“Sergeant-at-arms.” He smirks and swaggers a few steps closer, leaning down to get into my face. “Basically a glorified hall monitor. I see you have successfully managed to get the entire council to hate you. Congratulations on that. You're the least liked boy at school.”
Anger revs up inside of me, and I have to swallow three times to hold back a fresh rant. I lift up the piece of paper and Spencer plucks it from my hand with two fingers, scanning the words and then shrugging dismissively as he chucks it back at me.
“What do you want me to do about this?”
The paper flutters to the floor between us, and I bend down to pick it up.
“Get me an appointment, you nutjob.” I exhale and squeeze the paper into a crumbled little ball in my fist. “Or maybe I should talk to someone about what I saw in the woods?”
Spencer's face hardens, and he reaches out to grab me by the tie. I go to smack his hand away, and he grabs my wrist instead. He squeezes a little too hard and a small yelp escapes me. It's a bit feminine sounding, and I get nervous fast. Spencer is narrowing his eyes on me in confusion, although the secretary doesn't seem to care much either way.
“Let me go,” I grind out, as Spencer's grip on my wrist loosens. I yank back, and he lets go suddenly, sending me sprawling butt first into a potted fern.
Dirt flies everywhere, and I end up stuck in the damn thing, flailing around as I try to dig myself out. Spencer crosses his arms over his chest and tilts his head to one side to study me.
“You get more flies with honey, you know,” he says, and then he saunters off, pulling a huge iron skeleton key from his pocket, so he can unlock the double doors. He disappears inside while I'm still struggling to free myself from the ceramic butt-coffin I'm now trapped in.
“Little help here?” I ask, but the secretary simply turns up the classical music streaming from his phone and ignores me. Eventually, I get myself out of the pot, but the fern is now most definitely dead, and my navy blue slacks are covered in dirt. Fantastic.
It's become quite obvious the Student Council has no intention of seeing me, so I excuse myself with as much dignity as I can muster and then make plans to return later in the week.
These jerks haven't seen the last of me.
Even though I know it's a bad idea to bring their attention to me, I can't help myself.
I don't like being messed with.
On Friday, I finally get my opportunity.
As I was making an appointment on the secretary's iPad, I surreptitiously scrolled through to see what days were generally open to students. Mondays and Fridays seemed to give the best options, so at the end of the week, I slip over to hide by the bathroom next to the curving staircase, and I wait.
When a boy strides by like he knows where he's going, I creep up the stairs behind him, pause just outside the stone archway that leads into the secretary's office, and then I wait. The two boys exchange words, and then the student sits down to wait. Ten minutes later, there's a buzz on the intercom, and the secretary stands up to open the door.
I dart forward, shoving past them all and stumbling into an ostentatious room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, five throne-like chairs, and a long table meant to intimidate.
The secretary darts in behind me, panting and sputtering, but it's too late. I'm already standing here.
I rise to my full height, puff my chest out, and stride forward, slamming my palms onto the surface of the table, right in front of Church Montague and his shiny gold Student Council President sign.
“I want my locker put back where it was,” I demand, and he just looks at me like I'm not worth the lint on my jacket.
Speaking of …
“Untidy uniform,” Church says, frowning at me. “That's worth at least a day of detention.” He glances over at Ranger, the dark-haired dickhead, sitting on his right. His sign says Vice President. How nice. “Don't you think, Ranger?”
“At least,” he spits out, and I swear, I can see this bundle of dark shadow energy fizzing above the guy's head. “And bursting into the Student Council Room without an appointment?”
“Janitor duty,” the twins say in unison, sitting on opposite ends of the table. They both grin at me, leaning back in their chairs at the same time, like it's a choreographed routine or something. One has a sign that says Treasurer and one says Secretary. I guess maybe the boy from the front desk is like an assistant then or something?
“I make a motion to charge Chuck Carson with one day of detention, and a week of after-school janitor duty,” Church says, smiling at me as he leans back in his chair. It's actually a fairly nice looking smile, like either he really is a nice person who just hates me or … maybe he's a psychopath who's really good at imitating human emotion?
“I second the motion,” Ranger replies, frowning so hard I expect his lips to get stuck in his awful, ugly expression. He reaches up and tugs on the big black plug in his earlobe. He's got one on either side, and a handful of silver hoops on his right. Emo loser asshole, I think as I frown.
“You can't do that,” I spit, because this whole super powerful Student Council thing is not real. It's just a dumb TV trope that's in too much manga and anime. They can't actually punish me. Back home in California, they could barely manage to get organic vegetables on the school lunch menu.
“Can't we?” Spencer asks, speaking us as the twins chuckle on either side of the table. “Your father said we could punish you however we saw fit, for failing to help fix Church's project.” My mouth drops open. True, Dad and I have barely spoken a word to each other in the last two weeks, but you think he'd mention this? “I third the motion.”
“Agreed,” the twins say together, leaning their elbows on the table and grinning at me.
“The motion passes,” Church says, nodding his chin in Micah's—or Tobias', whatever—direction. “Make a note of it and have the headmaster sign off.”
The twin on the right, with the Secretary sign, gets to work tapping away on his laptop.
“Now, get out of the Council Room before I start adding days onto your detention,” Church says, clearly the leader of the group. Makes me wonder because he seems much less alpha than either Spencer or Ranger. “We haven't quite decided on the full terms of your punishment, but the more I look at you, the worse I want it to be.” He lifts up a mug of coffee and takes a long sip, sighing in pleasure.
“He's so short and puny,” Tobias whines, laying his body across the surface of the table. “Can't we just beat him up?”
“Yes, please,” Micah groans, pausing his typing for a moment to look me over with no small amount of distaste. “Can we please? I bet he goes down with one punch.”
My nostrils flare, and my hands curl into fists at my sides.
“I want my locker moved back to the main building,” I grind out, refusing to be intimidated by these jerkwads. For a brief moment, I forget I'm supposed to be hiding in shadows and making things easy for myself. I should be out of here soon. I just … need to work on Dad some more. I wish my birthday were sooner, I think, already pining for December of senior year. I'll be eighteen then; I can make my own choices.