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“No, there were just a bunch of splinters all over the place. I don’t think they hit anyone,” Melanie said thoughtfully.
More questions came at rapid fire.
“Why would he do such a thing?”
“Has he done this before?”
Then finally, “Are you okay?”
“Like I said, my eyes were closed. I guess he thought I wasn’t paying attention.”
Justin snickered. “You probably weren’t.” Justin knew his sister was a model student. He simply liked to tease her.
“No need for that, son,” his father responded with a frown.
Melanie attempted to kick him under the table, but she couldn’t reach without disengaging herself from her mother’s death grip. Instead she gave him one of her death-ray looks.
Her father spoke again. This time, he was calm. “What happened after he broke the ruler?”
“He made me get up and tell the class the story,” Melanie answered with confidence.
Justin snickered. “Bet you got him good on that one!”
“Yes, but now he wants Mom to call him tomorrow.”
“Call him? Were you misbehaving?” Mrs. Drake asked with surprise.
“No!” she said defiantly. “I did exactly what he asked me to do.” She tightened her lips.
“So why on earth does he want me to call him?”
Melanie shrugged and asked a rhetorical question: “Because he’s mean?”
“You can tell Mr. Leonard if he has anything he wants to discuss with me, he can call our number. How dare he!” Mrs. Drake was exasperated.
“Do you want me to handle this?” Mr. Drake interjected.
“No. I want Melanie to tell that brute to pick up the phone himself.”
“We don’t want Melanie to suffer any further repercussions,” he said evenly.
“Repercussions, my hiney! The man is a brute, picking on children.”
Melanie furrowed her brow and looked up at the ceiling. Children. She never considered herself a child. A kid, yes. A child, no. In her mind, the word children meant immature. Well, if it worked in her favor, her mother could call her anything she wanted, and Melanie had no problem delivering her mother’s message.
The next morning, as the kids were scrambling to their seats, Mr. Leonard pulled Melanie aside. “Did you tell your mother to call me?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“And?”
Melanie looked him straight in the eye and quoted her mother verbatim. “She said, ‘If he has anything he wants to discuss with me, he can call our number.’ ” Melanie quickly glanced at the blackboard. Only that one pointer remained. Would he use it? She held her breath. She knew no matter what transpired next, her parents were on her side.
Mr. Leonard’s face reddened for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, and she thought his head might explode. He snarled, “Fine. I will do that. Now go to your seat.” He flung the lesson plan book toward his desk, but it missed and went careening over the side and into the wastebasket. The class erupted in howls and giggles, which made things worse. “Shut up! All of you! Tonight you are going to write, ‘I must behave’ one hundred times.” There was silence. Melanie thought her classmates would be angry with her, but they knew Mr. Leonard enjoyed doling out punishment, even when it wasn’t warranted.
That evening at dinner her mother, asked how it had gone with Mr. Leonard. “Okay, I guess.”
“What do you mean, ‘you guess’?”
