Yes, but too early to tell

"Yes, Kyle Hawkfeather." The blond man in a dirty T-shirt and smelling like Lysol seems more like one of the custodial staff than an administrator but his blue eyes are sharp as they take in you and the Mathewson sisters. After less than a second of assessment he asks: "What seems to be the problem?" You are not going to let these spoiled brats start in on Mr. Hawkfeather before you can set out what happened, and before Grace even opens her mouth you take charge.

"I caught these two spoiled young ladies spray-painting graffiti on my bedroom walls." You can see the new dean's eyes narrow slightly as he realizes the seriousness of the situation, and you realize he would be a terrible poker player. It is not all hard to read the flickering of emotions playing like a movie on the man's expressive face.

"You'd better come in then." The office appears to be recently cleaned and the bucket of soapy water sitting in the corner of the room explains the Dean's appearance and the smell of soap. It seems that like you, Mr. Hawkfeather has just arrived; if you had to guess, Ms. Naylor is probably even less happy to see him than she is the rest of the male teachers.

You start to show the pictures of your room, but before you can even pull up the shot, Mr. Hawkfeather interrupts you.

"Before you or the girls say anything, Mr. Carter, I'd like you to put as much of the incident as you can remember down in writing." He seats you at his desk and hands you a sheet of musty paper and a neatly sharpened Ticonderoga pencil.

"Mr. Hawkfeath-" Grace tries to get her side of the story in, but thankfully the dean puts a stop to her as well, seating her across from you with her own paper and pencil. Sally is taken to a leather couch and set to work as well, leaning over the coffee table to write her version. Only now do the consequences of your decision to make the girls use their shirts to clean the paint. At the time you were so angry that seeing the shirtless teens working futilely to make amends for their insensitivity had been immensely satisfying, but putting that down in writing seems like a really bad idea.

On the other hand, you are not the cause of this mess. If Grace and her pretty little sister had just kept their noses out of your business, none of this would have happened in the first place. It irked you to have to go through this process at all, and you could feel your anger in your clenched hand as you put the facts of the incident down.