Chapter 42

The hammer came down on Cameron just as quickly as I expected. The next day I got to school and everyone was talking about how both he and the newspaper’s editor, a senior, were expelled that morning as soon as they got to campus. The school resource officer even marched Cameron back out to his car without letting him clean out his locker or anything.

I expected a reaction, especially if they did fire the teacher, but I didn’t expect them to expel Cameron and the editor. For one, they hadn’t done anything that violated the school or district guidelines that would allow the administration to expel them. This wasn’t a private school. Cameron was entitled to an education and could only be expelled for violating specific rules. It’s what kept them from expelling me the year before, and I’d been a lot closer to breaking the rules than Cameron had. Hell, he’d gotten their faculty advisor’s approval for the article. They could fire the teacher who gave the approval, I guess, but they shouldn’t be able to go after the students.

I already felt guilty about it, but I felt doubly so after lunch.

“What are you going to do about Cameron?” Megan asked when I sat down.

Although Cameron had only joined our lunch group part way through last year, he and Megan had really hit it off, so it wasn’t surprising that she was concerned about him. What was surprising was that she thought I was the one who needed to do something about it.

“Why me? It sucks, but I’m sure his parents will get it cleared up. They can’t expel a student just for pissing off the administration. I have way too much going on in my own life; I don’t need to pick any more fights.”

“You were the one who told him to do it,” Megan said.

“Hold on. I didn’t tell him to do it. He stopped me and asked me about it, and I said just what I said now, that my life was way too crazy to take on other things at the moment. I said if he thought there was a story, he should look into it, but I didn’t tell him to write a story that all but accused Mr. Packer of violating anyone’s rights.”

“He said you told him it was an important story and it was up to him to tell it.”

I tried to think back. I might have said something like that the second time he asked me about it. It felt like the last month had all happened so fast, and I was having trouble keeping things straight. Maybe it was when Harry broke my windows or maybe it was when Dad took all my money, but I’d barely been paying attention when Cameron talked to me. It did sound important and I had thought someone should look into it, since I didn’t want to see Mr. Packer get away with more shit, but I wouldn’t have said that out loud, at least not without some kind of warning about the consequences of accusing any teacher of anything. Had I warned him?

“I may have said something about it being important, but I didn’t twist his arm. Besides, what the hell am I supposed to do about it? It’s not like I have any pull with Mr. Packer.”

“No, but you have connections none of us have. Cameron’s parents don’t really understand him. Do you think they’re going to fight the school district? They’re farmers struggling to make it. I know you two don’t talk about his home life much, but did you know they’ve refused buyouts from one of the big conglomerates twice? They can’t afford lawyers or whatever. They’ll probably either agree to put him in the alternative education school with all the other expelled students, where there isn’t any theatre program or anything else that could help him get into one of the college programs he wants. This could destroy his dreams. You know people. You know journalists and lawyers and all kinds of people his family don’t. You could help him.”

“That’s not fair, Megan. My dad’s basically taken everything I have except for the payment for last weekend’s performances. I’m more or less broke. Hell, I’m borrowing money right now to pay for a lawyer to fight my parents.”

“Fine, then don’t help. I’m organizing a walkout next week for him. So far, I have about fifty kids willing to walk off school, and some of my friends are trying to convince some of the kids on the basketball and baseball teams too. We’ll show the school what we think of this.”

That would be a mistake. I knew Mr. Packer. He was all about appearances. He could be strong-armed into doing the right thing if he thought he was saving face, or if the humiliation happened somewhere else, but students in his school walking out in protest? No, he’d dig in his heels so hard that the only thing that would get him to change his mind would be losing a lawsuit or having the district step in. I hadn’t been impressed by the district’s decision-making after they agreed I should be expelled or at least put in a separate program because of the restraining order thing with Aaron. The only thing I could think to do to fix this was something that would put enough pressure on the district that they’d start making noise or threaten to intervene. I had some thoughts on how to do that, and they might even work, but not if kids walked out.

“Damnit,” I said, annoyed I was being pushed into dealing with this on top of everything else. “Fine, I’ll help. I have some people I can call that might be able to make the administration reverse course, but you have to call off the walkout. Mr. Packer will never change his mind if you confront him to his face. He’ll see it as a personal challenge.”

“So you’ll do it? You’ll help him?” she said, without even batting an eye.

I suddenly realized she might have played me. Megan always acted kind of reckless and incapable of any long-term planning, but I knew she wasn’t dumb. What I didn’t realize, until this moment, was how devious she could be. She’d just played me like a puppet. And it worked. I already felt guilty enough; I really didn’t have a choice. And she was right about Cameron’s family. He had talked to me about them, and I did know that they had a lot of their own problems at the moment. It wasn’t a sure thing, but there was a chance they’d just let him finish up the courses he needed for a diploma at the alternative education school and leave it at that. They weren’t as crazy about his plans to be an actor as he was, so they might not even see it as a downside.

“Yes. I’ll do my best. I’m not making any promises, but I’ll try.”

“Great. I knew we could count on you,” she said, smiling in my face, all but confirming I’d been played.

I had to wait until after school to do anything, since the school frowned on students using cell phones during the school day. If this did work, it wasn’t going to take them long to figure out who was behind it, and I didn’t want to give them anything else to target me with if I could help it.

“Entertainment desk, Greg Wilson speaking,” a voice on the other end of the phone said.

“Greg, it’s Charlie Nelson. You wrote a piece about me last month.”

“Yeah,” he said, sounding a little confused. “I remember you, Charlie. What can I do for you? I assume it isn’t about the article, otherwise, I would have heard about it a while ago.”

“It’s not. It’s about a possible story you guys might be interested in about the school system up here. I know that’s not your normal beat, but I thought you might be interested or know someone over there who would be.”

“We do have people here who write about that kind of thing, although the city desk normally covers only Ashville unless the story is really good. Don’t you guys have a school newspaper for whatever it is you want covered?”