After a full grueling hour in the counselor's office Blake finally opened the door and walked out. Dr. Samuelson had grilled Blake about his overly exaggerated zeal towards perfection in school and his fantastic story about the shopping cart attack that she seemed disinclined to believe but couldn't convince Blake to produce any other story. In the end, Blake felt he had left Dr. Samuelson with the feeling that she had made some progress, convincing him to lighten up a little bit and enjoy high school while at the same time setting worthwhile goals and properly prioritizing his life.
Blake sighed as he walked down the short hallway winding through the administration offices and back towards the student hallways. He sometimes had a hard time not being altogether caught up in his ruse of the brown-nosing, annoyingly perfect student. In fact, just a few years ago, that facade had been his true personality. It had taken the shocking first encounter with Tony and learning of the workings of the Commander to jolt Blake into a new mentality of action and thoughts for deeper meaning to life than just drudgingly plodding through homework and textbooks.
As Blake turned the corner to leave the office, his eyes widened. He watched as Sam entered Mr. Call's office escorted by his father, a uniformed police officer and two men in suits, one shabby and wrinkled, another finely pressed and sparkling of expensive taste. Blake's eyes bored into the closed door as if trying to somehow thrust his senses into the room and see and hear what was going on. A leaden lump pounded in the pit of his stomach. He knew that Sam's father would present an excellent lawyer and that Sam would likely be let go with a slap on the wrist, but Blake still shivered with the guilt of the situation.
Knowing he couldn't do anything else, he walked towards the main office door to go to class when a voice behind him pulled him back.
"Blake."
Blake slowly turned around to face the school secretary. She was shortish and oldish, her hair pulled up into a tight bob on the top of her head, a strange mix of blonde, white, and grey strands.
"Blake Percival, right?"
Blake nodded as he walked towards the secretary. He believed her name was Mindy Rosen, but he hadn't had many experiences with her, so he couldn't be sure. And he wasn't sure why she might know his name or why she would be stopping him. As he stepped to the secretary counter, he watched as she rummaged through some envelopes. She pulled out a small blue envelope and held it forward. As she replaced the other letters, Blake noticed additional blue envelopes that looked identical to the one she was handing to him.
"I don't know what it is you're trying to hide from your parents by having mail sent here, but you should know that the school is not your personal mailbox."
Blake stared at the envelope slightly confused. He saw his name on the front along with the school address. He gingerly took it from the secretary and examined it. It was postmarked Westcarl with yesterday's date but it had no return address. On the back was a smiley face with some strange symbols for the eyes and the nose. Blake looked back to the secretary.
"Yes ma’am. Thank you ma’am. I'll look into opening a post office box for future correspondence. Sorry to have misused the system. Sorry to have troubled you ma’am."
Tucking the envelope into his backpack, Blake turned and walked out of the office.
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