Better Off Without Him Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mr. Arnold. “Why?”
    “It really doesn’t matter why she did it, Mrs. Berman, the fact is – “
    “It matters to me,” I interrupted.
    “Well, I really don’t know why. Let’s bring her in, shall we?” He got up, spoke into his telephone, and a moment later Lauren walked into his office.
    She looked miserable. Her shoulders were hunched, her eyes were red, and her perky braid had come undone. “Mommy, I’m so sorry,” she whimpered, and started to cry.
    I stood up and swept her into my arms. My poor baby. My heart was breaking for her. Really. I wiped the hair from her eyes and looked into her unhappy little face. “What the hell were you thinkin’?” I yelled at her.
    She took a lungful of air. “It’s just that she broke it,” she wailed.
    I shot a look at Mr. Arnold. “Who broke what?”
    “Bernadette,” Lauren explained at a gallop. “ See, Jessica was supposed to carry the project from Mrs. Chambers’s room, and when she brought it in, all the strands along the top, you know, the green ones, well, they were all broken off, so I started to yell at Jess, and Jess said she didn’t do anything, and Ahmed said he saw Bernadette reach up and break them as Jess walked by, so I went to Bernadette and asked her if she broke our project, and she said yeah, she did, that it was a stupid project anyway, and then she started to laugh. So I grabbed the project from Jess and hit her over the head with it. Hit Bernadette, not Jess. Jess just stood there with her mouth hanging open.” Lauren moved her shoulders in a pitiful kind of way. “I was just so mad.”
    I was staring at Mr. Arnold, who had the good grace to look uncomfortable. “So, Bernadette ruined the science project that you and your sister spent six weeks working on?” I asked Lauren, but my eyes never left Mr. Arnold’s face.
    I could feel Lauren nod. I narrowed my eyes. “Let’s hear Bernadette’s side of this, shall we, Mr. Arnold?”
    Mr. Arnold left the room. I shook my head at Lauren. “You bopped her with five feet of plastic straw and miniature marshmallows?”
    A smile played along her lips. “Yes. I’m really sorry, Mom, but she is such a bitch. Honest. She is.”
    “Lauren, honey, I believe you. But you’re the one who keeps me from running off to join the circus. If you start acting like your sisters, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
    “Daddy’s going to be pissed, isn’t he?”
    I exhaled slowly. “Oh, dear. Well, I don’t know. I have a feeling you’ll be getting away with this one.”
    Mr. Arnold returned with Bernadette and Bernadette’s mother, a shallow-faced woman I recognized at once. Sometime in the recent past, during a sixth grade PTA bake sale, she had given me a hard time because I only wanted six brownies and refused to pay for a whole dozen. Her name, as I recalled, was Bridget or Britta or Greta. I didn’t like her.
    “My daughter,” she said at once, “could have been seriously injured. She called me on her cell phone as soon as it happened, she was so distraught.”
    “Your daughter,” I spat back, “got hit with plastic straws held together by miniature marshmallows and craft glue. The only way she could have gotten hurt is if one of the straws went so far up her nose that it severed her brain stem. Who are you kidding? Injured?” I looked hard at Mr. Arnold. “So, what is going to be Bernadette’s punishment?”
    Mr. Arnold looked puzzled. Bernadette and her mother looked immediately on guard.
    “What do you mean?” Mr. Arnold asked.
    “There’s a zero tolerance policy when it comes to assault. What’s the policy about the deliberate destruction of personal property?”
    Bridget/Britta/Greta looked nervous. Mr. Arnold still didn’t get it.
    “Those kids last year,” I went on, “the ones who slashed the tires in the parking lot? Didn’t they get an immediate suspension too?”
    “Well, now, Mrs. Berman, this isn’t quite the same thing now, is it?” Mr. Arnold could see the