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“It wasn’t enough to sell,” Sykes said.

“How much, and what?” he repeated his question.

“She had a baggie full of prescription drugs. Her parents could identify the oxycodone, and the Valium, but did not know where she might have gotten the Ritalin. But by the next day, they remembered they had an old bottle of Ritalin. That cleared everything up.”

“How much?” the second officer asked again.

“I would have to ask the vice principal. He was the one who handled this.”

“We’ll take his statement after we’ve talked about this. So, Ms. Jones, what exactly did you see, and when did you see it?”

I looked down at my smart watch. “At two o’clock I left the assembly because I realized I had left my phone in my classroom. I wanted to take a video of Sharon’s speech which was going to be at two-thirty. I was almost back at the assembly in seven to ten minutes, when I heard some noise around the corner. I was going to go look and see what was going on, because everybody was supposed to be at the assembly. That’s when I heard a girl’s voice say very loudly, ‘kick her again.’ Then I heard laughter. I kicked off my heels and started running down the hall.”

I paused. I had been looking at the officer, but I could feel Principal Sykes’ eyes on me. I glanced her way. She was staring at me. Her face was blank, but her eyes were angry.

“What did you see?” the first officer asked.

His gun belt was at my eye level. I stared at his gun for a moment, then looked upward at his badge, then at the radio on his shoulder, and then at his solemn face. He wasn’t angry. He looked concerned. That was how my school’s principal should have looked.

“I saw Kim Laughton literally dragging Alice Daly by her hair along the corridor, while another girl in jeans and an oversized red cardigan was kicking her in her side and back, along her kidneys and ribs.”

“When I yelled out, Kim let go of Alice’s hair and Alice’s head hit the floor. Hard. All the time Cindy kept filming with her camera, and laughing.”

“What’s Cindy’s last name?”

“Cindy Thompson. Her father is a state senator,” I said. He didn’t seem to care, but I knew Principal Sykes cared.

“Okay,” he nodded. “Then what happened?”

“Sue,” I pointed at Sue. “She arrived, and I told her to call 911 and help Alice. Cindy came closer and was still filming and laughing. Then she said how many likes she was going to get when she put this on the internet. That’s when I demanded she give me her cell phone.”

The officer nodded. “Did she give it to you?”

“Not voluntarily. I took it from her. You’ll see it all on the video she took.”

I reached into my skirt pocket and handed him her phone.

He handed it to the other officer.

“You can’t take that. That belongs to Cindy,” Principal Sykes spoke up. “Ms. Jones, you know you can’t just take a phone from a student. Especially if you used force. That’s what you mean when you said she didn’t give the phone to you voluntarily, correct?”

I nodded.

“But Principal Sykes, Cindy intended to put everything up on the internet,” Sue protested.

“It is against school policy for any teacher to lay hands on a student. You are all aware of this, it is stated in the contract that you signed.”

“I did not lay hands on her. I took her cell phone away from her,” I clarified.

“Forcibly?” Principal Sykes asked.

I nodded.

“Then that’s a violation.”

“But—” Sue started in my defense.

I interrupted her. “It’s okay,” I said softly.