Zero Tolerance Read online

  “So who won?”

  “Nobody. The medication didn’t help anyway, and then my parents split up. You know how parents tell their kids, when they’re getting divorced, ‘Now, remember, honey, this isn’t because of you, it’s about Mommy and Daddy’? Well, guess what. It was because of me. Because they couldn’t stand fighting about me. Are your parents divorced?”

  “No. My friend Lexi’s parents are, though. She lives during the week with her mom, and on the weekends with her dad.”

  “I live with my dad. Because my mom really couldn’t take it. She wasn’t kidding. She married someone else, and they moved to California and have two kids now. I see her for a couple of weeks in the summer, and then she sends me back. It’s okay.”

  “Does your dad care that you’re suspended?”

  “Not really. He would have fought someone, too, for calling him a name.”

  “What did Mitch call you?”

  “What are you, a lawyer like your dad?”

  It was the second time she had asked Luke that question and he hadn’t answered.

  “Besides,” Sierra went on, “you call people names. You call me names.”

  “Shep-turd isn’t really a name.”

  “No?”

  “It’s like—a play on words. It’s supposed to be funny.”

  “Ha ha,” Sierra said.

  “Okay, I won’t call you that anymore. Didn’t you ever call someone a name? Even just behind their back?”

  Sierra thought for a minute. “No.” It was hard to believe, but she had never called anyone a name, ever.

  “Except when you called Lintbag a bitch.”

  “Oh,” Sierra said. She gave Luke a small smile. “I guess there was that.”

  15

  Sierra hadn’t brought her lunch—she had really thought she’d be back eating in the cafeteria with her friends, constantly interrupted by all the kids who wanted to tell her how they had seen her on TV. So when Ms. Lin came into the suspension room at the start of 4A, Sierra got up from the table and walked with Luke to the door.

  “They’re all yours,” Ms. Lin told Mrs. Saunders.

  Mrs. Saunders gave Sierra a reassuring smile as she got up from her desk, which was next to Ms. Lin’s. It was obvious that Ms. Lin was the head secretary and Mrs. Saunders was her underling. What a fun job that would be, under Ms. Lin’s thumb all day, doing whatever she told you to do and smiling while you did it.

  Mrs. Saunders looked older than Ms. Lin, her hair gray and spiky in a way that made her look as if she could be funny and fun.

  “I’m sorry about what happened,” Mrs. Saunders said to Sierra while the three of them were heading down the hall.

  The kindness in her voice caught Sierra off guard, but Sierra was not going to let her eyes start filling with tears in the hallway of Longwood Middle School.

  “Thanks,” Sierra managed to say.

  “I hope something can be worked out,” Mrs. Saunders said.

  “Me too.” Not that Sierra could see any way that could be possible.

  As they entered the cafeteria, Sierra passed Sandy sitting on her stool, yelling “Keep it down!” to some kids who were getting too rowdy. How different everything would have been if Sandy had told her to put the knife back in the lunch bag and call her parents to come right away and get it.

  Colin’s lunch period was 4A. Sierra saw him before he saw her. He was sitting at a table by the window—actually, the same table where Sierra and her friends ate lunch every day during 5B. She made a mental note of the chair where he was sitting, the chair closest to the window.

  As if drawn by her gaze, he looked in her direction.

  Then he was getting up from his seat and walking toward her.

  “Hey, Sierra,” he said as she reached the front of the lunch line.

  Ms. Lin wouldn’t have let her talk to anyone; Sierra was sure of that. But Mrs. Saunders didn’t do anything to stop Colin from continuing.

  “I made a petition.”

  Sierra saw that Colin held in his hand several sheets of lined paper. The top one was completely covered with names.

  Colin read to her: “We, the undersigned, believe that it is unfair to punish a student who brought a knife to school by mistake and turned it in as soon as she found it.”

  “I’ll have the tuna melt sandwich,” Sierra told the lady behind the lunch counter.

  To Colin she said, “That’s awesome.”

