The Referral She Signed Before Lunch
"You took the envelope, admit it." Kenzie said it loud enough for the whole second lunch to hear, and then her palm cracked across Mara's cheek at the snack cart.
Mara is a junior who keeps the lost-and-found log and eats alone at table four. One conduct hearing and the library internship she's counting on is gone, replaced by a permanent note in her file.
Mara's hand went to the red mark and she didn't say a word back. She reached under her tray instead.
Coach Pruitt was already at Kenzie's shoulder, telling her the conduct office had a file on her. Mara opened a manila folder and slid one page across the laminate. A counselor's referral, stamped 10:14 a.m.
That's before Kenzie accused her. Before the snack cart. Before lunch even started.
Coach Pruitt picked it up. Underneath it was the fundraiser deposit slip — Kenzie's signature in the bottom corner in blue pen, Mara's initials forged above it with a wrong loop in the M. Kenzie's mouth kept moving and nothing came out.
She backed into the rolling cart. Brownie trays slid off the top and hit the terrazzo, and she didn't pick them up.
The coach's mouth opened too.
What does a coach do when the counselor's office already has the same page on file — and does a booster-club donation get pulled over it? The blog has the conduct hearing, the booster-club meeting, and who sits alone at that same table the next Monday. It's linked below.
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