The School Bully (2 page)

It amused Anna to hear the board member being so solicitous to a former student that had never been celebrated, that had never made head cheerleader or filled the trophy case with awards. It gratified her to be accepted on merit, to be finally taken seriously in a town she'd always considered shallow.

She took the job. When school started after Labor Day, she'd be the new eighth grade teacher. Anna planned to spend the year teaching her mother to be more independent. She'd make more in that one year than she'd make working three years in the public school system. After that, she told herself, she'd leave. She knew that the administration would be disappointed, but after the years of pain she'd suffered at the school she figured taking the money and running would even the score.

Anna was confident she could handle a year at her hated alma mater. So it unnerved her a bit to find all the feelings of fear and apprehension rushing back as she looked in on the classroom where she'd spent so many unhappy hours. Her old home room where now, instead of avoiding eye contact with the class, she'd
be
facing them, teaching them. She wondered how many of her new students would be like the students she'd known – the petulant antagonists who dared the teachers to call mommy or daddy.

“Take a deep breath,” she said to herself, and walked up to the teacher's desk.
Her desk.
The former inhabitant had apparently not bothered to clean her desk. Paper clips and confiscated gum and notes littered the bottom of the top drawer. The file drawer was filled with lesson plans, a log book and mimeographed test sheets. Anna took out the log book and perused it quickly, noting which students had been written up. There had been quite a few; some had been sent to the headmaster multiple times.

“PADDLED.”
The word, scrawled in red, by one problem student's name caught her attention. Anna was genuinely shocked that the school still used corporal punishment. She remembered students fearfully whispering of that particular penalty. Always administered by the
headmaster, it was seen as the ultimate humiliation. She'd never seen the paddle, but had heard of it. It was long and thick and hung in the headmaster's closet. She remembered one or two students – burly rugby players, both – who had been called to the office for that particular punishment. They had been caught smoking. The boys had left the classroom with smirks on their faces and had returned walking stiffly, their faces flaming with embarrassment and their eyes red-rimmed from crying. The sight had terrified their classmates; even the miscreants behaved after seeing their heroes so subdued, or at least were more careful not to get caught.

Anna made an instant decision to enlighten the conservative academy about how disciplinary issues were to be handled. This wasn’t the 16th century; it was 2010. There were other ways to reach kids besides brute force. The idea of hauling kids in for a paddling was disturbing, especially to someone who could only imagine such brutality. Anna had never been spanked, and couldn’t imagine that any child could be subject to such a thing - especially teenagers who should be dealt with through reason. Bridgestone didn’t discriminate between girls and boys when it came to the penalty; girls could be paddled, too, although she’d never personally known any girl who’d been punished that way at the school. It had happened; she knew that. Two years before she had enrolled a girl named Celeste Conner had called her gym teacher a bitch in front of the entire class. She was taken to the principal’s office and her parents were given a choice; they could allow their daughter paddled or see her expelled. They approved the paddling. Celeste’s cries could be heard all the way to the cafeteria, or so the story went. Even now the very idea gave Anna a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach; she couldn’t imagine being bent over the headmaster’s desk, the plaid skirt of the school uniform barely covering a vulnerable bottom waiting for the hard sting of the paddle.

No, she would not allow such things at a school where she taught.

There came a knock at the door and a plump woman with red hair and a cheery smile stepped in.

“Hi!” she said. “I’m Genevieve Carlton, but you can call me Ginny. I’m the guidance counselor slash school nurse here.” She extended her hand. “You’re Anna, right?”

Anna smiled and accepted the handshake. “Yes,” she said.

“Well it’s good to have you, although it’s hard to imagine you teaching if you don’t mind my saying so. Some of your students are going to be bigger than you.”

“I’m used to that,” Anna said of the oft-made observation. “But that’s OK. I’ve faced some tough kids.”

“Oh, I heard,” Ginny said, wide-eyed. “You taught in the hood.” She said “hood” like it was a forbidden word.”

Anna resisted the urge to give into the anger she felt. “It was an urban area, but we never called it the ‘hood,” she said. “I enjoyed teaching in an urban school, and having gone here let me dispel any notions you have about those kids. A lot of them were better behaved than some of the kids I went to school with here at Bridgestone.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean…” Ginny turned as red as her hair. “I’m sorry. I just thought maybe this was like a step up you’d been waiting for.”

Anna sighed as she dumped the contents of the top drawer of the desk into the trash.

“No,” she said, setting the drawer back down and looking at her colleague. “My father died not too long ago. I took the job here to be for my mom. She’s having a really tough time. If my dad were still here I’d still be at my old job.”

“Oh…” Ginny looked away and an awkward silence filled the room as Anna slid the desk drawer back in and continued cleaning.

“I hear they’re going to announce a new headmaster any day,” Ginny offered, her voice hopeful that this new line of questioning would end with less embarrassment.

“That’s nice,” said Anna, wishing she could be alone.

“It was down between three guys - two of them old and one young. Well, not young. He’s a few years older than you. Word is that the younger one’s favored to win, even though he’s not an educator.”

Anna looked up. “Not an educator?”

“No!” Ginny said excitedly. “He’s an executive from old money. The board wants the school to run like a business.
Accountability and all that.
Is that weird or what?”

“Weird and wrong,” Anna said, shaking her head. “Someone from the private sector of business would have a hard time relating to educators. It’d be a disaster.”

She paused. “What’s his name?”

Ginny shook her head. “No one’s saying. We don’t know any of the finalists’ names.”

“Well, let’s hope they do the right thing,” Anna said.

