Eloa bounded the steps two at a time. He stopped for a moment at the top of the stairs to catch his breath. He wanted to appear calm, level-headed. He wouldn’t be taken seriously if he roared in, wild-eyed and panting. He walked deliberately to the office door marked Administration and pushed his way in.
The office was bustling with activity. The open floor plan allowed Eloa to see almost everything, with only a small reception desk standing sentry near the front of the office. The receptionist was balancing a phone on one ear while looking up information on the screen in front of her. A stack of documents threatened to collapse onto her work area. Workers behind her scurried about carrying papers, and the general din made it almost impossible for Eloa to hear anything. He stared in amazement at the commotion. He had never imagined he would find such chaos here.
A few minutes passed with no apparent change in the volume or intensity of the place, but the receptionist finally dropped the phone and asked, “May I help you?” Her black eyes locked on his, and as he started to respond he suddenly stopped.
“May I help you?” she asked again, her head bobbing over a few inches to get a better look at him.
Up until this point it had made perfect sense to him to report what he knew immediately to the school officials, and he had not doubted that it was the right thing to do. Standing here in this office, however, his mind was somehow frozen, and he was unable to formulate any words to explain why he had come. He looked around the office once more. Would anyone here actually be able to do anything with this information? After all, none of it was entirely certain. Wouldn’t it be more effective for him to wait until he had collected just a little more evidence to support his theory?
“I think I wandered in here by mistake. Can you tell me where the restroom is?” he finally said.
She rolled her eyes and pointed left. “Two doors down,” she said as she picked up another document.
Eloa was out the door almost immediately, but he heard her muttering behind him as he left, “Kids these days. Need a map to find the bathroom.”