How Green Becomes Wood

Dark ran one tattooed hand through his hair, fully aware this was a battle he chose to fight, and one he could've simply avoided. But he was here now, and it mattered to him.

"I don't think you all need to be here for the statements," Bernice told them, "I think for today, the best course of action is to allow them to go back to class." She hesitated, knowing it wasn't right to let anything happen, "I am going to institute a week of in-school suspension for the two who were involved in breaking Tobias' skateboard. I am going to work out the exact nature of the suspension and I will call you individually to discuss it. Before I send these boys back to class, I would like their written statements."
 
Mike's mother nodded quickly. "I think I can agree to that," she said. When Mike started to protest, she gave him a sharp look. "We'll be talking about your behavior later. Not now."

"Very well. If that is all." Jud's mother stood and gave him a level look. "I will be home late. I expect you to have your homework done by the time I get home, and then we'll be discussing this, as well." She marched out with a sharp clicking of her heels.

Ned's father still sat for a moment, mulling things over. He glanced at Lex. "Bullied at school, were you?"

Lex snorted. "Hell, no, I was the bully. A nasty one, too." She looked at him evenly. "I did a lot of stuff I regret, but there's no changing the past. I know what I did to others, and I don't want my son going through the same things. I want him to be better than me and to have a better life. Don't you? For your kids?"

Micky's father glanced at Ned's. "She's got us there. We were the stars back then, but were those days really as shiny as we like to remember them being?"

Ned took a deep breath, tapping his fingers on the table, and let it out in a rush. "Maybe. Maybe not. I still say this is overblown, but..." He glanced toward Toby. Then he stood abruptly. "Times change. So do the people living in them."

Ned's mother gave him a hug - making him wrinkle his nose - and told him, "We'll talk about this when we get home, and I'll see about finding you a therapist to see if we can't get to the bottom of this behavior. It's so unusual for you!"

Mike's mother rolled her eyes but said, "I need to get back to work. This was supposed to be my lunch break, and Amy can't cover for me for too long."

Micky's father stood and opened the door for her, and they left, trailing out one by one until only Austin and his mother were left.

Austin's mother - who looked incredibly tiny next to her son even though she was barely on the small side of average - leaned toward him, talking softly to him. "I'm proud of you today," she said, her words barely audible. She touched his hand gently. "Keep telling the truth just like you have been. Okay?"

He nodded almost shyly.
 
Dark sighed heavily, allowing himself to pass one hand over his face before standing up to his full 6'8 height, extending one hand to Bernice, "Thank you for working with us on that. I am sure it was not easy, nor what you had plans for today."

Bernice looked a long, long way up at him and then shook his hand with a tiny smile, "I don't know if I miss arguing with you or not. But I suppose I have to agree the situation here has gotten out of hand."

"We can talk about it," Dark told her, crossing his arms, "I do not believe this meeting is sufficient, and I think there are plenty more victims, and victims' parents or guardians, at this school who deserve a voice, and an avenue to discuss it."

"You may be correct... I will look into it, I will see what can be done."

He nodded to her, and then she set about separating the teenagers. She would bring Micky to her office, have a secretary watch Jud, Toby and Austin could stay here, and the Vice Principal could watch Ned and Micky, unless she could find a teacher on their free period to let them sit apart from each other, too.
 
Austin's mother started to leave but paused to nod to Dark. She didn't realize how far up she was looking at first, accustomed to looking up at her husband and son. Austin, on the other hand, blatantly ogled at Dark, his eyes widening as he realized just how tall Dark was. He didn't even realize he was staring. He just was. Dark was so tall! Austin's mother glanced at him, realizing something was amiss, then looked again at Dark. Her expression said, "Oh,"even if she remained silent. She gave Austin a little nudge to remind him of his manners and then hurried out. Austin tried to stop staring, but she couldn't quite manage it.

Lex still remained with Toby, gently removing the bits of broken board from his hands. She glanced at the principal. "I'll leave him to write down his statement, but then I'm taking him home," she said. It was not a question or a request. Toby was too shaken to be any good at school today.
 
Dark returned her nod, having decided he liked this woman who had rarely spoken during the meeting. Of course he noticed their stares of shock and amazement, so he nodded once more of them to acknowledge yes, I am quite tall, and then turned away.

"I understand," Bernice replied empathetically, feeling no need to argue there, "If you would like, you can have him write it out at home, and have him bring it back with him."
 
Lex hesitated and frowned. "No, thank you," she said at last. "I appreciate the consideration, but I think it's better he do it here and now." She turned to Toby and said gently, "Hey. I'm going to stand in the hallway, alright? You write down exactly what happened, and then we'll head home. Okay?"

Toby nodded and took a few deep breaths. "Okay," he whispered.

Lex squeezed his shoulder and stepped out, leaving the boys to write in solitude.
 
His work mostly completed, Dark nodded once more, this time to himself, and stepped out after Lex into the hallway.

"Are you alright?" He asked, going to stand beside her in the hall.
 
Lex leaned against the wall and rubbed her forehead with one hand, the other arm resting across her middle. "I could use a smoke so bad right now," she muttered angrily. Her anger wasn't directed entirely at Dark. "Fat, smug faces."
 
