Isabel

“Mom, have you seen my keys?” I yelled down the stairs. They weren’t in my purse, my pockets, my backpack, or the bowl on my dresser.

“No, honey, they probably got summoned again!” Mom yelled back to me. “You’re going to have to use the duplicates!”

“But those got summoned yesterday, and they haven’t come back yet!”

“You’re just going to have to walk, then, Freddie. I have to go to work, I’ll see you this evening.”

And so began my Tuesday, grumpily walking to school, all the way across the Orangedown. Mom was just lucky that her keys never got summoned, so she could still drive her fancy car to work only six blocks away.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, sending a jolt through my butt. I pulled it out to see that my friend Mabel had texted me. It read, with six exclamation marks at the end, “Can you bring over a pair of sneakers, Sarah summoned mine again!!!!!!”

This was a normal thing to happen on Tuesday mornings, so I had a pair of sneakers in my backpack already.

The problem was, Mabel’s house was a few minutes drive to my right, while school was a five minute drive to my left. That meant it was a ten minute walk to Mabel‘s house and a twenty minute walk to school, but I only had fifteen minutes to get to school, so there was absolutely no time for Mabel.

I texted back, saying exactly that, but Mabel being Mabel, she whined a bunch and yelled that I was never able to help her with anything.

This added another thing to my mental list of things gone wrong today. First off, I’m gonna be late for school because both my keys were summoned, and now Mabel was mad at me.

Usually, I liked Tuesdays, but this Tuesday was starting to suck.

I raced up the sidewalk towards Orangedown High School just as the bell was ending its ringing. I dashed, running stupidly through the halls, with the stragglers heading into class staring and the teachers yelling, towards the staircase at the back of the school. I took the steps two at a time and dashed into the second classroom on the right, at the top of the stairs.

But no sooner had I sat down in English II than my backpack and all its contents got summoned.

Mrs. Chester strutted into the room, took one tiny glance at my materials-less, sweaty, panting self, and said, “Freddie, I can’t believe I have to say this to you, but please go to the principals office.”

I panicked, and said frantically, “No, why, Mrs. Chester, my backpack got summoned, and I was late, so I ran-“

“Really, Freddie? Don’t make this worse. Please go to the principal’s, and you might not get in any more trouble.”

“Yes, Mrs. Chester,” I responded sullenly. So I picked myself up from my desk, and exited the classroom, with all of my twenty-one English II classmates staring at me, trying to hide their laughter and their pity.

Another thing added to my list of problems.

The principal’s office was way down on the first floor, back the way I came. As I walked down the first floor’s main hallway, I saw the faces of other students peeking out the windows at me. They surely knew what had happened, since most of them saw my mad dash down the hall.

The principal’s office was cozy, much more than the one in Orangedown Middle School. It had many plush couches pushed against the wall, and even the secretary sat on a loveseat instead of a hard plastic chair like the classrooms had.

“Good morning, Freddie,” Secretary Sherry said, bored, without looking up from her computer. “Here to see the principal?”

“Yes, Miss Sherry,” I said, keeping my eyes to the ground.

“He’ll see you in a few minutes.” she said. She dropped her voice and added, ”Peanut Carlson’s in there. You know what that means.”

I smiled, just a little bit. “Yes, Miss Sherry, I do.”

Most of the student body didn’t think Miss Sherry made a great secretary, on account of her distaste for the kids, but great love for gossip. Peanut Carlson was a freshman who loved getting into trouble and had an allergy for peanuts, contradicting his adorable name. He also lived just down the street from me, so I saw him a lot more than I’d wanted to.

I took a seat on the plaid, purple couch, which was next to the window. The window looked out over the front courtyard, where the kids who didn’t smoke but tolerated pigeons hung out during lunch. The back courtyard, of course, was used only by the smokers and outcasts. Everybody else ate lunch in the cafeteria, at the center of our H-shaped school.

I leaned my head on the arm of the couch. Outside, a pigeon was pecking at crumbs while another pigeon flapped around behind it. According to Mr. Spiel, my freshman biology teacher, birds’ buttholes doubled as their reproductive, uh, holes, and when mating, they rubbed their buttholes together. And if birds were humans, the pigeon in the back would be shaking his butt at the female pigeon who was just trying to eat her dinner in peace.

