Page 67 of Justice II
A boy behind me laughed.
“Then who is it?”
“I don’t know. That isn’t me.”
She looked around the room. Everybody was watching her now. Even the students who hadn’t taken out their phones had stopped pretending to read.
“This isn’t me. I’ve never done this.”
“So, they’re fake?” the girl in the front asked.
“Yes.”
Ms. Lisbon sounded grateful somebody had given her something to agree with.
I looked at the girl’s screen again. Even knowing what I had done, I could understand why they believed it. Ms. Lisbon kept looking at her own phone like she needed another second to be sure.
She had been so busy talking about how fine and paid Justice was. Now she could explain why her name was attached to a page full of naked pictures. And why all of the students had access to it.
She wouldn’t be going to the casino now. Well, maybe for a job because she was surely about to lose this one.
“Please stop passing that around,” Ms. Lisbon said.
The girl beside me lowered her phone, but the boys by the windows were still talking. One of them held his screen out for somebody across the aisle.
“I said stop.”
Her voice cracked, and the boy finally looked at her.
“My mother just texted me,” someone said.
“Mine, too.”
Ms. Lisbon’s phone rang again. She looked at the name before silencing it.
“I need everybody to listen. Those images are fake. I do not have that account, and I would never send you anything like that.”
“They said you sent it.”
“I didn’t.”
“Who did, then?”
“I don’t know!”
The room got quiet.
She pressed her hand against her mouth, then lowered it.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice.”
Just as the words left her mouth, the principal knocked before opening the door. A substitute stood behind him, looking past his shoulder at the class.
“Ms. Lisbon, could you come to my office, please? Bring your things.”
She nodded and reached for her bag. Her phone kept lighting up while she tried to shove it inside.
I watched her struggle with the zipper. Ten minutes ago, she had been telling us what made an argument convincing. Now she couldn’t convince a room full of teenagers that those pictures weren’t hers.
