An incendiary explosive couldn’t have instilled more fear than the sound of Prinicipal Sterner’s boots clicking down the hall.

I faced Jason with a shock, “We’re trapped, so now what?” Except I didn’t dare say it aloud.

He raised a finger to his lips, shaking. The spray can in his opposite hand rattled betrayingly. It was so mute even I barely heard it, yet the shift in direction of the principal’s feet towards us was unmistakable.

“On a weekend, boys? Really? You didn’t think staff would sometimes be in on a Saturday night?”

Sterner’s voice was smooth. She always carried herself like a prickly cactus, tall and elegant but armed to the teeth if you dared to get too close. And we were ten seconds from running into her thorns.

I braced myself for impact. Sorry, Jason. “Principal Sterner,” I said, peeling my back from the wall and rounding the corner to face her dead on. Jason tried to grab me, and I brushed him off. My voice echoed loud and lonesome through the empty hallway.

What I thought would be Sterner in her usual tailored suit was actually Sterner…in a white frilly blouse and wide trousers. She sported her usual blonde coiffe, always styled and battle ready against her students. But she stumbled a little at my appearance. Swayed in her boots, smiling all flushed and oddly distracted by something other than me.

I asked, “Are you drunk?”

She looked unsteadily at my feet, then up at me. I wore all black, with a black beanie, no hiding that we were up to some crime worthy enough for us to be expelled. Jason was only a shadow where he hid beside the moonlit lockers.

“Clearly,” she said. “But we are mature and can keep this between us, Mr. Mackey. Yes? Same goes for your friend.”

“We were just leaving,” I said. “Nothin’ funny, promise.”

“And yet the spray can in your hand tells me otherwise,” Sterner pointed. She seemed to find _that_ funny, and I swore to the hells under my breath.

“Seth,” Jason hissed from the wall. “Shut the fuck up. What are you _doing_?”

Drunk or not, Sterner still posed a bigger threat than we could both handle. Except I couldn’t help but wonder if she would remember any of this.

I turned back to her. “Don’t you have some party to get back to?” Maybe it was a staff appreciation, maybe a dance. I didn’t know what those teachers did in their off times. I never really thought about them having any lives at all.

“A _party?!” _Sterner_ _snorted_, _and the hall filled suddenly with her cackle. “No, no, Mr. Mackey.” She wiped a tear from her eye. When she had laughed so hard like that she nearly unraveled.

She sniffed, “It was a date.”

My jaw dropped, but it was Jason who broke, the shadows falling from him when he turned to join me, wide eyed. “For real?”

“Dude!” I elbowed him.

Sterner grumbled, “It isn’t only you kids who have to deal with the woes of love. Expect you are young and dumb and lucky you don’t need to deal with finances in the mix.”

Jason and I shared a quizzical look.

She continued. “Or your car. Or your own parents. Or your _dog_. Why did he want to take the _dog, the sack of shit.”_

_She has a dog, _I thought_. I never thought she’d have something waiting for her at home. _

“Your…your dog, too,” Jason faltered. He looked Sterner up and down, surprised to see her in this state, too.

She was nearly broken down at this point. Real tears welled in her eyes. Deep into some feelings I did not know she possessed just ten minutes ago.

Jason furrowed, elbowed me back. “Who the fuck is this guy, Principal Sterner? Give us a name.”

We got two weeks of after school detention for spray painting the lockers with our dumb expletives.

But the night was made when the three of us walked into the neighborhood with an extra spray paint can and taste for vengeance.

Jason let Sterner point us in the direction. I showed her how the spray can was done and let her finish the last letter R. She took her sweet time. We left the stupid guy’s house with the words “CHEATER” painted onto on his garage door. She returned to campus sober, but with her boots clacking just a little lighter.

In the hallways during the next school week, we would exchange some knowing glances. Sometimes, we got even a look of appreciation from her.

And Jason and I vowed to never speak a work of it to anybody. Detention was worth that unexpected accomplishment. Sterner didn’t take shit from anybody, and we wouldn’t let them give it to her back.