Miss Sherry’s sharp voice shook me out out my bird-mating trance. “Freddie, he’s ready to see you.”

“Oh, thank you, Miss Sherry.” I peeled myself off the purple couch, and walked past Miss Sherry’s desk, briefly brushing shoulders with the aforementioned Peanut Carlson. He smirked and winked at me, but I ignored it, because Peanut Carlson was a freshman baby who wore Axe bodyspray not because he thought it was cool, but because he knew it wasn’t.

A wood door was set in the back of the lobby, complete with a tiny, tinted window. I pushed open the metal doorknob, and peeked into the principal’s office. It was the same warm, brown, wood of the lobby, but it had shiny leather armchairs instead of plush, purple couches.

“Mr. Kipper? May I come in?” I asked. The principals of the Orangedown school district were very adamant about politeness, and asking to come in before you did.

“Ah, yes, Freddie Jenner! Come on in, I haven’t seen you in so long!” He said, looking up from his tiny mirror, which he used to comb his dyed, dark brown hair.

I sat down in one of the leather chairs, the one on the right, that was reserved for good kids like me.

“I was just fixing up my hair.” He put down his comb, and crossed his hands on the shiny, polished desk. “How are you?”

“Um, I’m good, Mr. Kipper. How are you?”

“I’m great, Freddie! Now, I know why you’re here. Mrs. Chester called me while you were waiting. I’m very disappointed in you, Freddie. You know how much this school cares about you.” He gestured to the wall of trophies on his left. The top row was reserved for the wrestling trophies, seven of which were credited to me.

“Yes, I do, Mr. Kipper, and I’m very sorry. Now may I go back to class?” I did my best puppy eyes, and flapped my meager eyelashes at him.

“No, I’m not done with you, Miss Jenner. Being late, running in the halls, and coming to class unprepared aren’t very serious offenses, but together, that’s a trip to detention. So, you’re being sent to detention, uh, tomorrow afternoon, from 3:30 to 5. I really hope this doesn’t happen again.”

As I was about to open my mouth to argue, for I had to work at the coffee shop tomorrow afternoon, a pop sounded in the air, and then I couldn’t breathe, see, or hear.

I was dragged out from underneath the mysterious thing by Miss Sherry. Mr. Kipper was also dragged out by Miss Sherry, and when she sat us down on the green couch, Mr. Kipper pointed his pretty brown eyes into my hazel ones.

“Freddie, what is this?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Kipper! I was crushed too!”

Miss Sherry turned her head around, one hand poised perfectly on the doorway. “There’s a rhinoceros in your office, Mr. Kipper.”

“Oh my goodness! Freddie, not only were you late, you ran down the hallways, you came to class unprepared, you brought your pet to school, and something was resummoned into my office, while you were at school, and oh my, oh my goodness, Freddie, you are in so much trouble. All these things together add up to a suspension, you know this, right?”

I looked down at my tiny hands, and meekly said, “Yes, Mr. Kipper,”

“Well then, Miss Jenner, you are suspended for three days’ time. I would tell you to go get your bag, but you can’t do that, because somebody in another dimension summoned it. I’ll call your mom to come pick you up. The rhinoceros too.”

Mr. Kipper got off the couch, and squeezed around the large, snuffling rhinoceros in the doorway. I sat in the lobby, staring at my feet and trying not to cry. I didn’t even have it in me to watch the mating pigeons. I’d never even gotten a detention, much less a suspension.

“Well, Miss Jenner, your mom is busy, and she said you can walk home, since your keys were summoned too. Or maybe you can ride that rhinoceros of yours.” Mr. Kipper said, returning to the lobby, his shirt wrinkled from the rhinoceros he squished against.

“It’s not my rhinoceros, Mr. Kipper.”

“I don’t care, Miss Jenner, just get out of my office. Peanut Carlson spread peanut butter all over the cafeteria floor, and I need to get a janitor on that, and issue a detention for him.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, squinting his currently glasses less eyes, which had been broken in the rhinoceros incident.

So that added the final and worst thing of my already awful Tuesday. It was only 9 in the morning, and I was leading a rhinoceros across the Orangedown with Mabel’s extra dog collar and leash, who owned a tiny, yappy, Pomeranian.