  Colin flipped through the three pages. “Eighty-seven people have signed it so far.”

  He held the petition out to Sierra. “You can sign it, too, you know.”

  Was it strange to sign a petition that was all about you? Like voting for yourself in an election? But then again, the news always showed presidential candidates on election morning going to the polls to vote for themselves.

  Colin produced a pen. Sierra signed. Number eighty-eight.

  “Luke, you want to sign?” Colin asked.

  Luke hesitated for a second. “Sure. But it won’t do any good.”

  He scrawled his name almost illegibly: number eighty-nine.

  “What about you, Mrs. Saunders?” Colin asked politely.

  “I wish I could, but I don’t think it would be the best idea.”

  “Are you going to ask Lintbag and Buttster to sign it?” Luke jeered.

  “No,” Colin said as if Luke had asked a serious question. “But four teachers have already signed. And it’s just fourth period. I want to collect as many signatures as I can today, so I can give the petition to Mr. Besser after school and he’ll have it to look at this weekend.”

  “We’d better get back,” Mrs. Saunders said, not unkindly. “And, Colin? In case those television reporters are here again today after school, the way they were yesterday, they might like to see your petition, too.”

  “Thanks! You’re the best!” Colin said. “I’m practically done with lunch, so I’m going to take this around to all the tables now. I have a friend who eats 4B, and he’ll take it from there, and maybe we can find someone for 5A. Sierra, Lex is doing 5B.”

  As Sierra and Luke followed Mrs. Saunders back to the suspension room carrying their cafeteria trays, Sierra asked Mrs. Saunders, “Do you think the petition really might help?”

  “I don’t know. It can’t hurt.”

  Outside the large windows flanking the office, the first flakes of snow were beginning to fall.

  “This is supposed to be a big storm,” Mrs. Saunders said. “I hope everyone gets home safely.”

  Back in the suspension room, Sierra took a first bite of her sandwich. Tuna melt was one of the best things on the school lunch menu, but she was almost too excited to eat, thinking about Colin.

  “Is he your boyfriend?” Luke asked as if reading her thoughts.

  “No.”

  “Then what’s it to him if you’re suspended or expelled?”

  “Because it’s unfair. It’s wrong.”

  “He likes you.”

  Oh, Sierra hoped Luke was right.

  “But it’s not going to do any good,” Luke said. “It’s not like Besser will look at a bunch of kids’ names on a piece of paper and say, ‘Gee, I guess I was a dumbhead.’”

  Oh, Sierra hoped Luke was wrong.

  16

  It was already snowing hard by the dismissal bell at 3:10. The lawn stretching in front of Longwood Middle School was white, but the long driveway curving up in front of the school was still bare.

  Sierra saw her mother’s Volvo station wagon parked again in the NO STOPPING OR STANDING zone. Go, Mom. Parked nearby were the same three TV news vans. And standing under an umbrella held over him by the same blond reporter from yesterday was Colin, showing her a sheaf of papers that must be the petition.

  Slowly Sierra walked over to them, glad that she had combed her hair in the girls’ room before heading outside, and glad that her blue angora-wool hat, angle adjusted in the girls’ room mirror, matched the color of her eyes.

  “Sier
ra!” the blond reporter greeted her. “What do you think of the petition signed by three hundred and seventy-nine of your fellow students?”

  She held the microphone toward Sierra.

  Wow. That was over half the school, in just one day.

  “I think it’s great,” Sierra said. She wanted to say something to thank Colin, but not make it too gushy. “Colin’s a really good friend to do this for me.”

  Did “friend” sound too much like “just a friend,” as in “not a boyfriend”? And she didn’t want to imply that Colin had done this for her, as if she thought he liked her more than he did.

  “I mean, I think it’s wonderful that he stood up for me.” No, that sounded wrong, too. “I mean, that he saw that there was injustice and he did something about it. He didn’t just go, ‘Oh, well.’ He did something.”

