Jessica felt like shit. How couldn't she? Her best friend went home in the middle of the school day and apparently wasn't coming back. She couldn't get a hold of her, or even just find out what had happened. Nobody seemed to know, but that didn't keep them from going on and on about it, even two days later. Apparently it was a real riot. "Do you think the principal finally noticed she wasn't human?" "Maybe her 'mom' got bored and sold her." "It'd serve that stuck-up bitch right. Bad enough she acts like she's actually a person, but she even thought she was better than us." "I bet she got sent back to the farm." "Better yet, the slaughterhouse!"
She was sitting in the principal's office, rubbing the knuckles on her right hand. The principal was looking at her with an expression of utter disappointment. He hadn't even said anything yet and it was getting to her. "Look, he made a joke about Iris getting killed, okay? And sold as food! What the fuh... What was I supposed to do?"
The principal sighed, and his brow creased. "Miss Maph-Matission, you know violence is unacceptable behavior under any circumstances." She started to speak, but he held up a finger. "That wasn't a prompt. I know you know that. I expect better from you, miss Maph-Matission. I understand that this is a difficult time, but you can get through it. It's difficult for all of us—"
"Not for them. But fine. I'll be good. You're going to call my parents now, I imagine?" She held back the sigh from her lips. She wasn't ever going to hear the end of this, but she still didn't regret it.
"Yes. This is a prestigious institution, and we have stringent rules for behavior like this. I expect you to do better because we both know you're above this sort of misbehavior, but I must be sure to impress upon you the grave reality that if you act out so severely again you will be expelled. It's only due to the exceptionally challenging circumstances that you are not being suspended. Do you understand?"
Jessica nodded. "I understand, sir." She wanted to protest, but what could she say? The principal was being lenient with her. If she were a little less successful in class, if her parents were a little less rich, she probably would have been suspended at the very least. Throwing away the rest of her favored status wouldn't stick it to the assholes or help her find out what happened to Iris. Venting anger would be cathartic, but not helpful, and so she'd just have to deal.
The principal sat quietly, watching her practically stew in it. When she took a deep breath and relaxed her expression, she swore she saw him smile just a little. "Good. I'll be calling your parents now, and request they come and pick you up." He reached for the landline phone that sat on his desk.
Jessica shook her head, and he paused. "Call them, of course. But I can tell you now that they won't come pick me up early. They'll make me sit it out in your office." She shrugged, as the principal nodded and called her parents.
She tried to tune it out as he sedately explained what happened. It wasn't too hard, at least since she couldn't actually hear her mother respond. Eventually, she snapped back to attention, as the principal was addressing her directly. "Miss Maph-Matission, it seems you were correct. Your parents will be here to collect you at the usual time. Unfortunately, today I have some important business to attend to, and shouldn't have students waiting around outside my office. I trust you could behave yourself in the library?"
She nodded again. "Of course, sir. Shall I go now?" He nodded, and she got up and left. It was more blatant favoritism, but she might as well take it in stride. Maybe they just didn't want to lose two students in quick succession... She balled one of her hands into a fist. She was going to find out whatever happened and get back in touch with Iris. She wasn't losing a friend to random bullshit, that wasn't happening. But there wasn't anything to do about that yet, so she would just kill the rest of the school day in the library.
The library was a good place to kill time, at least. She went over to one of the bookshelves, and scanned over the author name abbrevations before finding what she was after. She wasn't in the mood to start anything new, but revisiting an old favorite? That was something like comfort food. Especially a mushy sweet guilty pleasure like the romance novel she grabbed. She settled into a chair near the edge of the room, under the big window of an unused study hall. A big blue curtain was hanging down over it, on the outside, so maybe they were renovating it or something? The question didn't linger long.
She opened the book to the start, and whiled away the time reading it. She skimmed the too-familiar, honestly rather slow introduction in leaps and bounds. It wasn't bad, but it was laboriously establishing details she of course already knew. She was getting to the juicy parts when she saw a torn scrap of paper left between two pages. She thought it was a bookmark, but looking closer, it was covered in tiny writing. She looked at it with curiosity, then surprise, horror, and finally blood-boiling outrage. She almost couldn't believe it, but this was too soon and too sick to be a joke.
The school had kidnapped Iris? No, no, worse than that. Legally assumed possession of her. She wanted to storm back to the principal's office and raise hell, but what good could it do? They were legally in the right, however evil it was. She took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She looked back at the note. 'I'm Iris Correa. Mother bankrupt. School owns me. Writing this above library. Work library at night now. Please help.' She didn't know how she could help, but she was damn well going to find a way. But that meant containing herself for a little while until she had a plan.
For now, what she could do was let Iris know she got the message. She got out a piece of notebook paper, and thought for a few moments. She wrote out "Miss you. Will help. —J", and then did so a couple more times. She tore them into strips, and littered them around a few obvious places in the library, but not in books. She wanted to be sure Iris got the message, but without compromising Iris's strategy, in case there were multiple messages she'd left around. She took Iris's note from the book and stuck it in her pocket, then set the book back where she'd found it, upside-down. Still spine-out, the kind of innocent, careless mistake a bored student might plausibly make, that wouldn't draw any attention. She hoped.
She glanced up at the study hall room above the library. Really, that was why the curtain was there? She hoped Iris was holding out alright. She couldn't imagine how awful it had to have been to have her entire life turned upside-down like that...