Behind Shatter-proof Glass

Mariella didn't see what was so odd about it. All she did was make a glass of tea. There was no rule about cold drinks in glasses and hot drinks in mugs, so if people did burn themselves, that was their fault for making assumptions. Did that make her crazy?

Miss Stevens leaned over. "Do you need to use the restroom?"

Dad made a little huff and slouched lower in his plastic seat. "She'll go when she's ready."

Turning her narrow-eyed attention toward Dad, Miss Stevens said, "She's squirming."

"I know. She does this." Dad looked straight ahead, arms crossed over his chest. There was a grease stain on his sleeve, like four greasy fingers had grabbed his arm. "She waits and waits until it's an emergency. It's just something she does."

Miss Stevens turned back to Mariella, swinging her legs off the plastic chair in between them. "Do you need to use the restroom, Mariella?"

"I'm good." Mariella's legs swung back and forth, back and forth. She was trying to time it to the ticking of the big wall clock.

"You know," Miss Stevens said. "You can go before you absolutely have to go."

"Thank you." Tick. Tick. Tick.

Dad sighed.

"I'm just trying to help," Miss Stevens said.

"Look. Lady," Dad said. "I can appreciate it's an awkward situation. I know you're trying to be nice. You've known my daughter less than a year, so you're not really up to speed on what's been tried already. This is round one for you, this is is round two hundred and ten for me." He patted Mariella's knee. "It's okay, kiddo."

Well, now the swings were off the ticks. "Thanks, Dad."

The office door opened, and the principal stepped out. He glanced and nodded at Miss Stevens, spared a squinty side-eye for Mariella, and focused stern attention on Dad. "You can go ahead in. I hope we can resolve this...fairly."

Miss Stevens stood up, and Dad did, too, but he kept his eyes on the floor. The principal smiled tightly at Mariella, putting his hands on his knees to get down to her height. "I hope you know how lucky you are, young lady."

Mariella didn't believe in luck. "Thank you."

The principal walked off down the hallway, and Miss Stevens put a bandaged hand on the open door. "You're sure you don't want to use the restroom?"

"She'll go when she's ready," Dad sighed, his hands in his pockets. "Let's get this over with."

The guidance counsellor smiled at the three of them as they shuffled inside. "Hello, Mariella!" she said in a voice that sounded like a Cinnabon smells. "How are you, sweetie?"

Not sweet. "Fine, thank you."

Rising a little from her chair, the guidance counsellor stuck out a glittery-nailed hand. "You must be Dad!"

Turning side-on, Dad briefly took her soft, pillowy hand in his rough square one. "Martin Shields."

"You can call me Leslie," the guidance counsellor said as they all took different seats. "Thank you so much for coming in. You've already met Miss Stevens?"

"We met at the house."

"My house," Miss Stevens specified.

"Right." The guidance counsellor's eyes went wide as she looked at something on her computer screen. "Now, I'm just here as a neutral third party while we move forward. Miss Stevens has agreed that there was no ill intent, and is choosing not to press charges at this time. Because the incident was not perpetrated on school property, there's no prohibitive policy against Mariella continuing her education, but we do want to establish boundaries to prevent any escalating incidents. Okay?"

Dad shifted in his chair like he needed to use the restroom. "Lot of cop-colored language in there."

"Well, it's a serious issue," Miss Stevens said.

"And we want to be sure our faculty is protected," the guidance counsellor said. "Miss Stevens has expressed that she does not consider Mariella to be a threat, but a permissive precedent could allow other students, faculty, and staff to be put at risk. We want to be very clear about what is acceptable and what is not."

"I could be a threat," Mariella noted.

Dad put his big hand on her shoulder. "No, nope, that's not--"

"I'm happy to put this behind us," Miss Stevens said. "Different students have different needs, and different ways of coping with situations. We have a very strict definition of limits for the classroom, and now it looks like we need to draw some boundaries for outside the classroom."

"I would take this seriously, Mr. Shields," the guidance counsellor said. "If this can't be resolved to our satisfaction, we may have to turn it over to other institutions."

Dad put his hands together like he was in church. "I am taking this seriously. What you guys have to understand is: Mariella is not like other kids. Things don't process the same way. Tell her don't touch the hot stove, she'll touch it to find out how hot it is. She's not trying to cause trouble, she's just seeing the world through a different lens."

"And I appreciate that," Miss Stevens said. "But in most shark attacks, the shark was just curious. It takes a tasting bite to figure out what something is. And then a surfer can't surf anymore."

"Oh, come on," Dad groaned. "My daughter is not a shark. What harm do you expect her to do?"

Mariella shrugged. "I could have set a fire. Or put pesticide in the coffee maker. Or left the gas on after blowing out the pilot light. Or--"

"Hey," said Dad. "Shut up."

The guidance counsellor leaned back in her chair, which made a noise like she farted. Mariella giggled, and Dad put his head in his hands.

