Chương 38: Granstanding

Principal Barker's office held the usual things: brown colored furniture with holes in it, a motivational poster on the back wall that advised a kitten on a branch to keep holding on, and a general staleness to the air that made me not want to breathe too deeply. A signed picture of Electro Gal stood next to a family portrait, slightly blocking out his wife. Meathead had been taken to the assistant principal's office while I waited alone in Mr.

Barker's, quite like the police station scenario I went through a month ago. They wanted you to wait a long time all by yourself to wrack up your nerves, make you jumpy so that you'd then agree to whatever they say. It's the same with doctor's offices. Finally, it was interrogation time and Principal Barker leaned forward onto his desk.

"Miss Keene, I did not expect this from you." He gave a great sigh that sounded both tired and disappointed. The question was if it was directed at me or his career choice.

"You are supposed to graduate at the end of this year. I don't see that happening if you are expelled for fighting." My eyes opened wide, my hand clenching into a fist.

"I didn't do anything, Brandon started it." Last night I fought for my life to save a junky drug dealer from a monster only to then be expelled for defending myself from the school bully. Hindus were wrong; karma was not a thing. Mr. Barker's eyes narrowed on my fist and raised an eyebrow.

"Brandon can't move his arm and the coach thinks he won't be able to play in the game this weekend." He tapped the end of a pencil on his desk.

"Don't you think you took things too far?" There it was. Why did Junior Psycho, who dangled freshmen in front of oncoming traffic, get away with everything? Oh right, because he's really good at hurting people on a football field. I tried to speak, but injustice kept choking me.

"We have called Brandon's parents and they brought up filing charges. I am trying to calm things down, but you will be suspended while we investigate the incident and evaluate the severity of Bran–""Get out of my way! You think I'm just waiting while you jackboots grill my granddaughter?" There was a crashing sound of something being knocked over. Mr. Barker had a moment to glance at me, his eyes startled and maybe a little worried before the door burst open and Gran stormed in.

She was dressed in her least ratty coat with an umbrella in one hand like a sword and her hair in a crown of tangles around her head.

"Don't tell them anything, Cass." Her steely eyes glanced at me before flashing onto Mr. Barker.

"Not before we call our lawyer." Unprincipled Barker looked at her with his eyebrows raised over his droopy eyes.

"Ms. Moon, there is no need to be aggressive. As I explained over the phone, Cassandra was involved in a fight and the other student may be seriously injured. We will need a written statement from Cassandra." Gran thumped her way into a chair.

"There is no way my granddaughter up and assaulted some random kid in your school. Has she ever even flicked the ear of somebody before? No, she hasn't! So if she hurt the boy, then he had it comin'." Her head turned sharply toward me.

"What happened? Start from the beginning, not from whenever you kicked his sorry butt." I straightened up in my seat and took a breath.

"Umm… I was leaving Mr. Hooper's class when I turned the corner and Brandon jumped me from behind. He slammed me into the lockers and pushed my head against them." Mr. Barker smoothed his hands over some of the papers on his desk, looking down.

"Brandon says you attacked him. He is the one with an injury whereas you seem fine." Thanks for that one, constitution points. Gran snapped back quickly.

"This Brandon can say what he wants. You got any cameras in this building?" Mr. Barker hesitated.

"Yes, but we don't show those images to the public." She smiled widely.

"Well, good thing I'm not the public. I'm her legal guardian and she says she was assaulted on your school's property. Now you're going to pull up that footage or I'm going to march down to the police station and have them make you show me the footage. I spent twenty-five years on the force and I still have a few friends that would be happy to come down here. That Brandon isn't the only boy that can catch a case over this. And you, you sorry excuse for an educator, could get obstruction."

Gran could write a riveting autobiography, even if none of it would be true.

"Technically, ma'am, I'm not an educator, but administratio-""Damn right, you ain't! And I don't see you administrating very well either when you won't even wait to see the evidence before you give out punishments. Sounds like you missed your true calling in life– you'd have made a great slimeball lawyer or judge, given the decrepit state of our justice system!" Mr. Barker looked down, Adam's apple bobbing and his eyes growing shiny for a second. Dear lord, someone get this guy a new job.

I'd be happy to send out his resumes myself. He cleared his throat after a moment.

"That won't be necessary Ms. Moon. We can pull up the footage on my computer." Honestly, he should just take the chance at the new opportunity Gran was offering; clearly he felt like he was in a jail already. He quickly pulled up the cameras in the hallway and started playing them back.

"I'm sure this will straighten things out." Gran huffed.

"I'm sure you should have checked the cameras before you started making unfounded accusations." Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. The screen quickly skipped past the fight in a blur as it rewinded and Mr. Barker had to fast forward it again until it was just Brandon leaning against the wall waiting. As soon as I walked around the corner, Brandon lashed out.

He grabbed me and spun me against the lockers so hard that my teeth jarred all over again just watching it. Then he pressed his body against mine in a way that was way more obscene from this angle and without the recent head trauma. Mr. Barker's face went white as soon as Brandon grabbed me and it kept getting pastier as the fight played out, with Brandon throwing himself at me over and over until I took him down. Gran's face was like stone as she sat in her chair.

"I expect an apology." Mr. Barker held up both hands and you could see the slight shake in his fingers.

"Yes, Ms. Moon, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. I.."

"Not to me." Her voice cut like ice.

"To Cass." Mr. Barker slowly turned to me, face screwed up like he'd eaten a lemon. He'd probably never apologized to a student before.

