Josh was suspended from school for the next two weeks. Pamela caught wind that the principal believed him when he claimed he didn't do it and planned on giving him one week. But he started raging, knocking folders and papers off of tables and punching the walls after telling the principal what had happened. James, Greg, and the councilor had to restrain him until he calmed. After that, he broke down and cried. Pamela didn't see his crying fit in the office, but she watched through his eyes as he laid on his bed, vision blurred, as he asked himself why again and again and called the whole situation bullshit. After a minute, Pamela couldn't hear his sobbing over her own shrieks of laughter.
To Pamela's delight, the snake was saved by Arthur. One student dumped out their backpack and gave it to Arthur to house the snake until he bought a tank for it. Arthur was the school's hero for the day. His reputation as a hero dissolved into a comedic one when he told people he kept the snake as a pet and named it Fluffy. The name amused Pamela, and she was glad the snake found a good home. When she bought it, she didn't think it'd make it until the next day, and she felt bad whenever she thought back to when she bought it and nearly condemned it to death.
Josh wasn't the same man when he returned from his suspension. He didn't smile or laugh as much. He wasn't gloomy by any means, but Pamela could see the scar she sliced into him. For additional kicks, she spied on him every now and again to see if he still thought about that day in lunch. Needless to say, he spent much of his spare time trying to figure out who framed him. Pamela heard that he asked everybody in the classrooms surrounding his locker during the first two periods if they saw anyone break into his locker. With the classroom doors closed and the tendency for the human brain to forget about little details like who was walking through the halls at a particular time, Josh found no leads. Not even the teacher who excused Pamela remembered who she excused that day. Pamela sometimes found Josh scrawling on paper potential suspects for who broke into his locker. Her name popped up on his list, and she sometimes caught him glaring at her, as if surveying her, saying to her, “I'm watching.” She was one of his leading suspects, from what she could tell. But Pamela wasn't confronted by him nor met with concerned teachers who needed a moment with her in the office. He was a man who knew who committed the crime yet couldn't summon the evidence to prove it.
The school was divided into three factions after that day: those who believed Josh was guilty, those who believed him guilty, and those who couldn't decide or didn't care. Lindsey remained in the guilty camp, and she'd remain that way until Josh proved his evidence. At the rate his investigation was going, she'd stay there the remainder of her high school days. Pamela was once asked about which camp she belonged in, and she allied herself with the guilty camp.
Josh and Lindsey shared one class together, but Pamela had a different class that period. She couldn't always watch the tension thicken during that period, but she snooped here and there to see Josh avoid all eye contact with Lindsey and see Lindsey avoid all eye contact with Josh. Both also thought bitter things whenever the other spoke, usually insults. Lindsey's favorite was “dishonest asshole,” sometimes with fucking thrown in there, and Josh's most common was a “good-for-nothing bitch who can't even trust the people closest to her.” If Lindsey would remain separated from Josh until he proved his evidence, Pamela wondered how the two would make up should he conjure the needed proof.584Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCtcspHfLa8
No matter how many times Pamela replayed that lunch period, she still found it funny. It was her favorite moment of the school year so far. She had to limit her thoughts of that day to when she was at home lest she start snickering in the middle of class. It was such a grand moment with lingering ripples well worth the wait, she thought. But she wasn't done. She wanted to create more moments like that, more plays that would break Josh down. So many ideas had sprouted in her head, and they were all so good that she didn't know which ones to nurture until they bloomed. She had to tread carefully, pick the plans that would put dents in Josh's soul without his notice, but she felt like she had absorbed the confidence Josh lost after that day. She felt like she could do anything. She knew she could do anything with her power. With her cunning and her Looking Glass, Pamela would make sure that Josh was a broken man before graduation. A sequel was inevitable. The show had to go on.584Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3WeaYgaFr1
