Expelled(2)

We stare at each other. My only enemy’s you. I shake my head no.

“You posted the picture, assuming you could claim innocence,” Palmieri says.

“The IP address,” I say. “Did you check it? That’ll prove the post didn’t come from me!”

Palmieri shakes his head. “Actually, Mr. Foster, all your posts originate from the same IP address. The picture was uploaded from your computer.”

I’m stunned. I wasn’t prepared for this, and I have no idea how it could have happened.

I look first at Palmieri and then at the glowering members of the school board. They don’t know me at all, but it’s obvious they’ve already judged me. It all becomes clear: there’s no one on my side and no way of getting out of this mess. I don’t know why I bothered with the stupid tie.

“I didn’t post the picture,” I repeat.

Palmieri shakes his head, like I’ve disappointed him yet again. “In the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences.’ I hope you are prepared for yours, Theo Foster.”

The school board robots debate for approximately forty-five seconds before they come back with their decree: I’m expelled, forbidden to attend school or set foot on school property for the final three weeks of the school year.

And that’s how quickly it happens: I go from promising junior to up-and-coming deadbeat.

Happy birthday to me.





2


A belated wave of shock nearly doubles me over in the hallway. I’m leaning against the wall, trying not to hyperventilate, when I hear someone call my name.

I look up. If the wall weren’t keeping me vertical, I might’ve collapsed.

Sasha Ellis—the Sasha Ellis—is also at school district headquarters on a Thursday night. More importantly, Sasha Ellis is talking to me.

Sasha’s in my homeroom, but she talks to no one. When she glides through school, eyes straight ahead and earbuds in deep, kids make way for her, just like minnows do for sharks. It’s not that Sasha doesn’t like anyone else—I don’t think—it’s more like she barely notices they exist.

Sasha pushes her dark hair out of her face and gazes at me with glacial blue eyes. She’d be incontestably beautiful if she didn’t always look like she was on the verge of a scorn-induced migraine, but the sneer takes her down to a 9, tops.

“What are you doing here?” I manage.

She ignores the question, and everybody knows why I’m here. “I saw the picture. It’s amazing.”

“That’s one way of describing it,” I say. “Considering it just ruined my life.”

“Seriously, it’s like a Dash Snow polaroid or something.”

“A what?”

Sasha rolls her eyes at my ignorance. She’s crazy smart and possibly crazy, and—full disclosure—I have basically loved her for three years straight without her ever saying a word to me before this very second.

Well, love is maybe an overstatement. But the feeling is stronger than like and more complicated than lust, and so far I haven’t figured out the perfect word for it.

“Whatever,” I say. “You don’t have to explain your references to me.”

“He was this totally wild artist in New York. When he was, like, our age, he stole a Polaroid camera, and then he started taking all these insane party pictures, mostly so he could remember where he’d been the night before.”

“Did he ever get anyone expelled?” I ask bitterly.

She ignores this question, too. “He was pretty famous,” she says.

“What happened to him?”

“Let’s just say it didn’t end well.”

I’m fine to drop the subject. “Okay. Seriously, though, why are you here?”

“Those are my tits in the picture,” she says.

My mouth falls open.

“Just kidding,” she says.

“But you and Parker—”

“Are nothing,” she says. “That was almost three years ago.”

In our freshman year, before she stopped talking to anyone, Sasha wore short bright dresses and kept her toenails painted like tiny pink shells. And, yeah, she dated Parker for a while. Most of the Arlington girls have, but Sasha was the first. People say he still loves her, but personally I doubt he is capable of such emotional stamina.

“It’s my birthday,” I blurt.

Sasha looks at me in surprise. “Really? Happy birthday.”

“Not really,” I say.

“It’s not really your birthday or it’s not really happy?”

“The second one.”

For a split second she looks almost sympathetic. “Are you bummed about getting kicked out of school? All the cool kids are doing it, you know.”

“If you’re talking about me and Jude Holz, I don’t think cool’s the right adjective.”

She raises a dark slash of an eyebrow. “Jude got expelled, too? Our darling little school mascot?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t him wearing the tiger head, though, just like it wasn’t me who posted the picture. But neither of us could prove it.”

“Didn’t Parker know who he was partying with? Couldn’t he have said that wasn’t Jude under the tiger head?”