THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE was scary. Not horror movie scary but immaculately clean scary. The walls were whitewashed with not even a single fingerprint of dirt or anything. And his desk was shiny as if it had been polished just before I'd been allowed to enter

Everything was neatly arranged on it and a mini globe at the left side of the desk made my hand itch to spin it. I looked up at the principle from where I was sitting and smiled sheepishly.

"If you are done ogling my office, can we get back to the matter at hand?"

"Yes sir but before y-you-," I began.

Mr. Stenson silenced me by raising his hand, "Let me do the talking. You brought a feline to school, disrupted a class in session and then missed that class. That seems to be three accounts of rule breaking, Mensa."

"A-As if I killed someone," I murmured.

"What was that?" he gave me his famous death glare.

"Nothing." I sat up straight.

"Well then, you have detention for two days beginning today." He wrinkled his nose and added, "Now can you please get out of here with that feline of yours in your bag?"

"How d-did you-,"

"You know this isn't the first time this has happened and I can hear it purring."

I wanted to tell him that Bullet was a 'her' not an 'it' but kept my mouth shut. I was already in trouble as it was.

When I got out of the office and it was already afternoon break. I sighed to myself and walked to my next class to review what we had until the class began. I wasn't really hungry and Bullet was still purring. I didn't know what to do.

Stuffing her in my locker would probably kill her and it wasn't like I could drug her to sleep.

Still locked up in my dilemma I was surprised to see David coming to where I was sitting. He made his way up to me and smiled

"Hey, friend."

"Hello again," I mumbled.

Unless he had something else to say to continue the conversation, this was where it would end. I couldn't risk stuttering and him laughing at me or worse, pitying me and trying to finish my sentences for me.

"So where's your cat?" he asked.

"Is that your idea of a conversation starter? You should work on that," I said with a smile.

"Sorry, I'm just new here and want to make some friends." he looked a little embarrassed.

" I don't think I'm the kind of friend you want to have. Weren't you a jock back in your old school?" I scrunched my eyes at him.

"Nope. Just a regular student and I think you and I are going to be good friends."

"You should work on your lying skills too," I said, punching him on the shoulder.

"So what are we learning in Chemistry today?"

"Le Chatelier's Principle."

"Ugh, I hate Chem", David said and I punched him again.

▃

Three hours later and I was opening the door to our living hall after a long boring hour of detention. Bullet kept rubbing against my leg on our walk back home but I was still angry at her. Dad was propped up on a sofa watching sports highlights and his leg seemed to be better.

"Hey, I'm back. Are you hungry?" I asked him.

"Nah, made some spaghetti for myself," he answered back.

"Alright."

That was strange because we'd ran out of spaghetti two days ago. Unless he had called one of his pilot friend of his to bring him some food items

After fixing up something for myself,(there were no new food items and still no spaghetti), I went to the attic to search for an old novel of mine.

I was looking through the fourth box when I found a wooden flute. It was slender and looked quite old. Like an antique or something. I went to the living hall to show it to my old man

"Hey, look at what I found," I tapped him behind the sofa and pretended to be an expert on playing flutes.

He took one look at flute and something happened. His face fell, his eyes were suddenly teary.

▃

Why do you think Mr.Mensa became sad all of a sudden?

And isn't Bullet the best?

Any constructive criticism and is very welcomed. Thanks for reading!