Suckers - J.A. Konrath

"Up front, please," said Ms. Peckin.
The kid got up and sat down next to me. I didn’t recognize him, but he was extremely
skinny and had a sizable nose.
"What am I supposed to do while I’m here?" he asked.
"Just sit."
"No homework?"
"Just. Sit."
The kid nodded. When Ms. Peckin returned to brutally savaging the paper she was grading
(at least, that was a safe assumption), the kid turned to me and rolled his eyes. I rolled my eyes
back.
We sat there for a long moment.
The kid took out a blue pen and wrote on his palm. He quickly flashed the message to me:
"I’m Roger."
I didn’t have a pen handy, but he passed his over to me. I wrote "I’m Andrew" on it and
flashed it to him.
Roger nodded, and wrote a message on his other hand. "Ms. Peckin seems pretty cool."
What the hell was he talking about? Ms. Peckin was the evil antithesis of cool! Clearly, the
new kid was wacky in the head. I gave him a facial expression that indicated that I felt he was
wacky in the head.
He kept holding up his hand to show me his fatally flawed message.
Ms. Peckin looked up again. "What are you doing?"
Roger balled his hand into a fist. "Nothing."
Ms. Peckin stood up and walked out from behind her desk. "Let me see what’s in your
hand."
"It’s nothing."
"Open it."
Roger opened his hand and smiled sheepishly. Ms. Peckin read the message. "Oh. Well, this
time is really meant for silent reflection, so no more of that, okay?"
"Yes, ma’am."
We both got out at 4:45.
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