It’s a temporary distraction listening to these kids take turns dissecting the short story we’ve just read through, a reminder of what I love about teaching. Or what I would love about teaching if I spent more time in front of a classroom actually doing that instead of preparing for monthly tests. My group this morning is a dozen sixth-graders, only a few years older than Freddie, and they’ve got questions.
“It’s like the dog was smarter than the guy,” one boy says. “I mean, at least he knew enough to move on to another place and look for something better. And what kind of idiot goes walking alone in fifty degrees below zero anyway? Jeez.”
The conversation about Jack London’s man and wild dog reminds me of the silverfish in the common room yesterday evening. Humans make choices; animals act on instinct. I wonder which species will survive.
Mostly, I wonder what these kids are doing here. They’re too smart, too insightful, to have chances taken away from them. An image of the girl from the Starbucks flashes in my mind.
“Miss?” the boy says. “What do you think?”
I think you shouldn’t be here. “Well, I think it’s complicated, but you might be onto something.” What I want to say is, What kind of an idiot walks out on one daughter to go find another? Jeez.
There is no knock on the classroom door, no warning, only the squeak of hinges, and Mrs. Underwood’s voice dismissing my students and telling me to come with her.
Immediately.
On goes my coat.
I follow as many paces behind as I dare to as she leads the way back through the grounds, away from the education building and into the admin building. She’s muttering about work never being done and if it’s not one damn thing, it’s another. When we reach her office, two men are waiting in the hall. Underwood nods to them, offering the slightest of frowns.
“I’ll be with you in a minute, Doctors,” she says. Then her door swings open and she inserts her mountain of a frame into the chair behind the desk. She tells me to take a seat, and I do.
“Are we going to have a problem?” she says, sighing. “I told you I can’t make exceptions.”
Probably. Most likely. Definitely. I don’t say any of this. After Lissa’s warning to stay on Underwood’s good side—or at least on her less bad side—I only smile and shake my head.
School principals—which is all Martha Underwood is, whether she prefers Headmistress or Queen Bee or She Who Must Be Obeyed—fit neatly in the hard-ass, take-no-prisoners category. I’ve seen it. No kid wants to be hauled into the dreaded principal’s office, and most parents groan at requests to “come in to chat about your child.” Age of the audience aside, the school principal is usually not a pal, as the old spelling mnemonic went.
But I do know this: You don’t take a head-of-school job because you hate children. Not usually.
While Underwood goes on about rules and enforcement in her little corner of the world, I register her office. It’s a cold place, all polished wood and steel file cabinets, twin hard-backed chairs facing the broad desk that separates her from visitors. I stretch up in my chair and have a discreet peek at the area behind that desk, to check if there’s a platform or other method of raising her up. The two pieces of art on the walls are not the ubiquitous school-office motivation posters, Hang in there! or If you can dream it, you can do it!, but dark oil paintings of a fox hunt in progress. In one, the hapless fox is already cornered, baying hounds radiating from him like spectators at a gladiator match.
Comforting.
The only personal touch in this room is a small framed photograph of a younger Martha Underwood sitting on a beach towel with a boy of about ten. She’s nearly unrecognizable—thinner, smiling, tan. Nothing like the sour-faced matron sitting across from me.
“Is that you?” I say, nodding toward the photograph.