  She was babbling. She had to stop talking about Colin and how wonderful he was.

  “Colin, this is a photocopy,” the blond reporter said. “You gave the original petition to Mr. Besser, is that correct? To the school principal?”

  “I couldn’t give it to him in person because he was in a meeting, so I left it with the school secretary, Ms. Lin.”

  The reporter looked disappointed; she must have been hoping to hear Mr. Besser’s reaction. Sierra was disappointed, too. What if Ms. Lin never even gave the petition to Mr. Besser? What if she ripped it up and threw it away?

  “Are those three hundred and seventy-nine signatures all from students?” the reporter asked.

  “No, eight teachers signed it, too.”

  “So teachers are joining the protest now,” the reporter said. “Sierra, do you think the petition is going to help?”

  Did she think it would help? If hundreds of comments by grownups on the station Web sites hadn’t helped, would hundreds of signatures from kids make any difference? But poor Colin had tried so hard; his efforts had to count for something.

  “I do,” Sierra said. “I mean, I hope so.”

  She shouldn’t keep saying “I mean.”

  “I mean, it should help.”

  There, she had just done it again. But maybe it didn’t matter. Colin looked away from the blond reporter and the cameraman and smiled at her.

  She and Colin Beauvoir were going to be on the nightly news together.

  * * *

  Sierra’s father was home in time to watch the news broadcasts with Sierra and her mother. The Wilson case had settled at the last minute late the night before and didn’t end up going to trial after all. Sierra knew from experience that this was usually the way it happened with her father’s cases. On the eve of the court date, everyone suddenly began cooperating. Her father was very good at persuading people to do whatever they needed to do to avoid having to face him in the courtroom.

  Sierra had thought her father would be furious when he learned she had been kept in suspension for another day, but he wasn’t.

  “I can play hardball, too,” was all he said. “You might say that hardball is my specialty.”

  She had to tell him what Mr. Besser had said that morning. “Daddy? Mr. Besser said that all the media coverage is just making things worse, that he could have worked something out with us, but now he can’t, because his hands are tied. That’s what he said, that now his hands are tied.”

  To Sierra’s surprise, her father gave a scornful laugh. “And if he expects us to believe that, he’s a whole lot dumber than I thought he was. The only reason anything is going to be worked out here is if we make it impossible for him not to play the game our way.”

  Sierra’s mother served dinner in front of the TV in the family room—homemade pizza with all kinds of cut-up roasted veggies on top.

  Once again, the Longwood Middle School knife story was announced as one of the headline stories on 9NEWS: “Two days after an honor student’s lunch-bag mistake has her facing expulsion, the student body mobilizes in protest while school officials scramble to defend their policy.”

  “‘Scramble.’ That’s good,” Sierra’s dad said, putting his arm around her as she sat in a cozy sandwich between her two parents, with Cornflake purring against her feet. “Yes, I’d say it’s scrambling time for Tom Besser right now.”

  The snowstorm was the top story of the day: four car accidents already, with rush hour still under way.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Sierra’s mother said, setting her half-eaten slice of pizza back on her plate as the TV screen showed a helicopter-view of traffic at a standstill amid whirling snow on I-25. “Beautiful Mountain School? That alternative private school that focuses on the arts? I called them today, and they have openings.”

  Sierra’s father hit the mute button on the remote.

  “You can’t be serious,” he said.

  “There’s no harm in looking at it. I thought I’d just go over there on Monday to see what it’s like.”

  Sierra turned imploringly to her father. She couldn’t change schools. She couldn’t leave Lexi and Em—and Colin.

  “Angie,” her father said to her mother, obviously struggling to keep his voice even. “Longwood Middle School has the highest test scores in the district. Those alternative schools are artsy-fartsy nonsense. Strictly for fruits and nuts.”

  “Sierra is very artistic. She loves to paint and to sing and to write.”

  “And to think.”

