I put my shoes back on; they were pretty passable. If you walk slowly, pressing your right foot onto the toe, you might not notice they’d opened up a bit.
I’d brushed off the dirt and dust with the sleeve of my T-shirt under my school sweat shirt so it would go unnoticed. I’d also shaken it off, rubbing it a little with the other shirt. I was careful not to do that with my sweat shirt because it might give me away.
I was agitated, sweating from nerves, and beads of sweat were running down my face. A heat inside me was rising and rising around my neck.
Juan had chased me across the yard. He was angry because I’d made him lose 75 stars in the online game we played during recess. I got careless, didn’t cover his back, and he was killed. To make matters worse, my cousin was shouting:
“Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! I did it, I did it!!!!” I beat your record.
He did it in his characteristic mocking and annoyed tone, while moving his body around, making faces at him.
When he caught up with me, we ended up rolling around to see who could out-muscle the other around the gigantic old rubber tree so distinctive of our school.
“You did it for fun, you did it for fun,” he told me, his face red with anger.
“Stop it! Stop it!”
Neither of us stopped struggling.
“You made an agreement with your cousin to piss me off.”
“You’re crazy, I didn’t do it for fun.”
There’s always some gossip who runs to tell the teachers, and that’s what happened.
At one point, I saw our teacher, Susaneta, out of the corner of my eye and felt her enormous hand, with fingers that looked like sausages, grab us to separate us.
“Guys, you’re in trouble,” she told us.
Juan tried to keep fighting, throwing punches to try to hit me. “Stay still, you’re making it worse,” Susaneta told him, giving him a withering look.
Susaneta began lecturing us, but after the first minute, I stopped listening.
My mind raced to figure out how to get out of this mess.
When we calmed down, we walked in silence. The teacher glanced at us every now and then as she led us to each side, holding each of us tightly by the wrist.
I began signaling to Juan to see what we could do to get out of this.
Susaneta kept talking and talking nonstop. Every now and then, she glanced at us, and we silently pretended to be listening.
The principal’s office was getting closer and closer, and we hadn’t been able to agree on what we were going to say in our favor.
The narrow hallways we walked through became even narrower with nerves and anxiety. The last thing I heard Susaneta say was…
“You’ll see…”
She knocked loudly and asked permission to enter. From inside, noises from the courtyard and the hallways could be heard. The window was open; the fresh air and warm light made it less terrifying.
After Susaneta elaborated on the facts, and did so with vigor and seriousness, the principal said:
“Now I want to hear what the kids have to say.”
“Okay…”
I said, thinking about how to get out.
“Even though we were rolling around and it seemed like we were fighting, what we were doing was a social experiment.”
Juan’s face lit up, and he took over.
“Yeah, sure. We wanted to see how the others would react when they saw what was happening. If we could manage to attract attention with indifference, or like we did.”
Everything was planned, it wasn’t a fight per se. You can ask Luca’s cousin; he also knew about the project…” She said while straightening her uniform a bit.
The principal listened attentively. A slightly awkward silence fell, as we all awaited her next words.
“I don’t know whether to believe you, whether to trust that you’re telling me the truth, but instead of suspending you, I’m going to give you a chance to encourage good practices by example. You’re going to have to prepare and go to the classes to give them a talk and a message that “respect is the most important thing.” For this project, you’ll have your teacher supervising you.”
Susaneta looked at the principal in astonishment. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She thought that an exemplary sanction, a suspension, would be enough.
As she left the principal’s office, her eyes were filled with fury, and she whispered under her breath:
“Don’t think you got away with it, you’ll see.”
Back on the playground and at recess, we made up. We’re great friends.
“We’re going to have a tough time.”
“Yeah, I don’t know if it wasn’t better to tell the truth. Susaneta is going to complicate things for us.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“What if we go talk to the principal and tell her the truth?”
“Maybe that’s for the best.”
We went to the principal again, talked to the principal, and told her the truth.
She thanked us for being honest, but that didn’t free us from having to continue with the project of going to classes to talk about respect and camaraderie under Susaneta’s supervision.
“We’re out of sorts, buddy,” Juan whispered to me.
“Whoops! Everything has its price, we’re not getting away with it,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

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