Motherhood Monday:: What happened to your face?

On the rare day that Andrew doesn't stay after school for some sort of practice, I pick him up so he doesn't have to ride the bus.  

It was one of those days several weeks ago when he climbed in the front seat of the car, but he wouldn't look at me.  I caught a shadow of his face and asked him what was wrong.  He mumbled nothing, but kept his face hidden within his hoodie.  

I persisted that he look at me.  And when he did I saw it.  

My child had a nasty, ugly black eye.   

I was livid but calmly asked what happened.  He went into this long, dramatic explanation about how he was simply minding his own business sitting in class when another older kid walked in and started yelling at him to get out of his seat.  Andrew told him that it wasn't his seat, but he wasn't moving.  Apparently, the teacher was in the hallway handling something else and didn't hear any of this commotion.  The older kid repeatedly asked him to get out of his seat while my son told him to calm down, that it wasn't a big deal.   It was then that the older kid PUNCHED Andrew.  

I was beyond LIVID.  Why wasn't I notified?  Why didn't he go to the office?  WHAT?

And he looked at me with a are-you-kidding-me look and says.. 

Because Mom, You KNOW this is make-up, right? 

I wanted to kill him.  One of his classes is Into to Theater and that day, his teacher applied stage make up to a few kids to explain the technique.  Mine was the lucky to kid to get a fake black eye. 

I wasn't the only one who got upset either.  His girlfriend wasn't happy when she thought he'd been in a fight.  And one of other teachers came very close to giving him an office referral for fighting and didn't believe the make-up story.  

He, naturally, loved every bit of the attention.