| |
When Emily got to school the following Monday, Thomas and Chloe were in her classroom waiting for her.
“What are you guys doing here?” she asked, sounding a bit more aggressive than she’d meant to.
“Waiting for you,” Chloe said.
“Why?”
“Because we like you,” Chloe said slowly, as if that had been a stupid question. “And because there’s really nowhere else to hang out, and because I wanted to ask you why you didn’t come to church on Sunday.”
Thomas moaned.
“What?” Chloe snapped.
“You didn’t tell me we were going to talk about church. And besides, it’s not a church. It’s a lobsterman’s basement.”
“Whatevs. So, Emily, why didn’t you come?”
Emily looked at Chloe wide-eyed. “Did you just call me by my first name?”
“Sure, we call all our teachers by their first name.”
“But why?”
“Welcome to the island,” Thomas said sardonically.
“No really. Why?” Emily repeated.
Chloe shrugged and looked at the floor.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Chloe. I’m not angry. I just genuinely want to know why.”
Thomas picked a stapler up off her desk and began to fiddle with it. “Because most of the people in this school are related. So if your aunt is the art teacher, you’re probably not going to call her Mrs. Warren.”
“Is your aunt the art teacher, Thomas?”
“Yep.”
“OK, will you guys do me a favor?”
Chloe looked at her. “Sure?”
“Call me Miss Morse? I’m not related to any of you.”
They both nodded.
“So?” Chloe asked.
“So what?”
“Why didn’t you come to church?”
“I don’t know. I will come. I do appreciate the invite. I just, I had a lot going on. It was my first weekend in the new place, and I was still getting settled in—”
“So you’re saying you chickened out,” Chloe said.
Despite herself, Emily laughed. “No, that’s not what I’m saying.” She sat down in her chair just as the bell rang. “Tell you what? Next Sunday, I’ll go if Thomas goes.”
“Ha!” Thomas said, standing up and replacing her stapler. “My grandmother would kill me. She goes to the real church. She’d never forgive me if I went to hang out with a bunch of Jesus freaks in a basement, instead of going to church with her.”
“OK, you go to church with her, and I’ll go to church with Chloe.”
Thomas looked taken aback. “I’ll think about it.”
As Chloe and Thomas left the room, the custodian appeared in the doorway. “You mind picking up your room before you leave today?” he barked at her as the freshmen filed in.
She stared at him, speechless.
“This room was a pigsty. I don’t have time to pick up after pigs.”
She felt her face grow hot as she forced her jaw closed. The students all stared at her. She tried to give them a reassuring smile, but her eyes were rapidly filling with hot tears. She wanted to say something witty, to blow it off, but she didn’t trust her voice not to crack.
Victoria came to her rescue. “Don’t mind Larry, Miss Morse. He’s a buttwad.”
Emily started to correct her but couldn’t make herself speak.
Victoria sat down, continuing, “He always tries to bully new teachers. Actually, he tries to bully everyone, even kids. He hates kids. Hates everyone, I’m pretty sure.”
“Well, he’s been here like a hundred years,” Sydney added.
“Can’t you get him fired?” Tyler asked Sydney.
“What?” Sydney snapped. There couldn’t possibly have been more contempt in her eyes. She obviously found Tyler to be a much lesser human being than herself.
“Well your dad’s on the school board. Just go crying to him, and bam!” Tyler smacked his desk. “Syd gets what Syd wants. No more Larry.”
“Shut up, Tyler! It’s not like that!”
“Guys,” Emily said, finally finding her voice, “let’s not go down this road.”
Sydney, completely ignoring Emily, swore at Tyler.
“Sydney!” Emily snapped.
“Careful, Teach,” Tyler said snarkily, never taking his eyes off Sydney. “She’ll get you fired too.”
“That’s enough, Tyler.” Emily wondered how things had spiraled out of control so quickly. “Let’s all take out Lord of the Flies.”
The class groaned, but Tyler and Sydney were still glaring at each other.
Emily went through the motions of a Socratic circle, but the incident nagged at her brain, so she asked the two students to stay after class for a minute. Sydney rolled her eyes, but they both approached her desk after the bell. Tyler stood smirking, his hands in his pockets. Sydney stood with her arms crossed, a sparkly backpack slung over one shoulder.
“I’m wondering if you should both come by after school, so we can talk about what happened today—”
“Can’t,” Sydney proclaimed, barely letting Emily finish her sentence.
“Why not?” Emily asked.
“Basketball practice.”
Emily looked out the window, as if to confirm there were still leaves on the trees. “It’s September.”
“Yep,” Sydney said.
Emily found her confidence unnerving. The kid was only fourteen, for crying out loud.
Apparently feeling sympathetic toward Emily, Tyler, using a fake exaggerated Downeast accent, explained, “’Round here, Miss Morse, people play basketball all year ’round. From sunup to sundown. Rain, sleet, snow, fire, doesn’t matter—”
“Shut up, Tyler!” Sydney interrupted.
“Sydney, that’s enough!” Emily glanced up to see her room now nearly full of juniors. “Tyler, you can go. Sydney, I’ll see you after school. Be here right after the bell.”
“What?” Sydney shrieked. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Emily’s heart pounded. She hadn’t meant for this to get confrontational. “I just want to talk, that’s all. Won’t take long. I’ll talk to your coach if that would help.”
Sydney laughed humorlessly. “Milton? Like he’s going to care what you say.” She turned and stormed out of the room.
Watching her tiny body stomp so furiously, her sparkly backpack bouncing, would have been humorous, if Emily hadn’t been so uncomfortable with the whole situation.
She took a deep breath and turned to face her juniors.
“What was that all about?” Hannah asked.
Emily shook her head. “Nothing.”
“PeeWee’s not going to like that,” Thomas said, and the whole class laughed.
