The altercation became noticeable very, very quickly. Samantha - regrettable as it might be - actually debated with herself about whether or not to get involved. On the one hand, she was fairly certain this would die down and the affair, regardless of her interference or lack thereof, would be settled after school, which truly was out of her control. On the other hand, depending on Cox's mood, she could get in real trouble for not doing anything about it. It was an absurd contradiction, she mused, that a dog like him would possibly give her grief for not doing anything in this situation when he was the actual administrator of this school and did little about most of the altercations.
The fight, though, was actually starting to get worse. Now, there were 3 furs involved. The third - Rocket, as he called himself - had gotten up from his desk and was defending the otter who'd gotten trouble in the first place. He challenged Gauge and earned from Gauge some nasty remarks about an incident a few years back. That fight had involved an execution of her "little changes" policy. Rocket had gotten involved in some business of Gauge's and his pack's and himself been very seriously injured. Now, the policy at Pellicius High School regarding packs and pack violence was to just stay as far, far away from it as possible. Furthermore, they were supposed to remove any forces - student, faculty, or otherwise - that would incite or cause further pack violence. It was a simple-minded, crude solution to a massive problem, but one that admittedly kept such violence largely away from the school. Just ignore it and stay as far away from anything connected to it as possible.
Samantha had witnessed the fight between Gauge's pack and Rocket from afar. As soon as it was over, she'd gone home and crafted up as many teaching-related crises as she could think of, which she then executed the next day. All were time-consuming, bureaucratic, and meant to completely and totally distract Cox away from as much else as possible that day. And it'd worked. See, she'd known that, had he heard of the fight, Rocket could have very well been expelled for providing a potential source of pack-initiated violence in the future. He'd have been deemed a troublemaker who didn't know what to stay away from, a future wellspring of further pack violence because he didn't know better for himself - and in the end, he'd have been expelled. But Cox was so distracted that day from Sam's efforts, he'd heard little about the fight, and nobody was expelled. She didn't want recognition or special attention from him, but it was nice to see him back at the school, to know she'd played a part in his future that he'd never realized.
Of course, now, he was getting involved in things yet again. But Gauge . . . she honestly wasn't sure how he'd react. Things like this generally didn't happen in the middle of a class block, and so teachers generally didn't have to worry about involvement. They'd happen in the lobby before or after school, maybe at lunch or at an extra-curricular, sure, but not in class. As such, he was generally a student who the faculty didn't have much interaction with - he slept, and they let him sleep. But there was something about him . . . his exterior was hard, but Samantha thought she saw herself in it. Growing up to a single Mom who was rarely present because she worked so much, Samantha as a little wolf had needed to solve many of her problems by herself. It had been a rough home life in a rough neighborhood. Samantha knew he was intelligent, for during those class lectures that he remained awake for, he was never confused, his eyes never spoke of a lack of understanding. She'd only had him for class once before, but when they were discussing vague tenets of Philosophy that semester, he'd never looked confused where much of the rest of the class looked lost. So she wondered if he had the same childhood she had - rough, strained relationship with parents, little support. But then again, he could just be what he appeared to be. She really didn't know. She'd never seen anything solid in him to indicate that his hard, jerk exterior was any different from his interior.
And now, a fourth student, a furred dragon who'd walked into the class only moments earlier, tried to get involved via the "kill them with kindness" route of things. The situation was rapidly getting out of hand. But this caused Samantha a new dilemma - if the situation got physical, she couldn't get involved. By school policy, she wasn't allowed to break up physical altercations. But if she didn't get involved now-
"Why don't you just shove it, huh? I don't care how 'threatening' you are, I'm not gonna put up with that shit you just spewed, and neither should they. Leave him alone, you bigot."
Whoa. The otter, a new student with whom Samantha was not familiar, had just seriously challenged Gauge. She'd been so lost in her thoughts, she'd barely even heard what had infuriated him so, although she was pretty sure it was some speciesist slur coming from Gauge - a certainly common occurrence. And then, to make matters even more surprising, two others stood with him and shouted at Gauge - a Sergal who'd come in earlier and kept her head down, and a green and gray wolf who'd been standing near the otter during the entire fight thus far. All stood, aggressively looking at Gauge, the otter and the Sergal particularly so. Other students in the class looked on, "oohed" at the insults, generally made the situation worse. As a red panda walked in and began talking to the Sergal, Samantha wondered yet again if she should get involved.
. . . what the hell was wrong with her? Of course she should get involved! This was clearly going direction of a fight, and to hell with getting in trouble, these students were going to get hurt. Standing up, she stepped into the middle of them, fangs fared, staring them all down.
"That is enough! Gauge, you sit back down and shut your mouth, or so help me I'll-" the threat was ever so empty. She could get in serious trouble for threatening a student. But she could do so with tact. "-I'll make certain that jaw of your stays closed. Got it? As for the rest of you, sit down and talk amongst yourselves. This is the first day of school, and I'll not have this kind of activity today, or on any other day in my class. Do I make myself abundantly clear?"
She was surprised at herself, but it felt good to be like this. To do something. Even if it might get her in trouble, she didn't care. She was doing something.
And right then, the morning announcements came on to back up her having the last word. Things couldn't have gone . . . well, they could have gone better. But this was pretty good.
Topic: Pellicius High School, 4200 Hanso Lane (Read 14627 times)