Just then their homeroom teacher for class 303 Miss Zakowski walked in. She didn’t look too pleased and didn’t go up to her teacher’s desk as she usually does. Instead “Miss Za-owh” as some of the other students called her walked a few steps into the room and she spoke: “Zoe Dear, I need you to come with us to the Adminstration Office.”

  “Dear?” Zoe though with malice. Surprising even herself with the unconscious current of contempt that had made its way to the surface.

  The class immediately erupted with “oooo’s” as Miss Zakowski finished her sentence. The external sounds almost blocking out and flooding Zoe’s internal thought processes.

  Zoe got up and took her cute-patch faced bag with her up off the ground. She wanted to look back at Zack for comfort but she didn’t since everyone was watching.

  As she was walking she got really anxious, a lot moreso than a room full of strangers, “classmates”, looking at you does. With each step she seemed to be getting weaker and her mind increasingly more blank. She felt this hollow separated presence or thought-process escaping from herself. As if being pulled etherly into some void. The thought was “us?” In focusing on the beginning of Miss Za-owh sentence Zoe missed the second half of it. “Who’s us?” she would have thought if she could, if she wasn’t so displaced.

  As Zoe walked to the front the two officers said as Zoe stepped into the hallway.

  “Riverbucker?” Zoe said outloud in her face. She grew more anxious and winded. “Riverbocker is my grandma’s name” she finally replied. “What’s going on?” Zoe quickly added on, interrupting herself in a way. “Is grandma okay?”

  “That’s why we’re here,” the other officer chimed in as if a second person talking suddenly brought calm to the chaos.

  The original officer bloastered himself physically by his utility belt and broadened his chest into convex. Then spoke, “Your grandmother Eliza Riverbocker was in an accident. We spoke with the hospital staff who only told us your name and school. We talked with the school staff but they don’t have the contract information for your parents. Is your grandmother your legal guardian ma’am? How do we contact your parents?”

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  Zoe felt the bottom floor of her abdominal cavity fell out into a deep abyss.

  “What’s going on?” Zack suddenly asked, popping his head out of the doorway from inside the classroom. The courage it had taken him to do anything of the sort no one knew. To them though, he just looked like some whimsical kid who was out of his seat and didn’t belong here.

  Zoe felt growing emotional pangs rise up from within the abyss of her innermost being.

  “No, no, no. Not like this,” she inwardly said yet still remained mute.

  “Mister Goldenstein, get back in your seat right this minute,” Mizz Sakowski bellowed.

  You could see Zachary was more alarmed by the armed police officers than his teacher’s protestations.

  The adolescent physique of Noahs (Zacks) youth further contrasted the strangeness of armed men in the wallways of a little high school most people don’t really care about.

  “Excuse me,” Zoe finally let out in a whisper.

  “Son, I’m going to need you to get back into your ass as this doesn’t concern you.” an officer said to Zack as if pushing a demon hoard back.

  “Excuse me, Zoe said with irritation yet through the funnel of a whisper.

  Zack got strangely combative, “You can’t tell me what to do! This is a school building. We have rules here!”

  The other officer finally replied, “Sir, unless you’re Miss Riverbocker’s sibling. I’m going to have to ask you to go back inside. It’s for your own safety.”

  “Mister Goldenstein, how dare you talk back to these noble officers who risk their very lives everyday to make sure you have a safe community to live in! Now I told you to get back into your seat right this minute -- NOW!!” Rather than wait for Zachary to listen, Miss Zakowski started hurrying him physically.

  Then Zoe finally burst “What the fuck is going on here?? Where’s my grandmother. I don’t want her to die.” Zoe broke down into tears, she had somehow ended up sitting on folded knees sobbing.

  The police officers looked more alarmed and confused what to do with a sobbing teenage girl than anyone else present. You quickly got the feeling as they grew more and more uncomfortable that they rather be chasing after a bad guy than deal with this mess.

  “Now, now, dear,” Mizz Za-owh helped Zoe up off the floor.

  “Now you’ve really done it,” Zack told the original officer he was trying to start a fight with, possessed by what spirit of his past we don’t know.

  “Get over here,” the provoked officer motioned towards Zack in a “you little weasel” type manner. Zack quickly finally ran back inside the classroom. The officer stopped his fake-out motion.