“Hey, just as long as they don’t reduce our pay that’s all I care about,” Ginny said.

Anna turned away so the other woman wouldn’t see her roll her eyes. If she only knew how much other teachers did with a fraction of the income…

“Yeah,” she said.
“Right.”

She turned back. “Well, I’ve got to finish getting cleaned up in here.”

“I hear
ya
.” Ginny moved towards the door. “The announcement’s supposed to be in the staff room at noon. I’ll come get you and we can walk together.”

“Sure,” Anna said.

She watched Ginny go and after she was sure she was out of hearing, Anna heaved a big sigh of exasperation.
 
Was everyone at Bridgestone gossipy and shallow and full of false assumptions about anyone different than the sheltered inhabitants of Langford? She promised herself that anyone else who referred to her former school as being in “the hood” was going to get an earful.

Anna reached into her box and snatched out a laminated poster, which she unrolled and pinned to the wall. It showed a group of teens of all different sizes and nationalities.

“Diversity is beautiful,” it read, and then considered the irony of hanging such a poster in a classroom full of upper class white kids who drove brand new cars home after school to a huge house and maid service.

Anna hoped that, if nothing else, her planned one year at Bridgestone would result in some raised consciousness among the staff and students. In some ways, she expected more challenges than she’d faced in an under-funded urban school district.

She mulled over how she could make a difference as she continued to set up her classroom. When Ginny Carlton came back in Anna was surprised at how quickly time had passed.

“Wow, this is….different,” Ginny said, eyeing the diversity poster and unusual artwork that Anna had collected on two summer trips abroad.

“I want to the kids to think outside their zip code,” Anna explained.

“They’re not all cloistered,” Ginny said defensively. “A couple of them go skiing in Switzerland each year.”

Anna wasn’t going to bother to tell her that wasn’t the same thing.

“Let’s go,” she said, picking up her purse.

The staff room was actually a large conference room by the administration offices. Most of the teachers were already there. Anna was surprised to see one or two from her high school days.
There was Mr. Marriot, who’d taught chemistry. He still looked like Einstein, she observed. He nodded, smiled and tipped an imaginary hat to her when she walked in. She smiled back. The librarian, Mrs. Satterfield, was still there, too. She looked as old and dour as Anna remembered. As some of the other teachers laughed and talked around her she scowled. Anna had the impression she’d have shushed them all if she thought they’d listen.

The teachers sat down around the table as the board filed in. It was the same four people who’d run the place since Anna could remember. They looked serious but optimistic and relieved. The choice of the headmaster would be the completion of the revised staff they all hoped would restore Bridgestone’s good name.

Everyone quieted down as the board members took their seat and Desmond Fremont, the chairman, began to speak.

“As you know,” he began, “Bridgestone Academy has faced the toughest year in its long and storied history. The shameful behavior of our last headmaster, whose name I shall not even speak, has sullied a long and proud tradition of a fine institution. At the end of last year we began the work of rebuilding that tradition by purging our staff of anyone who might taint the school by association. As you know, this is a tight knit community, and anyone who might be seen as sympathetic to or forgiving of a man who would abuse his authority as our last headmaster did was asked to leave. We were fortunate that most left without a fight. The others we had no choice but to purge more forcefully. We’ve been fortunate to have attracted new talent, some of which may look familiar…”

He nodded at Anna.

“Anna Fowler is back from teaching in a challenging environment upstate. She’s won numerous teaching awards and we are looking forward to her youthful vigor and optimism. Her exemplary record is a bonus.” He paused. “I only wish her return had been under better circumstances, both for us and for her. Miss Fowler, again, I regret to hear of your father’s passing.”

“Thank you,” she muttered, nodding left and right as the other staffers mumbled condolences.

“We retained some staff, brought in new and were satisfied and in general disagreement except over the crowing position. Whom would we choose for a new headmaster? We’ve always had educators at the helm, but this time a candidate stepped up from the private sector, a young man who graduated college to work in his family’s business. He was in contention with the former head of Yardley Prep and a noted former board member and retired teacher from prestigious Ravenscroft Girl’s School. It was not an easy decision, but by a slim majority, our board has decided that it may be time for someone from the business world to run this place with the kind of accountability and managerial skills that will shape its future…”

Anna could hear the word ‘no,” forming on the tip of her tongue. They were actually going to fill he headmaster’s position with someone from the private business sector? Some pencil pusher who’d walked from an expensive university into his daddy’s business? Could it get any worse?

“So without further ado, I’d like to welcome a new and familiar face back to Bridgestone Academy.”

Mr. Fremont stood. “Ladies and gentleman, please welcome your new headmaster, Logan Chance, III.”

“No!” This time Anna said the word, quietly but loud enough to draw curious glances from the people sitting beside her.

By the time he walked in her head was spinning as all the anxiety she’d thought she’d conquered came rushing back to her in a flood. The handsome that looked self-assured to everyone else looked arrogant to Anna, who felt her pale skin grow even paler as the new headmaster’s ice blue eyes scanned the room and then came to a sudden stop when he saw her.

“I’m honored,” he said, his gaze never leaving her face even as he addressed the room. “The decision to trust me with the challenge of rebuilding Bridgestone is one that I take seriously. As a young man, I did not always value discipline; as an adult I do and if I had to define the problem this institution has suffered, I would have to say that it’s a direct result of a lack of discipline, not just of the students but of the staff. In the business world I’ve learned that actions have consequences; perform well and you are rewarded. Perform poorly and you are punished. It’s a formula that works for business and works for people.”