Sam's long hair and his refusal to cut it has caused him problems. His smart mouth hasn't helped. Attacked in the locker room by Leon, Sam defended himself and through luck or happenstance, left Leon out cold and bleeding on the floor...

2. I'm in so much trouble...

Some of my friends found me during the commotion. Walter Adkins, Skip Gordon and I had been friends since grade school, probably because we were all outsiders of sorts. Plus we rode the same bus. Walter was a light-skinned, freckled, red-haired, black kid. With glasses. Yeah. Even less of an athlete than me, if possible. Skip had recently hit a growth spurt and towered over Wally and me. He had sprouted a face full of acne, too, and still wore the braces he claimed to have inherited from his older brothers.

Also, there were cops. They made me sit on the concrete, just under the overhang outside the gym doors, far enough to the side to be out of the way. I'd answered a million questions and sometime during that, Skip and Wally had shown up and sat down nearby.

It must have been lunch time but I wasn't hungry. I was worried sick about Leon, truth to tell. The paramedics had come and taken him away, so I guessed he was still alive. I felt terrible about what had happened and the cops kept having to ask me more questions because I kept bawling while trying to answer them.

Mostly a lady cop questioned me. Her name badge said she was Officer Williston but she told me to call her Sarah. "Your name is Sam?" she asked.

"Uh, huh," I whimpered.

"Is that short for Samantha?" she asked, writing on her tablet.

I stared at her. "No, it's short for Samson." I might have put the teensiest bit of snark in my voice.

She nodded but didn't write anything down. "What were you doing in the boys' locker room, Sam?"

"I was trying to comb my hair in front of the mirror there," I said, pointing, since the big double doors were open and we could all see the place where it happened. And the bloodstain. I sniffled.

"Were you waiting for someone?"

"No, I was just--just combing my hair."

"Then what happened?"

"Leon came up and shoved me, and I fell down and broke my comb." I took the pieces out and showed them to her. It was a big yellow comb with wide teeth that were really friendly to long hair like mine.

"Did you know Leon?"

"Yes. He's in the same class as me."

"Had you had a disagreement with him before?"

"I guess you could say that. He accused me of being gay, and I called him fat."

"Are you gay?" She looked at me as if this were a really important question.

"No. I'm not gay!"

She nodded. "And Leon isn't your boyfriend?"

"No! I said--"

The other officer, Sergeant Corbin interrupted then by asking Skip and Wally what they were doing there. To which they both babbled incoherently. The Sergeant waved them to silence, then asked Sarah if she had all she needed.

"I think so," she said. Then she smiled at me, "We're done, honey, but I think someone from the school needs you to wait here."

She and the Sergeant wandered off while I sat nervously playing with the pieces of my comb.

"Are you going to jail?" Skip asked, his eyes big.

I shook my head.

"Good," said Wally, "cause anyone who looks like you would be way too popular in jail."

"Huh?" I said. Skip and Wally thought that was hilarious but I still didn't get it.

Ms. Burton, one of the girls' coaches called me. "Sam Tucker?"

"Yes'm?" I said.

She came over and offered a hand to help me up. "You okay, Sam? The cops said I should take you to see the school nurse."

"Huh? I'm fine," I said.

"You're white as clean laundry in a detergent commercial," she said. "Let's go."

I followed her, turning to wave goodbye to my friends. They waved back as if they were never going to see me again. Wally's eyes were big and round and I swear I saw Skip's chin tremble.

Ms. Burton took me down some pretty empty hallways and across to the Admin building where the school nurse had an office in the basement. "Dolores? Uh--Mrs. Packard?" she called as we entered. "Got a kid here looking shocky after an accident in gym."

She explained in more detail but I kind of tuned her out. I'd never been to the nurse's office before and it smelled funny. Ms. Burton finally left, saying, "I got to see to my other girls, make sure they aren't setting any fires."

The nurse, amazingly, had heard nothing whatsoever about the incident. "If something serious happens," she complained, "I'm always out of the loop." But she did offer me a cup of tea and a packet of crackers.

"I have napkins and tampons, too, dear, if you need them," she said.

I didn't need a napkin and I sure didn't need a tampon (I wasn't real sure what the heck that was, anyway), so I just shook my head.

"Well, you just lie here, honey, and I'll make some phone calls." She proceeded to do that, calling the principal's office first.

*

Well, despite the nurse thinking she was out of the loop, she's the one who finally gave me the news that Leon wasn't dead. He had a concussion and a scalp wound, not a cracked skull. They had taken him in an ambulance to the hospital where they ended up keeping him for three days.

And I finally got called to the principal's office. Mr. Kant, the vice principal, (the kid's called him Kan't-Hardly), said, "Fighting again?"

Ouch. Until that moment I had totally forgotten about a similar incident back in the fall when someone had pulled my ponytail, causing me to spill my lunch, and I had socked him in the groin. He'd gone down, too, right in the middle of the creamed corn and mystery meat. Some upperclassman, I didn't even remember his name. Del-something.

Mr. Kant sighed. "Unfortunately, I can't just give you detention this time. Miss-ter Tucker." He'd done the same thing with my name the last time, too. "Not like the old days where I could just strap some sense into you."

Like I wasn't already in a bad mood but I didn't say anything. I didn't quite know what he meant by that last part, anyway. I was picturing him using duck tape on my head.

"Mandatory three-day suspension for fighting with serious injury, and three more days for it being a second offense in the same school year." He handed me some papers. "Your parents have to sign those for you to be readmitted to school, Miss-ter Tucker."

By this time it was already after three, so I wasn't surprised when he said, "I've called your parents to have someone come get you. You can't use school transportation, either, until those papers are signed." I could have walked home, it was less than two miles and I had done it before when I missed the bus, but the weather had finally made up its mind and rain came down in a steady drool.

He stared at me for a moment and then asked the big question. "Why don't you get your hair cut and avoid these kinds of problems?"