CHAPTER THREE-3
428 Words
“Mr. Wallace? Do you have a moment?” Bella asked after knocking on the doorjamb.
“Certainly, Bella. Come right in. How was your Thanksgiving?” the headmaster asked as he motioned her to a chair.
“It was really nice,” she answered. “Sir, I know you’re busy, but I need to know if you’ve seen Tommy lately?”
“Not that I recall, not in the last couple of days anyway,” Wallace responded, frowning. “But then again, we have over 400 kids here right now.”
“Well, he missed our tutorial session yesterday and again today,” she explained. “He’s been doing so well, and he’s been so excited about them, that it surprises me that he’s missed them.”
The headmaster got up and moved over to a filing cabinet.
“Tommy Bennett, right?”
“Yes.”
He thumbed through, then extracted the boy’s file. Returning to the desk, he murmured, “Ah, here we are. It seems he was signed out of school the day before Thanksgiving by his uncle. I wasn’t in that day, but the paperwork’s in order and Shelly filed it for me.”
“Wow,” Bella said. “I’m a little surprised he didn’t tell me he was going home for the holiday.”
“He may not have known,” Wallace said gently. “Many of these troubled kids are troubled because their families are, well, loony. It may have been a last-minute thing. Still,” he continued, frowning, “he should have been brought back already, unless they signed him out permanently.”
He flipped through the documents again.
“Yes, see, right here,” he said, showing the pages to Bella. “For whatever reason, his family has opted to completely withdraw him from the Metzger Institute.”
“I hope he’s all right. He’s such a sweet kid, and he has such promise,” Bella said woefully.
Wallace patted her shoulder awkwardly. “There, there, my dear,” he said. “All we can do is hope for the best.”
“I appreciate your time, Mr. Wallace,” she said, rising to shake his hand. “I’ll let you get back to your work.”
“Anytime, dear.” And he replaced the file in the drawer and returned to his desk as she left his office.
Mikel’s ears perked up when he heard her voice. The bug he had installed in the headmaster’s office was of the finest quality; he heard their entire conversation as clearly as if he had been physically in the room. Mikel watched the monitor as Bella made her way out the front door.
Then he walked softly down the hall to check on workroom two, where the subject of their conversation remained in a d**g-induced sleep, before moving to workroom three to pay Cindy another visit. Hearing his angel’s voice had reignited his need for a fix.
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- Writer
