Life Before Legend: Stories of the Criminal and the Prodigy Read Online Free PDF Page B

regards both of us.
    The boy holds up his hands in defense. “She provoked me. You’ve heard the warnings
     about this girl before—”
    “Yes,” the officer cuts him off, “and responding to a twelve-year-old child’s provocations
     is truly a sign of a mature sophomore.” The boy flushes at her words. “Get to your
     dean secretary’s office. You’ll be lucky if you’re not suspended for a week after
     this.”
    The boy does as she says, but not before casting an ugly look in my direction.
Good riddance.
I don’t even know his name.
    I’m about to thank the officer when she cuts me off with a glare. “On your feet and
     at attention, cadet,” she snaps. I hurry into the stance. The officer puts her hands
     behind her and sneers at me. “Harion High warned us about you, you know. They said
     that even though you could handle the coursework at Drake, you might not be mature
     enough to survive the rest of the university. And it looks like they’re right.”
    “But I didn’t even touch him,” I say.
    “You were right in the middle of a fight with him,” the officer replies, gesturing
     around her. “I saw it with my own eyes.”
    “No, you didn’t. Did you ever see me strike him?”
    A small hint of frustration appears in the officer’s eyes. “Do we really need to debate
     this, Iparis? An entire crowd of students witnessed the two of you, and I should think
     that’s plenty of evidence for your secretary to deal with.”
    I shake my head. “With all due respect, ma’am, what the other students saw was a sophomore
     boy who tried over and over again to hit me but failed. They also saw me spend the
     entire time ducking and dodging. I never put a finger on him. And until that last
     hit that you saw, he also didn’t lay a finger on
me
.”
    To my pleasant surprise, the officer hesitates for a second. Everything I said does
     match what she actually saw. I press on. “It can’t be a fight between the two of us
     if I never even touched him, right?”
    She searches my face, and behind her irritated expression lies some small, subtle
     hint of admiration. Somehow, I’ve managed to impress her. “I’ll let your dean secretary
     decide what to do with you,” she finally replies, although she doesn’t sound as harsh
     as she did a second ago. “Her name is Ms. Whitaker, and she’s in Albott Hall. Say
     what you will in defense of yourself, cadet, but if every day turns out to be like
     this first day, then Drake just might have to send you right back to high school.
     I have my eye on you. Understand?”
    I mutter a response and head off toward my dean’s building. When I glance over my
     shoulder, the officer is still standing there, watching me go. She places a call on
     her earpiece and I wonder if she’s talking about me.
    Despite all my pleading, I’m hit with a report for the whole thing. I stare miserably
     at the gold slip of paper as I sit at the back of my last afternoon class (Republic
     History 2080–2100), hoping that the students several seats down from me don’t notice.
     Slapped with a report on my very first day at Drake. Based on my own research about
     the university, if a student got more than five reports in one year, she would be
     placed on leave—a nice way of saying that she’d been suspended for the following year
     and required to attend a series of disciplinary classes at a boot camp. If a student
     got more than five reports after that, then she’d be expelled. Apparently I’ve given
     myself a head start on suspension. Metias won’t be happy to hear about this—although
     I don’t think I can get into
that
much trouble with him. He’d been the one who wanted me to stand up for myself, right?
     I’d done nothing wrong. I’d only defended myself. Still, the whole ordeal makes my
     stomach churn . . . I thought I was being so clever, that doing what I did would leave
     some sort of impression on my elders, that it would help my standing in the