Sidekick: The Misadventures of the New Scarlet Knight by Pab Sungenis

yardsticks that had been lying there. “It’s a simple routine, I’m sure, so just walk through it slowly with these.” He handed her a yardstick, and she looked at me expectantly.
    “Sure, Mrs. Carr. Let’s show them.” I leaned in and whispered a quick question. “Why are you doing this?”
    “Ask me later,” she whispered back with a wink.
    I took the other yardstick and took up a classic fencing position. She responded in kind, and we were off and running.
    For not having any time to choreograph an actual fight, we didn’t do half bad. She’d obviously done a good deal of fake fighting for the Ren-faire, and the one thing I’d really learned in fencing club was how to spar with people who weren’t as good as I was, because there’s nothing more boring than a three-second fight. After about a minute, I deliberately let her “disarm” me and dropped to my knees. She pointed the yardstick at my throat and smiled.
    The damn cop started clapping.
    The principal looked impressed. So was I. It was the worst lie we could have concocted, and yet somehow we seemed to have pulled it off beautifully. “Very nice. You two really have the beginning of something impressive there. If you haven’t talked to Mr. Jones about doing it for his Civ classes yet, you ought to. Of course, there is still the wrinkle of the zero-tolerance policy to deal with.”
    “Oh, come on Barbara.” Mrs. Carr was turning on all her charm and aiming it right at the principal. “I already told you he didn’t bring it onto school grounds. I did, and for legitimate, educational purposes. Really, how could Bobby have ever gotten that thing past our metal detectors?”
    The principal nodded. Mrs. Carr had made a good point. Of course, I wasn’t going to tell either of them how I had managed to smuggle it, not to mention my armor, past the metal detectors. Not since I had every intention of doing it again. Some things are best kept from the general public.
    “Good point. So he didn’t actually bring it onto the grounds. He still had it in his possession, unsupervised.”
    “Maybe, but you don’t have to expel him for that, do you? Or have him arrested? I’ve explained how this was all just a mistake.”
    No, but at best, and I do mean absolute best, it showed terrible judgment on both his part and yours. I can’t overlook this.”
    “Barbara, this is instructional equipment. He was under my instruction, and … ”
    “It’s not part of the curriculum.” There was no way the principal was going to cut me any kind of a break on this one. She pulled some paperwork out of her desk and started writing. “Since it is apparent no students were threatened, nor does there appear to be any intent on Mr. Baines’ part to do harm to any student or administrator, I don’t think there’s a need to press criminal charges. Do you, officer?”
    “I don’t think so,” the cop said, slumping over in his chair, as if disappointed he wasn’t going to get to run me in. “He didn’t bring it onto the school grounds.” (Shows you how much he knew, but again I wasn’t going to say that.) “And he didn’t brandish it or threaten anybody. I don’t really have much room to arrest him on my own.” He glared at me. “Not that I can think of, but give me some time. Unless the school changes its mind on criminal charges.”
    “We’re not changing it,” the principal said. “At least, not yet. The school board is going to want a full investigation, and we’ll see what happens after that. As for right now, I’m not going to escalate this to expulsion, but I don’t have much wiggle room other than that. Policy requires immediate out-of-school suspension.”
    What? Suspension? No no no !Not when I was this close to … well, okay. I wasn’t all that close to getting into college as far as I could tell. But still, I’d worked so hard to make it on my own terms, and the whole hero gig had come around to bite me on the ass, after all. I barely