Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3) (7 page)

“You going to be there?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Good. Well. You have a nice rest of the day, Jeremy.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

And Jeremy disappeared.

An hour and a half later, she was in the school’s mini-van, approaching Bay St. Lucy’s most disreputable neighborhood. It was not really a ‘neighborhood’ at all, though it had at one time been so. But it had fallen into disrepair and neglect, as certain areas do, for no discernable reason. It had been home to prosperous middle class families (though never to wealthy ones); these had been replaced by a certain economic level of off-shore oil workers who lived in the homes only sporadically and thus allowed them to decay; these had been replaced by painters, curio makers, and postcard writers, who lived as artists do and there needed nothing more to be said about that; and these last had been replaced by nothing at all except the novelist and drunkard Tom Broussard, who inhabited a shack that was safe to live in merely because the area had become feared by the town’s criminals and was inhabited only by stray dogs that had gotten poisoned somewhere else and had come there to die.

Somehow, improbably, in the mix of all this, was the shell of an ancient Dairy Queen, its red neon sign crumbling, the pavement of its parking lot cracked and weed infested.

The sun hung low in the winter sky, a dusky plate covered by the volcanic ash that passed for cloud cover over southern Mississippi in this somehow simultaneously benign and threatening off-time of year.

She got out of the minivan.

A rabble of students stood before her looking like zombies, but staring at her as though she was the zombie.

In many schools this was something coaches would have taken care of.

Big coaches, their heads shaven bald, whistles dangling around their meaty necks.

But Nina was—well, not the kind of principal to leave things to other people.

“Afternoon, everybody.”

Silence.

Faces looking down.

A few nervous giggles.

The zombies getting together at the dead Dairy Queen to bury onion rings and disembowel hot dogs.

“What’s going on?”

No answer of course.

Small conversations.

Snide remarks.

An indeterminate and chirpy voice from somewhere in the crowd:

“Good afternoon to you, Ma’am!”

Laughter.

She stepped forward.

She was now in the middle of a circle of students.

Chuckles, animal noises, more giggles, and the imitation of various body parts.

“Who’s fighting?”

Silence.

Even the giggles stopped.

“Who’s fighting?”

Finally one gawky red-headed boy appeared, having taken one step into the center of the circle of onlookers. He’d taken off his shirt.

“Tom Baxter,” she said.

She knew him, of course, from church; and from the fact that she’d taught both his parents.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Who are you fighting today, Tom?”

Nina sensed movement behind her and turned.

Another boy, a bigger one, a swarthier one, a more menacing one, a living boy who would have been less menacing had he in fact been a zombie and thus to some degree decayed—stepped forward and said nothing.

She stared at him for a second or so, then said:

“Tony Zerrapini.”

Tony Zerrapini nodded.

The center of a hurricane hung over them; air pressure dropped by fifty points or so and Nina asked herself the question that had often formed in her mind: namely, which was more terrible despite its romantic and completely deceptive veneer: violence itself, or the moments preceding it?

“Tony, your father is working on an oil rig right now. Fifteen miles offshore. Your mother’s cleaning fish down at the wharf. Tom, I’ve taught both of your parents. Years ago. I’ve known all of you for more years than I remember.”

Then:

“This is Bay St. Lucy. We’re a community here. We work together: always have.”

Dead silence for a few seconds.

Ten seconds.

An eternity.

“We’re not in school now,” came a voice from the back of the crowd.

To which Nina, in something like a split second, replied:

“Yes you are.”

More silence.

She repeated:

“Yes you are.”

From somewhere in the distance came the wail of a siren.

It grew louder, then faded away.

“Shit,” said somebody.

The crowd began to disperse.

Somehow the two antagonists had disappeared.

Within two minutes she was standing by herself.

CHAPTER 5: THE OXFORD MAN

On Tuesday morning she arrived at six fifty five AM, opened the door to the high school, walked inside, opened the door to the central office, and found the lights on.

A pot of coffee was percolating.

“Hi there!”

Flitting about in the ante-room that adjoined her office was a man of indeterminate age, about five feet ten in height, shaggy of hair, a pendant of some kind (was that a silver werewolf hanging from it? Surely not.), wire-rimmed glasses, sandals, and a greenish sport jacket that seemed to have been plucked from one of the large bins in the city center labeled “For the Less Fortunate.”

“I hope you don’t mind that I’ve brought my own coffee; one does get used to certain pleasure, don’t you know.”

British.

Long haired, disheveled, and British.

“I thought I should get a good start on the day. You too or so it seems. Are you in maintenance?”

“I’m––”

“Because I’m afraid I have to tell you, one of the loos is stopped up.”

“One of the what?”

“The loos. Stopped up, you know. Not working. Or—oh, that’s right, you call them ‘WCs’ over here, don’t you?”

“We call them toilets.”

“Well, at any rate, one of them isn’t working right. Popped in there half an hour ago to, you know, eliminate last night’s ingestives, that sort of thing, and—well, it looks a total mess. Thought you might want to know.”

“I do.”

“Yes, well, not the kind of thing one loves talking about, but there it is. Will you have some coffee?”

“Thank you.”

“This is a special blend. Some mates sent it to me from Leicester. It’s somewhat like gin, isn’t it? Gin and tea and beer, none of them even extant in this country in any consumable form.
 
Of course, the gin can be disposed of for a day or so but not the coffee and certainly not the tea. Oh! Are there strictures about smoking?”

“You can’t.”

“What?”

“You can’t.”

“I’m not talking about pot, you know. I simply mean…”

“You can’t.”

