The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(15)

She grabbed me by the chin and turned my head. “Your face is swollen and red, and your ear looks like someone lit it on fire.”

One of the women behind the counter spoke. “Mrs. Hill? Sister Beatrice would like to see you and Samuel now.”

My mother spun and proceeded to the closed door, neither knocking nor waiting for an invitation to enter. I reluctantly followed. Sister Beatrice nodded to the two familiar chairs across from her desk. My mother’s posture was even more erect. She sat on the edge of her seat cushion, legs crossed and folded beneath her chair.

“This is exactly the type of thing I was concerned about,” Sister Beatrice said.

“What exactly happened?” my mother asked, sounding calm.

“Your son,” Sister Beatrice said, “nearly strangled another student. He’s being treated in the health room this very moment.”

My mother looked down at me. “Samuel, is this true?”

I nodded.

“What in heaven possessed you?” she asked.

But before I could speak, Sister Beatrice answered. “I don’t believe heaven had anything to do with this, Mrs. Hill.”

My mother shot her a look. “What does that mean?”

“It means your son is suspended, Mrs. Hill. It means I intend to take this matter up with Father Brogan and the parish board.” Her crooked finger took aim at me. “It means that my judgment about this situation was correct.”

“Did you even bother to ask Samuel what happened?”

“I saw what happened,” she said. “Your son assaulted another student. I watched it with my own eyes.”

“He has Twinkie in his hair and the side of his face has a red welt on it.” She gripped my chin and snapped my head to the side. “How did that happen?”

“Irrelevant to the issue at hand—fighting is grounds for expulsion.”

“I would like to give Samuel a chance to defend himself.”

“You can do that at home; I have a school to run and four hundred other children to consider.”

“You’re going to suspend him without any investigation?”

“As I mentioned during our introduction, Mrs. Hill, I alone have the authority to run this school, and I alone have the authority to decide upon the appropriate punishment. And let me assure you, should there be any inquiries from your friends in the press, this time I will not hesitate to explain, in detail, what occurred here.”

“How long is his suspension?”

“That remains to be determined. It is my opinion that you never should have enrolled him in the first place.”

“You’re expelling him?”

A voice emanated from a black box on the corner of the desk. “Sister Beatrice, Mrs. Bateman is—”

If the woman finished her sentence I did not hear her. A shrill squawk burst through the intercom, though none of us had any trouble hearing the voice through the closed door. “I demand to see her!”

When I turned, the woman filled the door frame, wearing a sleeveless navy-blue shirt that revealed flabby biceps as big around as one of my mother’s legs. Wide-eyed and bristling, she dragged David Bateman by the wrist into the office and commenced to stutter and cluck like the giant rooster from the Bugs Bunny cartoons I watched on Saturday mornings, Foghorn Leghorn. “Look . . . look . . . look at my son’s throat.” She yanked David’s head back by his hair to show Sister Beatrice a red scratch. Then, spotting me behind my mother, she said, “Is that the little troublemaker who attacked my David?”

My mother, who had stood from her chair, seemed to grow two inches, but she didn’t even reach Mrs. Bateman’s chin. “Don’t you dare call my son a troublemaker.”

“Look at my son’s throat.” She yanked David forward like a rag doll. “He has scratches.”

My mother, not to be outdone, pulled me out from behind her. “And look at my son’s face.” She turned my head to display the red welt. “Look at his hair and clothes.”

“Your son choked my son.”

“Yes, he did,” Sister Beatrice said. “I saw it.”

David Bateman’s mother said, “Fighting is grounds for expulsion.”

“My son has not had a chance to defend himself,” my mother countered.

“I expect that it be enforced,” Bateman’s mother said. “And I’m sure my fellow members of the parish board will agree. You will recall that I was dead set against this . . . this boy being allowed admittance. And I think we need no further evidence that my intuition was one hundred percent accurate.”

“I intend to take the matter up with Father Brogan and the board,” Sister Beatrice said. “I can assure you, Mrs. Bateman, violence will not be tolerated.”

“You haven’t even given Samuel the chance to defend himself,” my mother repeated. “Do you think he did this to himself?”

“That will be a matter for the board to decide. Your son admitted choking another student.”

“But you never asked him why.”

“Why is irrelevant. Good day, Mrs. Hill.”

“This is not like him.”

“I said good day, Mrs. Hill.”

As my mother turned to retrieve her handbag, a knock drew our attention. Sister Kathleen stood at the office door.