"I think you see the problem, Mr. Shields," the guidance counsellor said. "Miss Stevens has been very understanding, but we have to think of her safety. And the safety of anyone else whose house was broken into." She turned to Mariella and smiled. "Can you tell us how many houses, sweetie?"

"Don't tell her that," Dad said quickly. Mariella counted on her fingers: the Warby house, the Jeffries house, the Singh--Dad grabbed her hands.

"You can't keep enabling her behavior," Miss Stevens said.

"I'm not enabling," Dad said. "But you're not a cop. Or a psychiatrist. Even if you want what's best for my daughter, you don't know her needs like I do. I will respect your boundaries. Please respect mine."

The guidance counsellor leaned forward and lowered her voice. "Has Mariella been evaluated?"

"You can't just shove her in a remedial classroom or a special needs program," Dad said. "You don't get to cheat her out of an education just because she's a bit different."

"I agree," said Miss Stevens.

Dad turned sideways in his chair to look at her, and the guidance counsellor's eyes went wide. Miss Stevens folded her hands like she was in church, too. "I completely agree. I don't think anything in Mariella's schooling needs to change. She's quite capable of grasping the material, and there's nothing disruptive in her classroom conduct. Putting her in a program is only going to stunt the progress she's made socially, and create a stigmatizing transcript for future schools. I don't want her sectioned off, I just don't want her breaking into my house."

Dad slumped in his chair and sighed, slowly turning into a pile of grease-stained laundry. The guidance counsellor puffed out her cheeks, tapping her glittery fingers on the desk. "Okay," she said. "Perfectly reasonable. Now." She leaned forward and smiled. "Mariella. Do you understand why what you did was wrong?"

Mariella fidgeted, twisting her fingers together and apart. Church, not church, church, not church. "Not really."

"Well, Miss Stevens did not give you permission to be in her house."

"She wasn't supposed to be home," Mariella said. "I just wanted to see inside. Does that make me crazy? Most of the time, people don't even know I've been there."

"She doesn't take anything," Dad mumbled.

"That's not the point," Miss Stevens said. She turned toward Mariella. "It's important to follow the rules, Mariella. Even if nobody's looking."

Dad rubbed a hand across his forehead, leaving a streak of grease. "You're wasting your time. We've been over and over this."

"I'm not prepared to give up yet," Miss Stevens said. "Mariella. Can you--"

Mariella jumped up from her chair. "I gotta go!"

Throwing open the door, tearing down the hall and dashing into the girls' room, Mariella yanked down her pants and sat before slamming the door closed with her sneaker, breathing a long sigh of relief as rushing water streamed into the bowl. Just made it. A smile blossomed across Mariella's face as all that pent-up tension washed away.

No one would know if she didn't flush.

All nice and relaxed, almost weightless, Mariella drifted through the corridor. The adults wouldn't miss her, they talked over her more than they talked to her, and none of them had anything interesting to say. As she floated down the hall, Mariella ran her hand along the wall of lockers, fingers trailing over the cheap padlocks. Key locks. Combinations. Child's play.

The locked classrooms were a bit more interesting, but most of those rooms, Mariella had been in before. Looking through the shatter-proof glass, they were all basically the same layout. There weren't any she wasn't allowed inside.

Mariella slipped into the boys' restroom. It was a lot like the other bathrooms Mariella had seen, and with the school being mostly empty this time of day, it was unlikely a boy would walk in. There was the brief thrill of being where no one would look for her, but there was no satisfaction in an unlocked door.

But then, there was the teachers' lounge. That door had a window, but the blinds were tight shut, and Mariella had never seen inside. She pulled a couple safety pins off her jacket and felt her way through the lock, twisting and probing until she managed to get the click. When that lock popped, it was like a bursting bladder, a flood of relief. She breathed.

It was always so soothing to be where she didn't belong. The more taboo or inaccessible a hideaway was, the longer it would take anyone to find her. It took away the constant pressure of being polite, doing the right thing, why don't you smile. Her Dad had given up caging her, given up tracking her down. He trusted she would come home when she was ready. Let Mariella have that control.

Her Mom couldn't handle it. Her Mom had clutched a burned hand over a shattered glass of hot tea on the day that she spat the word, "psychopath."

Slipping inside the teacher's lounge, Mariella studied the cheap chairs clustered by the round table. The couch cushions in sweet potato orange and avocado green, dotted with cigarette burns that pre-dated the No Smoking sign. Running her hand along the counter, Mariella stood on tiptoe to peer into the cabinets. She pulled down a bottle of honey labeled with masking tape, a big yellow box of black tea, and a tall glass.

There were voices in the hallway. Miss Stevens. Dad. With the blinds down, no one could see inside the lounge. Would they even look, knowing Mariella was not allowed to be there? They might expect the door to be locked, and then that was their assumption.

Mariella filled the electric kettle, and waited to be found.