“Why in God’s name not?”

“Cancer.”

“But isn’t that my own concern?”

“No.”

“Blast. Do you mean to tell me there is no place at all where one might smoke a fag?”

“The docks.”

“You’re joking. It can’t be true!”

“Well, now that I think about it, it may not be true. I think they’ve made that a no smoking zone too.”

“My God, what a country! How can you live here?”

“It’s tough.”

“Of course, it is! Well, there it is then. Nothing to be done about it. So. I must tell you though—despite your infantile Puritanism—I love your town. Absolutely love it.”

“Glad to hear that.”

“You know, it’s very much like Cornwall. Have you seen Cornwall?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You must go.”

“All right.”

“You would be struck by the similarities. Of course, there’s a kind of, I dunno, a kind of ‘craggy grandeur’ about Cornwall that you don’t get here.”

“No, we miss that.”

“But that quality of earth and sky, and roar of the ocean sort of, I don’t know, sort of—imploding against man and yet bringing him back to his sources. It’s all very Masefield for want of a better term. I’m not keeping you from your duties, am I?”

“No, no.”

“Do you like the coffee?”

“I do. It’s wonderful. Who are you?”

“What?”

“Who are you?”

“In what sense?”

“Identity sense.”

“Oh you want my––”

“Name. Like––who you are. What you’re called.”

“Oh that!”

“Yes!”

“Lirpa. Max Lirpa. The name is Italian, but I was conceived in Oxford and grew up there. I’m here to teach English. Just hired some days ago, actually.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.”

“I suppose I’ll be meeting the students shortly.”

“Yes. Yes, you will.”

“And you’re in maintenance, you say?”

“Actually I’m the principal.”

“The what?”

“The principal.”

“You mean the Headmistress?”

“You could put it that way.”

“Oh! Then I’m honored!”

“Me too.”

“So what are the students like? I’m dreadfully curious.”

“The students are curious too, Max, and some of them are pretty dreadful.”

“Are they versed in Byron?”

“No.”

“Chaucer then?”

“No.”

“My word. What are they versed in?”

“Justin Bieber.”

“Well, that’s a start. Are they somewhat mature intellectually? Can they handle scatological or phallic imagery?”

“They don’t know what those things are.”

“Well, then, we shall have to teach them, shan’t we?”

“No.”

People began arriving. A few students, a few teachers—there was the rattle of lockers, the click clacking of doors being unlocked—

––there was Eunice Duncan, head of the English department, who, being a woman of some heft and little height, had allowed her immensely thick winter jacket to turn her into a spherical object, which appeared to be rolling down the hall followed by a box like object, which was a computer cart that rolled behind her.

“Eunice, this is Max Lirpa.”

Oh, my God
, Eunice could be seen thinking.

Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God—

“—it’s nice to meet you, Max.”

“And you too, I’m sure.”

“Eunice, as you know, this is Max’s first day. He comes to us from the British Isles.”

“So I’ve heard, so I’ve heard!”

“And I wonder if you might show him his classroom, and, well, kind of get him started.”

“I’ll be happy to!”

“Good then! I’ve got a few things to do, so I’ll see both of you a little later. Good bye, Max!”

“Cheerio, Headmistress!”

“Just—just
principal
.”

“All right then! Ta ta!”

“Ta ta.”

Nina turned away.

She walked back into her office, saying good morning to Ms. Johnson who taught history, and to Pearl Emory, an administrative assistant who was just then taking the cover off her computer.

She closed the door and locked it.

This was a disaster.

How could Jackson Bennett have been so stupid?

He must have heard the words ‘Oxford’ and simply lost his mind.

This man was an
impossible
fit for any public high school in Mississippi, even a rather liberal one like Bay St. Lucy!

Phallic imagery?

Are you crazy, Jackson?

She thought about this the entire day.

At two fifty—end of fifth period—she forced herself to be close to Werewolf Man’s classroom when students came emptying out of it.

She buttonholed a group of three girls.

“Hello, young ladies. I’m Ms. Bannister.”

“We know! How are you, Ma’am?”

“I’m fine. Did you just come from English?”

“Yes, Ma’am!”

“Learn a lot?”

“I’m not sure,” said one of them. “We talked about a poem called ‘Naming of Parts.’ It’s supposed to be about the parts of a gun, but when you read it closer, it’s about…”

“I know what it’s about,” she said.

She spent the rest of the afternoon hidden in her office.

That night at the basketball game, a group of mothers spotted her, seated on the highest row of the gym.

It was halftime; she was eating a hot dog.

“Ms. Bannister?”

“Yes?”

“We’re parents of students at the high school.”

“Oh. Good.”

They all looked like the mothers of high school students: pinched, arch, worried, the joy of youth having left them, the mindless pleasantries of dementia still too far off to be hoped for.

“What may I do for you?”

“Well…I hope this isn’t the wrong time to talk to you.”

“No. Not at all.”

“It’s just that…well, we know you’re a new principal. And we thought you should know what’s happening in the school.”

“I would like to know.”

The group closing tighter about her.

“Our kids have a new English teacher.”

“Mr. Lirpa?”

“That’s his name. Did you know anything about him?”

“Some. Just a bit.”

“Were you involved in hiring him?”

“Actually I wasn’t.”

“Well, we just wanted to let you know.”

“Please do.”

“Today they studied poetry.”

“Yes.”

“And my son said it was the best class he’d ever had in his life.”

“Mine too.”

“Mine too.”

“So did my daughter.”

“Well. That’s good to hear!”

“We just wanted you to know.”