Expelled!
Carlotta fingered the crudely rolled joint and marveled at its texture.
The lanky boy by her side watched with dead fish eyes, his greasy long hair limp and damp against the sides of his face, giving him the look of a homeless shaggy dog.
“Are you sure about this?” Carlotta asked.
The boy’s eyes shifted. He leaned toward her, his voice dropping to a knowing whisper. “It’s the best herb in town. Cost me a lot of dough, too.”
Carlotta hesitated. The boy sounded like he was half-asleep or stoned out of his mind.
“Cigarettes are one thing, but I don’t know about weed.” She considered what she was about to do and her heart pounded.
Am I gonna get busted? She really didn’t care, but since the shifty-eyed boy had smoked so much more dope, she wanted his opinion on how to handle unexpected occurrences.
She licked her lips. “What happens if we get busted? I mean, my parents don’t even, like, know I totally smoke cigarettes—” she pinned the boy with a quizzical expression.
He was the notorious Sam Makiovich, nicknamed Slinky Sam.
He grunted. “Yeah, right... We only toke during recess and whenever we can cut classes—there’s no harm in that.” Slinky Sam fixed Carlotta with an amused stare for a second. His eyes went blank again as he lifted one lazy shoulder. “Cigarettes are for sissies—who needs that stuff? Wanna go on a good ride? This joint here is all ya need.”
Carlotta grinned.
Slinky Sam was a perpetual sixth grader with a moth-nibbled beard, who had enough of a bad reputation to buy a lifetime’s worth of notoriety. At the same time, his nefarious actions never seemed to land him in any serious trouble with the school authorities. He was reputed to have the best connection for drugs in the school, and he had a knack for choosing the right students to whom he marketed his illegal wares.
He must so have a bumming-radar or something. How did he know I needed something more tripping’ than just cigs today? To Carlotta, Slinky was the best answer to an unspoken need for escape from her miserable life. She hated school and wanted out, but her parents wouldn’t dream of letting her drop out of seventh grade.
It will totally serve them right if I, like, get busted.
They were behind the school dumpster, sandwiched between the wrought iron spikes of the school fence and the huge bin. Several boys sat a few feet away with their backs against the black metal surface of the bin. They were either in the seventh or eighth grade, Carlotta wasn’t sure. One of them inhaled deeply on his joint, threw his head back, and let out a series of perfect smoke rings. The others giggled.
Watching the floating white circles distort and dissipate into thin air a few inches above her head, Carlotta smiled in wonder. She had never managed to blow a perfect smoke ring. Shrugging, she reached into her jeans pocket, pulled out a ten-dollar bill, and handed it to the shifty-eyed boy at her side.
Slinky tore it from her fingers and made it disappear at once. He immediately produced a cigarette lighter from nowhere and snapped on a flame.
Carlotta placed the joint between her lips and leaned close to the flame, moving her wavy brown stresses away from her face with her left hand. Her eyes perked. She raised her brows in expectation. Her heart pounded with excitement.
How totally wasted will marijuana make me? She sucked in a deep breath, her lips taut around the rough end of the joint. She could hear her heart beating wildly, thump-thump!
I so need to get wasted; my life sucks and my parents are total jerks. She watched the reefer glow red at one end then closed her eyes for a second and inhaled. The warm smoke sailed down her windpipe and into her lungs. She waited for the promised buzz.
It feels like—
“Hold it right there, all of you!” The voice was masculine. Harsh. Deep. Angry.
Carlotta flipped her eyes open in consternation, the spent smoke curling its way out through her nose and mouth.
Slinky Sam was gone.
Approaching was the gym teacher, a beefy mountain of a man with a pudgy face that was now rigid with disapproval.
Quickly, Carlotta threw down the smoking joint and clamped her hands over her face in a desperate attempt to hide the obvious. At the same time, she stamped her foot repeatedly over the joint on the ground, crushing it beneath her heel.
Busted! She braced herself for what was to come.
The four seventh-graders also stamped-out their joints; their eyes glazed with the confused sounds of their giggles. It wouldn’t take more than a dumb teacher to tell they were already high and sailing.
But Carlotta wasn’t high, and she certainly wasn’t amused. The gym teacher was a drag; he always poked his nose where it wasn’t wanted. He had cost her ten bucks and she would make him pay—one way or another.
Carlotta looked around again for Slinky Sam. The boy had an uncanny way of getting himself out of sticky situations, leaving his not so clever customers to extricate themselves as well as they could. As usual, he’d melted away from the scene before he could be identified. How he always managed his escape, nobody knew. One minute he was right there with them, the next, he wasn’t.
In four long strides, the gym teacher closed the distance between himself and the wayward students. He landed a heavy hand on Carlotta’s shoulder. “What were you doing? Were you smoking—”?
“Let go of me,” Carlotta screeched, and struggled. The next thing she knew, she was being dragged to the principal’s office. The four boys apprehended with her came on their own accord, not minding that they’d been busted for dope smoking in school. They staggered along with deadpan expressions and let out an occasional giggle or sigh for the benefit of no one in particular.
Carlotta knew their type—they were the lucky ones. They’ll be so glad to totally get suspended. Finally, they can quit school without anyone making a fuss.
“How on earth did you come about this?” Mrs. McWatters, the principal of the middle school, demanded in her office, the loose flesh on her neck wiggling as she spoke.
Carlotta glanced around and stalled for time. She knew it wouldn’t be cool to rat out Slinky Sam, so she struggled to come up with some other kind of explanation. Quick! Say something.
The gym teacher moved off to one side and started describing what he had discovered in a high-minded voice.
“I had it at home last night,” Carlotta cut-in, her eyes narrowing in defiance. She flashed a scathing look at the gym teacher who immediately fell silent and backed away.
“I want to know who supplied you with— With this stuff,” the principal demanded. “Don’t you dare turn your back on me, young lady!” she added, yanking on Carlotta’s arm to prevent her from walking away.
“It’s called marijuana and I brought it to school with me, all right?” Carlotta snapped. “Jeez! Leave me alone.” She struggled to pry Mrs. McWatters’ clamp-like fingers off her arm. “Let go of me,” she screamed. “I hate you and your stupid school!”
But when the principal’s fingers wouldn’t budge, Carlotta planted her teeth around the woman’s wrist and clamped her jaw shut with all her might.
Startled, Mrs. McWatters yelped like a puppy and released her prey immediately. Cradling her injured arm to her chest, she stepped back to her desk and picked up the phone.
“Get Dr. Ikedi on the line for me at once!” She slammed down the receiver.
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