Excerpt: On the Edge of the World

Coby walked down the hall and through the door of his classroom before sitting down in his seat and looking around. A redhead girl was talking excitedly on her cell phone, her speech mainly unintelligible but the name “Marcus” coming up more often than not.
Their teacher, a burly gray-haired man, walked through the door and looked at the class with a depressed look on his face. Coby wondered briefly whether it had to do with that depressing book they’d been forced to read.
“Coby Patterson?” he asked quietly. Coby looked up, confused, wondering what he had been doing and wondering why the teacher didn’t ask the redhead girl to get off her phone as he usually did.
“Yeah?” Coby asked.
“They want to see you in the office,” the teacher replied simply.
“Okay,” Coby replied, still confused, getting up and leaving his bag, used to being called up for things such as having left something somewhere or his mom having brought up something he needed and then forgot about. He started towards the door, and the teacher called his name again.
“Coby?” The boy looked back. “You’re going to want to bring your bag.” Coby tilted his head slightly and looked at his teacher before tentatively grasping the strap of the bag and pulling it over his shoulder before walking out into the hall.
Coby’s high school was painted blue: there was blue everywhere. Blue lockers, blue walls, blue floors. He liked to make a game of trying to catch the flu fragmented spots of white or gray that had somehow crept into the blue layout – little specks of imperfection that made the school look less clinical than it did.
He walked slowly to the end of the hall and opened the door, walking into the office as he looked around. The office, too, was painted a bright blue – an old principal had loved the color. He turned and looked around for the current principal – an older woman with short, blonde, curly hair. He didn’t fine her and began to feel himself get even more confused.
“Miss Hanly?” he called quietly as he crept towards her office door.
“Looking for someone?” asked a low voice behind him as he turned around and found himself face-to-face with a man dressed from head to toe in a tan uniform.
“Uh, Miss Hanly?” Coby repeated.
“She’s sick,” the man replied in a slow, patronizing voice. “Listen. Are you Coby Patterson?” Coby nodded slowly. “Well, listen, we got some bad news for you. Your mom was in a bad car accident and we gotta take you to the hospital.”
“An accident?” Coby echoed, “…Is… is she okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” the man replied dismissively, “But you gotta come with me to come see her. Quick, c’mon.” He reached out and grabbed the boy’s arm roughly, pulling him towards the front door as Coby nervously tried to yank away. “Come on you little prick!” The man snarled and shoved the boy out the door and further towards a truck parked outside of the school. He opened the car door roughly, pushed the boy in, and then pressed a button.