And my hand ached. I’d never hit anyone before, and it seemed I’d bruised a knuckle or two. Did anyone care? No, of course not. I absently rubbed my wounded hand with my unharmed fingers.

A second teacher appeared to join Mr. Wicks. “Is everyone behaving here?” she asked, eyes boring hatefully into me. Again, I was hurt. She was the advanced reading group teacher and I liked her. I’d thought she liked me too, but she must not have, or she wouldn’t have looked at me like that.

“Yes, and it had better stay that way. She’d better be sitting there thinking about what she did.”

“Oh, I am,” I mumbled with meaning.

“What was that?” they asked in perfect unison.

As if to assert himself, Mr. Wicks leaned forward. His forehead crumpled with disgust and his upper lip lifted at the edge to flash one of his nicotine-stained teeth. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”

The reading teacher folded her arms and lurked behind Mr. Wicks. “You’re in plenty enough trouble here, Eden. Don’t get smart on us. I just don’t understand this sort of behavior from you. I mean, I know you’ve had . . . some family trouble recently . . .”

I could have sworn I saw one corner of her mouth twitch, as if she’d made a little joke. Mr. Wicks’s similar dull grin confirmed my suspicions. With sudden, glaring clarity it became perfectly apparent that they were making fun of me. I clenched both hands again, even the sore one, and dug them into the tops of my legs.

The reading teacher shook her head, trying to cast the smile away. It half worked. She went on. “But if you were having problems with another student you should have called it to our attention. You never take matters into your own hands like that.”

I rummaged around in the steaming pile of anger in my chest and found my voice. I lifted it up and offered it out. “And what would you have done?” It came as a whisper, not a very steady one.

The teachers looked at each other, and Mr. Wicks answered for them both. “That depends on the circumstances. We could have sat down and talked things through, and if she was being rude or unkind—then we would have taken action.”

“Like what?”

“That depends. But you have to leave that up to us. We’re the ones who make the decisions around here.”