“Stop!” I hear, and realize it’s my hoarse voice yelling.
The whole thing lasts about five seconds, maybe a few more than that, but it feels like an hour before her knee is off my gut. I’m not quite flat on the floor; my head is against the lockers and my neck is twisted. I open an eye as Sawyer kneels down to see if I’m okay and help me up, and I look at Roxie, who is being held back by the guy whose locker is next to mine. Mr. Polselli stands between us, his hand on Roxie’s shoulder, his eyes on me.
“Are you okay?” Sawyer asks.
I nod quickly, and scramble to get to my feet, embarrassed. We’re surrounded by students eager for a girl fight. “Sorry to disappoint,” I say to them, catching my breath. I hold my cast in front of me and my good arm pressed against my stomach and make a pained face. Hey, I’m not stupid.
“My classroom,” Mr. Polselli barks at both of us just as the bell rings. “Everybody else get out of here.”
Sawyer tries to come with me, but Mr. Polselli gives him the hairy eyeball. Sawyer says how sorry he is with his eyes, and then he frowns and grabs his books, watching at least until we’re out of sight and inside the psych classroom. Mr. Polselli’s papier mâché bust of Ivan Pavlov stares at me.
“Roxanne, you start,” Mr. Polselli says.
“She attacked me and cut my neck,” Roxie says. “I can feel it. See?”
“Why did she attack you?”
“Because she’s a paranoid freak,” she says. “She can’t stand that I’m friends with her boyfriend.”
“I did not attack you. You took—” I begin, but Mr. Polselli holds a hand up to me. Students start to come into the room and they send curious looks in our direction.
“So she scratched you, and you scratched her back four times. And pushed her to the ground?”
“No, she fell.” Roxie won’t look at me, but her eyes are brimming, and I feel strangely sorry for her for the briefest moment.
Mr. Polselli turns to me. “Julia, did you attack Roxanne?”
“No, I was reaching for something and I accidentally scratched her. I wasn’t trying to do that.”
“What were you reaching for?”
“A note. Her friend Sarah pulled it from Sawyer Angotti’s hand and gave it to her. They think it’s a love note. It was something private I gave him, and she was just, I don’t know, goofing around or whatever, and I reacted, trying to get it back.” I pause, setting my jaw so I don’t cry. I have never been in trouble like this before. “I’m sorry I scratched you, Rox. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted the paper back.” My fingers go to my own neck, which throbs now, and I wonder how bad my scratches are. I can feel the raised welts.
My biggest fear is that Mr. Polselli asks to see the paper, but I’m prepared to say no—it’s not like we got caught in class passing notes or something. School hadn’t even started yet. But he doesn’t ask for it, and I breathe a silent sigh of relief.
“Roxanne?” Mr. Polselli asks. “Do you have anything else to say?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t look good for you, frankly,” he continues, still looking at Roxie. “What I saw was you kneeling on a girl who has a broken arm and just had surgery last month. She’s got four scratches, you’ve got one, and yours is not that bad.” He fishes around in his drawer and, after a minute, pulls out a rectangular glass mirror, handing it to Roxie. “I don’t think we want to take this to the principal, do we?”
“God, no. Please,” I say.
Roxie looks at her scratch. I agree, it’s not that bad. Mr. Polselli digs around a bit more in another drawer and hands her a small square packet containing an antiseptic wipe. He gives me one too.
Roxie sets the mirror on his desk out of my reach and glances at me. I avert my eyes and fold my arms as best I can with the cast. “Fine,” she says. “Sorry.”
Mr. Polselli looks at me, then picks up the mirror and hands it to me. “You don’t want to go any further with this either?”
I train the mirror at my neck and study the scratches, four neat lines, the first three pretty heavy and the fourth just a light scratch like the one I gave Roxie. Thankfully there’s no dripping blood. It’s going to be interesting explaining this one at home. “No, it’s fine,” I say. “Just a misunderstanding.”
Mr. Polselli nods. “Okay, then.” He scribbles a note on a small pad of paper and hands it to Roxie.
She takes it. “Thanks,” she says. And without another glance, she weaves through the aisle of students and goes out the door, eyes still shiny, biting her lip.
Mr. Polselli scribbles a note to get me back into class, and then he says, “She was on your stomach. Any need to get you checked out? You had some internal injuries from your crash, right?”
I smile, and now my eyes fill with tears because he’s being nice, and because the danger and fear of the moment just caught up with me. “I’m okay. She wasn’t pressing too hard or anything.”
He looks down at his desk as a tear spills over the edge of my lower lid and I swipe it away. “Did you get your letter back?” he asks.
I freeze. “Yes.”
He smiles. “Good.” He hands me the excused note as the second bell rings and the students in his classroom start to sit down. “Take a few minutes to clean up. I added ten minutes to the excused time on your pass.”