"I'm sorry, Cassandra. I was misinformed and…"

"Stop there, son. An apology with an excuse at the end is like a weak handshake. It may be the right thing to do, but it's the wrong way to do it." Gran stood up, tucking her umbrella under her arm as if she were sheathing her sword and continued to look at the principal like he was the smashed remains of a cockroach under her shoe.

"Come on Cass, we're leaving. My granddaughter will be back here tomorrow, Baker, and I expect that boy to be the one with the consequences." I trailed after Gran as she stormed back out as quickly as she had blown in. The office staff stared as she stomped out of the building and I followed after. If I'd had Gran's bravery, I'd never have needed super powers. We walked through the parking lot with me still behind her, waiting for her to say something. Finally, her feet came to a stop and she turned around.

The glare on her face that had seemed plastered on before melted away as she engulfed me in her arms.

"I am so proud of you," she whispered in a husky voice. My chest had this weird warm feeling inside. Probably heartburn and the air must have been full of dust because my eyes started to water. I raised my arms to wrap around her bony back.

"Thanks," I said, but it was muffled from her coat up against my mouth.

"Now," she said, finally withdrawing and wiping at her eyes.

"I don't know all that's going on with you right now, Cass, but what I saw today shows me that you're going in the right direction." She turned her head to look away at the traffic.

"So, I'm gonna do something that I've never done before and keep my big mouth shut. You don't want to tell me everything that's happening in your life, well, alright. I guess that's just part of you growing up and becoming your own person and I've got to accept that." She raised a shaking hand to brush through her wispy hair. I stared at her. My mouth opened and I let it stay that way while I gathered the words.

"Gran, I do want to tell you something." Her eyes sharpened on me.

"About what?"

"About how my voice got to be this way. You're right, I don't have bronchitis, but I swear to you I didn't get it from kissing boys either. I got it because…" Gran's face was a masterpiece of wrinkled lines. The sun had deepened every crease until they looked like a carved statue more than a human being. Albrecht Dürer would have traveled to paint her and only Giovanni Strazza would have been able to sculpt each and every fine line.

Particularly the expression on her face right now: the trembling of her lips and how her clouded eyes looked at me, round and glistening. I had always thought of her as a pillar: strong, unbending, able to hold up things far heavier than she should. But here in the brightness of the outside light, she finally looked her age and the reality was that she was frail. When it came to me, if something too big came along, she could collapse and not be put back together.

I could test out telling her the truth, starting off with a small part of it.

"I got it from learning Kung Fu." Her eyebrows drew together as she shook her head from side to side.

"What do you mean?" Inhale. Exhale.

"I've been taking classes from this guy –an old guy– and he's a master at it. I've been studying and practicing but, you know, when you're learning martial arts, you're going to get hurt sometimes. I just didn't want to worry you and I didn't want to tell you until I was better at it." Her jaw worked, her eyes sparked, and I saw her face go through several phases of what were certainly the non-happy emotions.

"And yes," I inserted quickly, raising a finger.

"I was still telling you the truth about tutoring people; that's how I make money to pay for the lessons." There was truth in that too… about the size of a poppyseed in a muffin. Finally, she opened her mouth.

"You thought I wouldn't want to know that you're learnin' Karate until you were able to kick someone's butt the right way?" I let out my held breath.

"It's Kung Fu, a very particular form of it, and yeah I wanted to wait to show you when I could do all of the proper stuff. To demonstrate all the work I'd done and what I could accomplish." She wrapped her thin branch of an arm around my shoulders and we began walking again.

"Let me give you a lesson for free: kick 'em as hard as you can in the places it'll hurt most. And I saw from that school camera that you already know that, so what else do you need to learn?" I rolled my eyes.

"A lot of other stuff. I can tell you more about it."

"Like how you disabled that refrigerator of a boy's arm?" I grinned.

"Yep. I'll tell you all about that."

"Good, 'cause I want to hear all about it. But Cass." She stopped walking and put a hand on both of my shoulders.

"It's real good that you're becoming stronger and learning to protect yourself, but you still need to be careful. Just because you can fight doesn't mean you always should, and you certainly shouldn't go stretching out your neck to look for trouble. That's what I always did when I was your age and I don't want you goin' through the hell it caused me. It's fine and good to have a way to keep yourself safe, but you gotta have limits and–" Her voice had gone high-pitched and wobbly– a sound I'd never heard from Gran.

I was so used to her being my protector, of me being the weak one, but now I felt the need to guard her. She couldn't handle this beginner stage. She didn't want me to stick out my neck like she'd done, but it had made her into the person she was now: hard as a nail and capable of putting anyone in their place. Someday, she'd see me like that and she didn't have to know about the cuts and bruises that would get me there.

"So," I lifted my eyes to the sky, with a finger tapping at my chin.

"You're saying to beware: anger, fear, aggression– the dark side are they?"

"Oh, you." She lifted a leg and tried to swat my butt with it, but it never made it that far. Her hand went to her hip as she huffed and puffed.

"Watch out or I'll give you a real demonstration of how to hurt somebody." I had my fingers up at my temples now, eyes closed, brow furrowed.

"Wait, I'm getting more nuggets of wisdom as we speak. I think you also meant… Once you start down the dark path… forever will it… dominate your destiny… consume you, it will." My Yoda accent was on point due to the hoarseness of my voice. Why didn't I just talk like this all day?

"You're gonna need to disable my arm before I smack ya with it." Gran cuffed me upside the head.

"Just make sure you use your Karate to protect yourself and not start anything. I don't want you gettin' hurt."

"I won't go looking for trouble." My smile slipped from my face as the words left my mouth.

"Good. Now let's get home. I've gone too long without looking at the beauty that is Alex Trebek."