Xavier
“Do you two shit-for-brains have any idea what you just did?” Hank, Finn’s dad, grits out in that low, whispery voice that’s ten times scarier than when he yells in your face.
I should probably be quaking in my boots right now, reflecting on my “immature and reckless actions”—Hank’s words.
Better yet, I should be trying to come up with an excuse to justify what I did, but all I can think about as the man I consider to be my second father grills me is…
Man, that is one big-ass forehead vein.
Has the vein on Hank’s forehead always been this big?
He’s so pissed it looks like it’s about to pop.
Why do I kind of want it to pop?
Please pop, vein.
Part of me was hoping Sheriff Daniel had only driven us to the police station for show. After all, I’ve spent years watching Finn pull pranks like this and get off without so much as a warning. My hopes went up in smoke when they threw our delinquent asses into an interrogation room and told us to take a seat. Then the sheriff and Finn’s dad took turns yelling at us for three hours.
“Xav?” Hank urges.
I snap out of it. “Mm?”
“You waiting for the grass to grow? Answer the goddamn question.”
Shit.
Note to self: you might want to try listening when people talk.
“I—”
Finn cuts in, “No, of course we didn’t think they were going to evacuate the school, Dad. It was just one little stink bomb.”
I make eye contact with my best friend.
Finn smirks.
Thanks for the save, dickhead.
“Oh, cry me a fucking river. That ‘one little stink bomb’—” Hank makes air quotes with his fingers, “—smelled so bad your poor teacher thought it was some sort of gas leak. You knew what you were doing, Finley. Don’t you get it? You’re in deep shit. And I don’t know if I can get you out of it this time.”
Hank inhales a deep breath to keep himself in check.
“How does a three week suspension sound, huh? What about senior year without basketball? And prom? I sure hope you weren’t planning on going because there’s no way in fucking hell that’s happening now.”
Helpless, Finn smacks his mouth shut, sagging back into his seat. To be fair, while it did smell like something died in that classroom, I have no idea how our substitute teacher could confuse “hot garbage and fart” with “gas.”
I was sitting at the back of the class and set off the stink bomb when she stepped out for a bit. The lady panicked as soon as the smell hit and notified the school’s front office of a “disgusting, toxic smell” through the intercom.
They set off the fire alarm and got us out of the building in record time. Makes sense, they couldn’t risk that many kids’ safety. What if it reallyhad been a leak?
I still can’t believe how quickly we got caught.
All thanks to their so-called “video.”
That’s the first thing they said when they came to extract Finn and me from the crowd after the school gathered outside. They hit us with “Don’t bother, we’ve got it on video. You’re busted”before dragging us back inside to wait for the cops.
I have no idea how they managed to catch it on video in a classroom with no surveillance camera, but I can’t think about that right now.