298 Jake’s Old School 3 (2/2)

What did that mean? She frowned. ”I'm sure he was still receiving beatings. Bad beatings. I've had others tell me that he would bruised all over. Isn't it weird that none of his teachers thought anything of it?”

”Each teacher only gets 50 minutes a day with each class. With seven classes to teach, I'm sure it's hard on them to pay attention to each kid.”

Mary stood up in frustration. ”I'm not just talking about a bruise. I'm talking about multiple. As in, he was covered in them. As an advisor, you don't meet with your students? Not once?”

He looked up. ”I'm an advisor for last names that start with H all the way to L. It's a lot of ground to cover between both grades. Sometimes these things happen. Kids can just slip through the cracks. It's not like he spoke up and came to tell us what was going on.”

”He was scared!” Mary raised her voice and pointed at the folder. ”You even had the nerve to give him detention and still claim that you didn't know what was going on?! You said so yourself that you had a truant officer make a visit, yet he didn't mention a word about what the boy looked like? How starved he was?! Even now he's still considered malnourished. I couldn't imagine what he looked like when he went here.” Before he could give her one more excuse, she turned away and decided to leave. She opened the door with gusto, then slammed it hard behind her, not caring about decorum.

She went through the hallways and walked out by the nearest exit. As soon as she felt the warm SoCal sun on her face, she pulled out her phone to call her husband.

”Hello?” His warm voice made her tears fall loose. She sniffled just a little, but he was able to hear it. ”Mary? Did something happen? Are you okay?”

She dabbed the corner of her eyes. ”Yes, I'm fine. Just a little emotional. I didn't realize how overlooked Jake was. No wonder he hates being the center of attention. He's not used to it. Gosh Wayne, you wouldn't believe what I was told today.” She then proceeded to give him a rundown of her school visits.

”My god.” Wayne mumbled. ”I thought I had it bad, but Jake...he was ignored for too long. We really need to speak to Doug about why Jake wasn't pulled sooner. Someone has to take some responsibility somewhere.”

Hearing her husband wanting to get some justice for Jake made Mary feel lighter. ”Right! Exactly. Doug sounds a busy right now, but he's gonna have to make time for this. For us. For Jake.” She sighed. ”As for Jake's brother or friend, there were no leads at either school. Everyone's been telling me that he didn't have any friends. That he was always alone.” Her heart felt like it was breaking. ”I guess I'll check with the neighbor to see if he found out anything.”

”Wait. Are you still at the middle school?” Wayne said suddenly.

”Yea, I haven't even gone back to the car yet.” Mary replied. ”Why? Did you think of something?”

”Sort of.” He paused before coming out with it. ”You should make a trip to the sports field. Wherever they have the batting cages.”

Mary felt enlightened, but then frowned to herself. ”But he was never officially on the team. Noah told me that Jake wouldn't have been able to get his mom to sign the release form that would allow him to play.”

”But the Coach still let him use the cages.” Wayne pointed out. ”That's how he became so good. He must have had a decent relationship with the coach to get permission.”

Mary grew excited. ”Oh, right! I've never heard Jake outright tell us about it so I forgot.” She laughed to herself. ”I forgot that he wasn't just born this good. I'll go check out the field to look for the batting cages. Hopefully a coach of some kind will be there.”

”They should. Baseball is in season. The only reason they wouldn't be there, would be for a game.”

”Thanks honey! I'll call you after!” Mary hung up and started to make her way towards the gym and fields.

1-to have more important things to do (just in case you don't understand American idioms.)