eyewitness

The kids tell a story, or they did, for too long of a while, about me moving faster than they'd ever seen me move. I was snatching a cell phone from a girl who kept pushing it; it was a triumph of one-upmanship and stealth.

This is not that story.

It is, instead, a story of red-and-white streak from the door to the far corner. Of a file drawer yanked out, and a lunch tossed in.

A lunch. A sandwich, and breadsticks, and an apple. A lunch.

And the time it takes for me to form a question-- "What?" and "How?" and "Why?" all competing on my tongue--the door again opens, far more deliberately now. The posse has arrived. And the perpetrator is out and then in again, and I rise to take my turn.

"Don't do it! Don't do it! Ms. P.!" Volume low, urgency high.

And I hope my look back to the culprit says, "Are you nuts?!" Because good grief. In seconds, I've ratted him out. But the time it will take to get past the fact that he thought or expected or even hoped that I'd lie to cover up a petty theft, even without a half-dozen other witnesses? I have yet to calculate.

"What have I ever said or done that would make anyone believe I'd do that?" I ask the onlookers, "What?!" A shrug. A shake of the head. Blank stares.