Harmless by Dana Reinhardt Page B

little freckled hand. Then I turned back to Carl.
    “What do you want me to say? Principal Glasser talked about new rules on campus. We have to, like, sign in and sign out and stuff. And he was all ‘ in loco parentis ’ or some Latin thing for how the school is our family when we're there, and families look out for each other, which is a lot more than I can say for certain people at this table.”
    He smiled the smile of someone overly pleased with him-self. “Now, that is an answer. That is what your mother was looking for. See how easy putting together a real sentence can be?” Then his face darkened. The vein in his big bald forehead was pulsating. “Now, if only you were smart enough to quit while you were ahead. I won't be disrespected at my dinner table. You are excused.”
    I pushed my chair back and tried to think about how I'd gotten to this moment so that I could remember it and do it again. Not have to sit with Carl at dinner? Not have to eat Constance's disgusting pot roast? I'd won. Victory was mine.
    I went to my room and picked up the phone. I decided I should call Emma. She didn't sit with us at the assembly. I saw her afterwards and she really looked upset. I was pretty freaked out too when I saw Detective Stevens there, but I felt better after he talked because hearing him address the school rein-forced my first impression of him as a goofball who didn't really seem to know what he was doing. Darby O'Shea proba-bly asked him to be there and he knew he couldn't say no even though he had nothing valuable to say about the so-calledinvestigation. I was going to tell Emma not to worry about Detective Scott Simpleton.
    Silas answered the phone. He sounded sleepy even though it was only eight-thirty. I could picture him lying on the couch in the basement watching TV or maybe throwing a basketball up in the air and catching it with his big strong hands.
    “Emma's not here. She and my mom are having a girls' night out, which I'm pretty sure involves dumplings and hot-and-sour soup.”
    “Oh. That sounds cool. So what about you? What are you doing?”
    “Just chilling. I'm staring at my books and willing them to impart wisdom to me without my having to actually open them and read them.”
    “Ah. Well, Silas, tonight is your lucky night. You happen to be on the phone with the master of the closed-book method of learning.”
    “Oh yeah?” I could hear him shifting his position. Maybe he was sitting up. Or maybe now he was lying down. “Tell me, wise master Mariah. How do you do it?”
    “By recognizing that learning is about so much more than what is written on those limited pages. I like to learn through life and its experiences.”
    “Aren't you, like, fourteen? What do you know about life experiences?”
    “More than you could probably guess.”
    “Hmmm … Intriguing …”
    I felt a bolt of something hot and electric rush through me. Stop, I thought. Breathe. Stay calm.
    “Please,” he said. “Go on.”
    I talked to Silas for almost an hour and only hung up because my mom was at my door and wouldn't go away even though I was shooing her with dramatic pantomime motions. She wanted to talk to me about my behavior at the dinner table, and also, she'd snuck me up some rice pudding that made me rethink my earlier assessment of Constance's cooking credentials.
    She sat on my bed and yawned. “Jess was hard to get to sleep tonight. She's really excited about this birthday party she's been invited to on Saturday. She wouldn't stop talking about it. But I also suspect that she's bothered by what happened between you and Carl.”
    “Mom. Really. If you are up here to scold me for making Jessica's bedtime routine tougher on you, I don't think I can handle that.”
    “No, Pumpkin. That's not why I'm here. I just really want you and Carl to get along better.”
    “I'm not so sure it's all my fault.”
    “I'm not saying it is. I'm just asking that you make more of an effort.”
    “Honestly, Mom. He can