"Anna?"

The redhead turned to see who had called to her and her eyes instantly lit up.

"Elsa!" The young girl said. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

The blonde made her way over to where her sister was seated. Anna sat in a burgundy-colored chair across from the assistant principal's office. There were two more identical chairs to her right. To her left was a bookshelf. Elsa sat down next to her sister.

"I don't know," she said. "They gave me a referral for not getting my syllabus signed."

That and my tardiness.

"What?" Anna asked, puzzled.

"Yeah, I don't know," Elsa said. She slapped the referral against the back of her hand.

"That's such B.S…" her sister replied, shaking her head.

"I have it right here if you don't believe me."

"Ha, yeah, I'm good."

Anna shuffled in her seat a bit. Elsa sat still.

"So, uh…" the older girl began, "why are you here?"

"Same reason," Anna said.

Wait a minute, I'm missing something here.

Elsa turned to face her sister. "Wait, then why were you surprised that I got sent down here for that?"

"You fly under the radar," Anna said. She gave her sister a half-hearted smile.

The vice principal's office door opened and a tall, skinny boy walked out. The door closed without any sign of the vice principal himself, though. As he walked past the front desk the receptionist waved to him and said "bye-bye, Tuck."

Elsa didn't know how to respond. Anna was right, but the redhead herself also flew under the radar, at least as far as Elsa knew.

Only the sounds of the receptionist typing on her keyboard and a ticking clock could be heard. The room smelled of paper and printer ink.

Eventually the vice principal's office door opened, and Anna was called in.

The lack of her sister's presence made the room feel cooler to Elsa. She began to look around the room. To the right was a stack of workbooks. Behind them was a shelf that supported what appeared to be an Easter basket with a teddy bear inside it. Why it was there was a mystery.

When Elsa's thoughts returned to the situation at hand, her nerves also returned. Her sister was currently being interrogated by the assistant principal, and Elsa had no control over what Anna would say.

If she says one wrong word, our lives are ruined.

Elsa turned that thought over in her head, not sure what to do. It's not like she could just burst in the room and tell her sister not to bring up their parents.

Or could I?

It was a stretch. She contemplated for a bit. Finally Elsa stood and walked to the receptionist. The older woman didn't notice her for a while.

"Hi," the woman said.

"Hi… Um, I was wondering if, since Anna and I are sisters and we're here for the same reason, if I could go in and talk with Mr. Henderson with her?" Elsa asked.

It sounded like a good plan beforehand, but after she said it Elsa realized how bad it really was. The receptionist was giving her a strange look.

"I'll ask him," the older woman said. She stood from her chair and walked around the desk and to the vice principal's office. She knocked on the door.

After a while Mr. Henderson appeared. He and the receptionist spoke quietly, so that neither Elsa nor Anna could hear them.

Shit, he's probably gonna turn me away.

With both the receptionist and vice principal still speaking, Elsa walked over to where the two were standing and tried to force her way into the office as if she was completely oblivious to the fact that she hadn't been invited in yet.

"Thanks, Mrs. White," she said as she pushed her way past Mr. Henderson.

"Um, miss," he said. "What are you doing?" He was trying to block Elsa from entering the room.

"Well Anna and I are here for the same reason so I figured we'd talk together," Elsa said, giving a fake look of confusion, as if she had thought what she was doing was normal procedure.

Please buy it…

The assistant principal glanced to Mrs. White for any sign of disapproval from the woman. She offered none so he simply sighed and gestured Elsa into the room, lowering the arm that was preventing her from entering.

The office was much smaller than it seemed on the outside. Anna was seated in one of two chairs, the same as those outside of the room. She had been watching everything- the conversation between Mr. Henderson and Mrs. White, Elsa trying to barge in, Mr. Henderson denying her, and now Elsa's entry into the room. Now Elsa finally caught a glimpse of her sister. The redhead's eyes cried out to her for help.

Since Anna was seated away from the door, Elsa took the seat closer to the door, to the right of Mr. Henderson's desk.

The office door closed and the room fell completely silent, as if it were soundproofed.

Mr. Henderson began speaking before he even came into view of either girl. "So, Elsa, since you're so eager to come barging in here and talk with me, what do you have to say for yourself?" he said. He was now seated behind his desk, his chin resting on his hands, clenched together in one large fist shape.

Elsa's heart dropped.

Shit, I didn't think this through.

"I, uh… I don't know, I just thought that since Anna and I are sisters and we're here for the same reason that it might help if I were here with her."

"Then help," Mr. Henderson said.

Can't you fucking tell that I don't know how to help yet?

A clock ticked. This one was louder and deeper than the clock in the main office.

"Uh… Maybe if you could just get me up to speed…"

Mr. Henderson rolled his seat forward and straightened his posture. "Well, I've been trying to get some kind of answer as to why your parents can't sign your syllabus out of your sister here since the very beginning." He spoke much louder than he did before.

Great.

"I, uh… I don't have much to add…" Elsa said.

"You're kidding, right?" Mr. Henderson began. "You have nothing?"

Elsa drew in a sharp breath, but simply let it back out. Whatever she had to say couldn't help. At least, it couldn't help her sister or she.

Mr. Henderson pointed out Elsa's abandoned attempt at a rebuttal. "See? You do have something! You're just not saying it!" he said. He was practically yelling now. "What is it?!"

"I… uh…" Elsa said.

"Alright," the vice principal said. He reached into one of the filing cabinets within his desk. He pulled out a sheet of paper and sat it on his desk. "On this here paper is a list of disciplinary actions." He placed his index finger on "warning." "I'm gonna start moving across this list and I'm not gonna stop until you speak up. Whatever I land on is what you both get."

His finger began moving, first from "warning" to "lunch detention," then to "alternative to suspension," and so on.

Anna frantically looked between the paper and her sister, unsure of what to do. She stuttered out a few whimpers of protest. The man's finger was now at "suspension - 3 days." Eventually Anna's eyes and mouth stopped moving, but Mr. Henderson's finger did not.

Suspension - 5 days... Involuntary transfer… Expulsion.

The vice principal looked up, perplexed. Clearly this was a technique he had used before, and one that had never failed him.

Mr. Henderson stood up from his chair and began pacing back and forth, infuriated. "Why won't you two talk? What the hell is the deal with your parents? Are they dead, for God's sake?!"

No words could have stung more.

"Actually… Yes..." Anna said, her voice frail and weak.

Oh boy…

Immediately Mr. Henderson stopped pacing. He looked over to the two girls and met their glassy eyes with his own. He was utterly speechless. Slowly he sat back down behind his desk.

The clock ticked.

"You- You can go back to class," he said. His voice was now as weak as Anna's. He crossed his arms across his desk and shook his head into them.

The two girls left the room without a word.

After he was sure they were completely gone, Mr. Henderson exited his office and walked over to Mrs. White's desk. He tapped his fingers on the desk to get her attention.

"What d'ya need?" she asked.

"I… I'm gonna need to talk with someone in the foster care system."

A/N Alright, I lied. Meth comes in in chapter 7. I didn't get to start on this chapter until Wednesday and I don't want to make you guys wait any longer than I already have, so I'm just gonna use everything else I had planned for this chapter for chapter 6.

Happy reading,

for-the-first-time-in-never