Finding My Normal

Ch 29: Owen vs. Sang

Great I'm in trouble, I wonder which one of my dads they called to pick me up.  I hope it's Liam, he's always so nice about things.  What if it's Henry?  He grounded me for one quiz, I'll probably get grounded again for this prank, but he does have a twisted sense of humor.  Maybe he'll think it's funny and not be so harsh on me.  What if it's Lily?  It's probably Mom, everyone else might be on assignment right now.

As I find my way to the front office the secretary tells me to go on in and that everyone's waiting.  I open the door and see Mr. Blackbourne, Luke, Henry and the principal.  I had never seen her before, but her red power suit and stern face intimidate me.  She's older than my parents, maybe about 10 years older.  I look over at Mr. Blackbourne and he's giving me a piercing glare with those grey eyes. Hmph!  Yeah, I pulled a prank on you, so what?  You changed my test score for whatever twisted reason.  Jerk!  Yelling at him in my head isn't working because I'm still scared to be here.  I don't want to get detention or worse, suspension.  I look over at my dad and he has his Academy face on.  Lips pursed, arms crossed, chin up.  He looks like he's going into battle.  The principal Mrs. Reece is the first to speak up.

"Miss Anderson, please have a seat." She motions for the empty chair in front of her desk and I sit down next to Luke and give him a wide eyed glance.

"Mr. Taylor, your Uncle couldn't leave work, but we will be calling him with the disciplinary action we decide on at the end of this meeting."

"Principal Reece, I told you we didn't do anything.  Especially not Sang here, she's too sweet and small to pull a prank like that off!"  Luke comes to my defense.

"Mr. Taylor, we have evidence against both of you.  Mr. Blackbourne here says the two of you are caught on camera breaking into Mr. Blackbourne's office, stealing his property, removing all his tires, vandalizing his car with saran wrap and then dumping the tires all around campus for everyone to find."

I look over and see my dad putting his cell phone back into his pocket and hear him snort then try to smother a laugh at Mrs. Reece's description of what we did.  And I can tell he's trying to hold back even more laughter.

Mr. Blackbourne smooths his tie with one hand and turns towards my dad.  "Mr. Anderson, do you think this is funny?  What happened here is a serious matter."

"Yeah, I think it's hilarious that saran wrapping a car would be considered vandalism.  My daughter has not committed this prank."

"We have proof."  Mr. Blackbourne interjects.

"I'd like to see this proof."

Mr. Blackbourne leaves the office to go gather his laptop to bring up the surveillance feed from today.  Luke and I have kept our mouths shut this entire time.  He gives me a frightened look while we wait for Mr. Blackbourne to bring back the proof that will hang us out to dry.  How could Luke not have known about the cameras??  My dad clears his throat and I look up at him, he gives me a conspiratorial wink.  What is he up to?

Mr. Blackbourne returns and places the laptop on the principal's desk and presses play.  We're looking at empty hallways.  I notice it's the hallway where my Japanese classroom is located.  Any second now Luke and I will appear on camera.  The screen goes black before that happens then fills with digital snow.  Mr. Blackbourne approaches the desk and fiddles with the computer moving to a different camera feed.  The one facing the parking lot.  It's there one second and the next second filled with digital snow once again.

"Like I said, you have no proof."  My dad repeats.

"There's also the matter of the test," Mr. Blackbourne glances at me. "Sang's test was found on top of my stack of graded papers.  Looks like she wanted to see her grades and dug through the pile to find hers."