let her get on with it. Not that
he would be able to stop her without using magic, which was not an
option with Peter there.

As Helen
opened the front door, she saw and heard Saren and Henkot walking
across the gravel driveway.

“
Hey,” said
Saren as Helen looked up and caught sight of them, “we’ve come to
help with pa… party-decorations,” said Saren. She said the last two
words of the sentence so quickly it sounded like one. It was
because she was surprised to see Peter, who was still fighting to
free his wrist.

“
What is
Peter doing home so early?” asked Henkot curiously.

“
It seems
there’s a little something I have to do at his school before I can
help,” said Helen.

“
Trouble?”
said the Wicca.

“
You could
say that,” said Helen. She quickly ran over everything that Peter
had said. And as she was explaining, she let go of Peter, who was
not wasting any time and had already started up the steps to the
front door.

“
In the car,”
said Helen, as if she had eyes on the back of her head.

“
I’m just
going to er… get a board off the wall in case -”

“
You won’t
need it.”

“
But I always
bring a board whenever we go out -”

“
In the car,”
she repeated as she pinched her left jeans pocket to press the
button to unlock the car doors. She got it. The indicators flashed,
and the doors clicked open as Peter walked as though to his
execution.

Helen asked Saren and Henkot to go on in and
Berlanin would explain the rest of the story.

It was not long before she joined Peter in
the car and they were on their way.

As Helen
drove to the school, Peter thought that it might be a good idea to
try and calm her down or even try to make it sound as though it was
not as bad as he had originally made it out to be.

“
You know,
mum, you don’t have to do this. The principal also said that if I
apologized to Weavger, it would just be suspension. I know I
wouldn’t like having to apologize to him, but if keeps me in
school,” he said thinking more about his reputation more than
school. For what would it look like if people saw his mum fighting
his battles for him? Peter usually didn’t care what people thought,
but this was different. This battle between Mr. Weavger and him had
been going on for years, and if it looked as though Peter needed
Helen to help him, well, it wouldn’t look good for him.

“
Why didn’t
you tell me that before?” said Helen her temper getting hotter as
she thought of it. “HOW DARE HE ASK YOU TO APOLOGIZE TO THAT GIT!”
she shouted frantically.

They turned
the last corner and could see the grey school, its blue doors,
white frame and matching window frames straight head.

Helen pulled
into the closest parking space she could find, just in case they
needed to get out in a hurry.

“
Come on. The
sooner we get in, the sooner this’ll all be sorted out,” said
Helen. The anger could still be heard clearly in her voice as she
stood waiting. “Come on, Peter.”

“
Can’t I just
stay in the car?”

“
No,” she
said firmly. “Either you get out of the car now, or I’ll grab you
by the neck and knickers and drag you up to the principal’s office.
It’s completely your choice.”

“
The
principal’s office? So you’ve
changed your mind about seeing Weavger?” said Peter hopefully as he
stepped out of the car.

“
No, I’m
still going to see him about the way he treats you, but you’re
going to wait outside the principal’s office.”

Peter’s
hopes were suddenly
shattered by her words.

They went in
right away, and just as she said, Helen left Peter outside the
principal’s office and made her way to Mr. Weavger’s English Class.
She opened the door gently and without knocking.

Weavger looked up when the door opened.

“Helen,” he said as though they were old
friends who had not seen each other in years.

“I want to talk to. Now,” said Helen
firmly.

“
Fine, we’ll
go into the empty classroom across the hall,” said Weavger kindly,
as though he had not the faintest idea why she was there. “Right,
boys and girls, keep copying the writing on the board into your
books, and I’ll be back soon. Do not, under any circumstances, move
from your seats unless absolutely necessary. Have you got
that?”

“
Yes, Mr.
Weavger,” said the class all at once.

Helen moved aside for Weavger to get past and
followed him to the empty classroom.

As soon as
the door of the empty room shut, the whole class got up, ran to the
class door, and strained their ears to listen. But they soon found
that they did not need to, for the shouting started shortly
afterward. The students could hear all being said. However, Peter
could only hear muffled shouts.

It was Helen
who started it, and Weavger retaliated almost immediately after the
shock wore off.