"That is understandable," He replied, leaning with her, "but we are probably better off without them. I could probably access gum fairly quickly. I never found it particularly helpful."
 
Lex snorted and dropped her hand to half hug herself, her hand holding opposite forearms. "It helps a little, but, nah. I'll be alright. It's just... those... fatheads wouldn't take it seriously, and he was sitting there trying not to cry while holding the greatest achievement he ever got. Grind for Life is a fundraiser for cancer patients, you know, and he worked so hard for a year to save up half the money to get himself to Florida. I gave him the other half, and he went with my then-boyfriend. Nice guy, that boyfriend, one of the best I ever dated, but it didn't work out. My fault. Then he won the competition! This was a couple of years ago. Toby just wanted to show his friends and promised me he wouldn't ride it in the halls. And then this happens." She stopped and gritted her teeth, fire flaring in her eyes again as she glared at nothing.
 
"I am sorry," Dark said. It was difficult to think up much more to say than that. He knew some things were irreplaceable and although there were certainly those who would tell her he could always save up and go back, and maybe he'd win again---nothing would give him that board back, and any talk about 'he'll always have the memories' wouldn't do much to make it hurt less. "Truly."
 
Lex sighed. "I wish you'd have let me call them out to the parking lot. Entitled parents raising entitled kids." She glanced sidelong at him and reluctantly admitted, "You were right. Shouldn't have let my temper get away with me. So. Thanks."
 
Dark stared silently into the middle distance for some time in perfect silence. Then, he said, without looking at her, "I have seen too much of violence."

Then, after some time, he looked back at her, "There was, by the way, exactly one time I 'socked' someone here, but it was not for reasons like in there."
 
"You'd think I'd have had my fill, as well, but, I dunno. I guess my blood is always set to boil," Lex sighed. "At least, when it comes to things like Toby. I guess I am always trying to make up past failures. Impossible, of course, but you still find yourself trying. Especially when it comes to your kids. Would you believe that this is actually me calmed down a lot from when I was a kid?" She glanced at him. "It must have been a pretty serious situation for you to do a thing like that."
 
Dark watched her for a few moments, expression as serious, intense, and sad as it ever was. Even at his happiest, which he was not just now, sorrow hung on him as a cloak. "I have worked rather hard to not be that way, the sort who boils quickly, because... Well." He turned away again, not finishing his sentence, "It was serious. There was some part of me, which I am not proud of, who enjoyed it. And then despised it, all at once. There is still a banked-down part who still has that rage."
 
"I never had that rage, but I knew plenty of people who did," Lex said. "I just... flash burn sometimes. Not as often as I used to. Most of that fire I worked to put out or at least bank, like you, but, yeah, it's still there and it will always be there. At least it's not as bad as it used to be." She scuffed her foot absently. "Can't say I ever enjoyed that part of me, but I didn't dislike it as much as maybe I should have."
 
"Enjoyed is a difficult word." Dark replied, not knowing how to go about beginning to explain the complicated nature of it. He didn't know if he understood it himself. "I suppose--satisfaction, may be more accurate. It was satisfying. And I still..." like the hurt of it. "I think Daizi flash-burns. But she can hold a grudge, too. I suppose I do, too. But the point of everything is to learn how to let the devil out without him burning you up as he goes."
 
"That's a good one," Lex said with a little nod. "Good phrase. I think I get it out almost exclusively in my work now. Literally melting and setting things on fire to turn them into art or useful things or both. Pilates, too, that helps a lot. For me, anyway. I got some very different demons than you, I think. Different kind of violence to deal with. Usually I still keep it in hand, but sometimes..." She glanced toward the door. "How long do you think they'll be?"
 
"Yes, I would imagine ours are different. I would be shocked if they were not." He told her simply but honestly. There were some things in his past he believed were more than plausible to exist in the childhood of someone who grew up in New Jersey. But most of it would have been rather startling. "I do not know. I suppose it depends on how much they have to say, and how quickly they can write it out."

As he said this, a familiar, colourful man came around the corner, wide-eyed, "Oh goodness, goodness, goodness!" Art Major, the art teacher exclaimed, "They told me you were here, I was so full of doubt, but there you are!" He exclaimed, practically leaping as he hurried over, looking like he was about to explode or cry.

"Hello, Art. How have you been?"

"How have I been? How have you been! Oh, I've been marvelous! Marvelous! You ought to see the work I have been doing inspired by Aye-Ayes! And Rose, sweet, dear, darling Rose--still in class, I'm afraid, talking with a student! Hetty too. But you shan't leave until they both say hello! This school is simply not the same without you skulking around! Simply not the same! Not the same at all!"
 
Lex watched the pair in clear amusement. She was being completely ignored, but she was okay with that. This was fun to watch.

A few seconds later, the door opened, and Austin and Toby emerged. Toby went straight to his mother, still downcast but holding it together. Lex picked up the pieces of board from the floor, put an arm around him, and steered him toward the doors leading out. "See you around," she called back briefly to Dark before heading out.

Austin walked more slowly, still glancing at Dark. He was trying not to be rude, but he couldn't remember the last time he had to look up to anyone.
 
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