  “I’m sure they think at Beautiful Mountain,” Sierra’s mother shot back. “They think enough that they wouldn’t expel a student for an innocent mistake.” She corrected herself: “For her mother’s innocent mistake.”

  “Sierra is going to be reinstated. She is going to receive a public apology. Give me a few more days, and you’re going to turn on the TV and hear, ‘Middle school principal backs down in lunch-bag-knife incident.’ Believe me.”

  “Maybe Sierra would like to try something different. Do you want her to continue going to a school that would suspend her, for two days already, over nothing?”

  “That’s me, it’s on now,” Sierra said, grateful to have a reason to interrupt her parents. She hated when her father used that tone with her mother. But she didn’t want to switch schools; she didn’t want to try something different. She wanted her life back the way it used to be.

  Her father clicked the sound on.

  This time Mr. Besser himself appeared on the screen. He must have decided that it was better to make his case directly to the media rather than let them say whatever they wanted about him, without any reply on his part.

  Sitting behind his desk in the inner sanctum, he repeated the same justifications for zero tolerance that he had given to Sierra and her parents, in almost the exact same words. His bald head glistened beneath the bright television lights.

  “Am I sorry this happened? You bet I am. Would I be even sorrier if we had laxer policies and instead of covering this tiny incident you were filming the aftermath of a school massacre? Yes, I would.”

  “Give me a break,” Sierra’s father said. “He doesn’t even believe that crap himself.”

  Sierra’s face filled the screen next. Her blue hat did look good, she had to admit.

  Then Colin appeared, talking about the petition.

  “So that’s Colin,” Sierra’s mother said.

  Sierra felt her face flushing. Yes, that was Colin.

  “Do you think the petition will help?” Sierra asked her dad after the segment ended.

  He gave a snort. “Not a chance.”

  So her father thought more like Luke Bishop than like Colin Beauvoir.

  “So what’s going to happen?” Sierra asked. “How is it all going to turn out okay?”

  “Leave it to me, honey,” her father said. “And, Angie, why don’t you just forget about the fruits and nuts at Pretty Mountain?”

  He clicked off the TV. “Leave it all to me.”

  17

  Sierra drifted awake toward nine o’clock on Saturday morning, suddenly aware of the utter silence of the world outside her bedroom window. She
knew it was still snowing simply from the softness of the silence, broken only by the sound of Cornflake’s barely audible purr beside her in her tangle of bedcovers.

  Her mother appeared with breakfast on a tray, as if Sierra were sick rather than facing expulsion from school.

  “Here.”

  Sierra sat herself up against her pillows as her mother set the bed tray over her blanketed legs.

  “How about some cream-cheese-stuffed waffles with fresh strawberries? And hot chocolate?”

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too, honey bun.”

  Her mother perched on the edge of the bed as Sierra ate. The waffles were light and golden, the cream-cheese filling sweet and slightly tart at the same time, the strawberries remarkably red and ripe for January.

  Sierra took a long sip of hot chocolate and wiped her mouth with the yellow-flowered cloth napkin.

  “Honey?” her mother said then. “Do you want to stay at Longwood Middle School? If they let you stay?”

  “Uh-huh. I have my friends, and Leadership Club, and choir.”

  And this boy I like.

  “You’d meet friends anywhere. You’re good at making friends.”

  “Friends aren’t like that. You don’t switch them like a pair of shoes.”

  “I know, sweetheart, but still, I wouldn’t choose a school just because of friends.”

  Why not? “Besides, Daddy says Longwood is the best academically.” Sierra swallowed another bite of waffle. “Do you want me to switch schools?”

  Her mother picked up the cat brush on the nightstand next to Sierra’s bed and began brushing Cornflake, who stretched himself out luxuriously to make the most of every stroke.

  “Your father’s a fighter. I’m not. There’s a lot to be said for being somewhere where you don’t have to fight. From what I read on their Web site, the educational philosophy at Beautiful Mountain is based on peaceful principles—cooperation, not competition. And I like that it focuses on creativity and the arts.”