Weavger’s
voice was loud and his temper hot, but it seemed he had found more
then his match in Helen, whose voice was louder and temper most
certainly hotter.

As Peter
continued to sit, the boy seated only a few chairs away from him
was trying to listen just hard as Peter. “Who is that?” he
asked.

“
That’s my
mum,” replied Peter.

“
I wish my
mum would come and do that,” said the boy.

It was at
this point that Peter no longer cared what anyone else thought, for
now he felt pure unadulterated pride for what his mother was doing
for him, and as the shouting carried on, Peter found that he almost
felt sorry for Weavger. Almost.

“
S
he’s my mum,” said Peter again
only more proudly.

The shouting
suddenly became louder and easier to hear as Helen opened the door
to leave, feeling that she had accomplished what all that she could
with the teacher’s telling off.

Then
suddenly, “DON’T YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU! WHO
THE HECK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TO COME HERE AND START ALL THIS AND
THEN THINK THAT YOU CAN JUST WALK AWAY AS IF NOTHING’s HAPPENED!
I’VE BEEN TEACHING HERE FOR OVER TEN YEARS -”

“
TEACHING!
” screamed Helen
straight back at him. “PERSONALLY, I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU WERE
ALLOWED TO BE A TEACHER! YOU’RE NOT FIT TO TEACH A DOG TRICKS,
NEVER MIND CHILDREN’S LESSONS!”

“
WHAT
DID YOU SAY?
” the disgruntled teacher
shouted.

“
YOU HEARD
ME! YOU’RE NOT FIT TO TEACH ANY CHILDREN!”

Helen walked away straight after this. It was
not long before she appeared round the corner and stood beside
Peter, her face flaming red.

“
Right, come
on,” she said to him. “We’re going in to see the principal and then
we’re going home.”

Great
, thought Peter as his
mother put her hand on the door handle of the office,
I’m getting the rest of the day off.
Maybe this isn’t the worst day of my life after all.

“
I’m sorry,
but Principal Holmes is taking an important call at the moment and
can’t be disturbed,” said the secretary seated behind a small
office desk.

“
If you would
like to leave your name and take a seat, I’ll tell him you’re here
as soon as his call has ended.”

Peter thought that Helen would not like to be
kept waiting with her temper being what it was and all. However,
she calmly told the woman her name and pushed Peter back toward the
chairs.

Only four
minutes had past then the secretary called, “Mrs. Lince, Principal
Holmes will see you now.”

“
Hurry up,
Peter. You first,” said Helen.

Peter went in first as Helen said.

“Peter, Helen, please take a seat,” said the
Headmaster.

“
What,
just one?
” Peter said with a
snigger.

Helen leaned
into his left ear and whispered, “Stop being a smartarse and sit
down. You’re in enough trouble as it is.”

“
Yes, well, I
don’t think that is prudent at this time, Peter, with all that has
happened today,” said the principal.

“
Well,
I think humor can dull the
pain a little,” Helen said hastily.

“
Yes, well, I
was hoping you would heed my letter and show up
quickly.”

“
Yes, I read
your letter, and I’m curious,” said Helen, “as to why, without any
witnesses or any prove that my son had anything to do with what
happened to this damaged locker.”

“
Well,
from what Mr. Weavger told
me -”

“
Mr. Weavger
is an arse,” said Helen, “and I personally wouldn’t believe him if
he told me the sky is blue.”

“
Please don’t
talk about my staff like that,” said Holmes. “Mr. Weavger told me
that Peter was the only one there when he got there. And the fact
that there were only a few seconds between the noises of the locker
being vandalized, Peter shouting, and Mr. Weavger finding him,
means that if anyone ran past the English classroom, Peter would
have seen them. And there’s also the fact that if there was someone
else, Mr. Weavger would have seen them before they could have
gotten to the exit at the other end of the hall.”

“
Fine,”
said Helen.
“As soon as you show me the
tool that was used to damage the locker, I’ll accept your decision
to suspend my son. But then there’s the physical strength needed to
damage the locker that badly.”

“
Well,
I -”

“
Peter’s just
a teenager, and I doubt that he would have the strength to do that
kind of damage,” said Helen confidently. “Let’s be real. Would you
even have the strength for it?”