Principal White

Lovely pale faces are stationed at every desk, until you reach her in the back: flat yellow nose and bulgy eyes on a smashed moonface. The model minority.

During mornings, she pauses on her way from the parking lot to pick chunks of road tar off the ground. Why are you picking up rocks? you ask her.

I like to pretend they’re obsidian scattered from some distant volcano.

It might be a cute answer from a kindergartener, but this is a prestigious high school, and you have its reputation to upkeep. You make her cast her sooty treasures back down.