Return To Little Hills. Janice Macdonald
had no interest at all in painted depictions. Still, he felt quite certain that Sophia would approve of Beth.
As he removed yet another layer of paper, he glanced up briefly to see that Beth had been joined by a couple of other teachers, three students and the school security guard. All were grinning expectantly.
“Ah.” He removed a mug emblazoned with spring blooms and, of course, a dozen or so garishly colored butterflies, none of which bore the faintest resemblance to anything he’d ever seen in nature. “Ah,” he said again.
“What kind are they, Mr. Darling?” one of the students asked.
“Not absolutely certain.” He turned the mug this way and that and frowned as though in deep thought. “Possibly something indigenous to Hong Kong. Intriguing design. Thank you, Beth. You’re very kind.” Perhaps we should have dinner, he thought. With everyone milling around though, it struck him as a less-than-opportune moment to extend an invitation.
“Well…” She smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”
“Absolutely.” He tried to picture Beth with the girls. Perhaps she would draw Delphina out of her shell. He thought she might. “Well,” he said. “Thank you. Again.”
She left then and he relegated his marriage quest to the far recesses of his brain. He spent an hour monitoring the performance of a newly hired English teacher, then headed back to administration. On the way, he encountered several people requiring his attention. A student who assured him she would literally die if she couldn’t get her schedule changed, a math teacher who wanted to explain the failing grade she’d been forced to give, a parent alleging her son was being unfairly singled out for discipline just because he’d dyed his hair blue. Peter listened and nodded and made assurances that he would look into the matter, even as part of his mind was formulating a program to completely redesign the school grounds and provide entry-level job training in landscape design and horticulture for a group of particularly hard-core senior boys.
Throwaways. That was the term often used to describe Luther students—children who, for one reason or another, failed to thrive in their regular high school and transferred to Luther to accrue the credits needed to graduate. The view of Luther High, more commonly known as Loser High, as little more than a way station on the road to a life of drug dealing, petty crime and welfare was surprisingly entrenched. He intended to change all that.
“Mr. Darling. Mr. Darling.”
In the reception area of the administration building, a girl with a swinging ponytail and silver hoops at her ears waylaid him.
“Mr. Darling, I need to talk to you.” Her eyes widened. “It’s real important.”
“Mr. Darling.” The security guard had also found him. “Just so you know, the hinge on room 220 is still broken.”
“Peter,” a counselor called from the copier machine. “Got a problem I need to discuss with you.”
“Hey, Pete.” Ray Jenkins, the assistant principal, clasped Peter’s arm. “We’re still on to meet at two?”
Peter nodded. He didn’t often instinctively dislike someone, but just the sound of Ray Jenkins’s plaintive nasal twang irritated him. Equally irritating were Jenkins’s overly chummy insistence on addressing him as Pete, his habit of parking the bloody great monster of a truck he drove in a way that took up half of Peter’s own space, and the assistant principal’s stunning familiarity with, seemingly, every section of the Missouri Educational Code.
In his office, Peter sat down behind his desk, folded his hands and regarded the girl with the silver earrings who had followed him in. Melissa Fowler wore the unofficial Luther girls’ uniform. Jeans that, threadbare knees aside, might have been sprayed on, a minuscule pink shirt and enormous clunky black shoes.
“How are you, Melissa?”
“Good.”
He met her eyes for a moment and her face went red.
“Well, my Mom got fired, so it’s been kind of crazy. I have to baby-sit my little sisters—”
“They’re how old?”
“Two and three. And my brother’s four. My mom had this really cool bartending job. She was making a ton of money, but then I guess she got into this thing with her boss—he’s this huge jerk—and now she’s looking for another job.” Her face worked and she twisted one leg behind the other one. “See, the thing is, I know I didn’t do so good last semester…”
“Well,” Peter corrected.
“Well, I didn’t.” Melissa said. “But now I’m doing really good, right? And now, like, I really want to graduate from my old school, Stephen’s High, with my friends.” She hesitated. “I want to be like that lady who came to talk to us yesterday. The reporter? She was really interesting. I’m thinking that’s what I want to do. I feel really, like, inspired.”
“Good.” Peter sat back in his chair. “Very glad to hear it. You’ve seen the error of your ways, as it were, and are eager to diligently apply yourself.”
She grinned. “I guess.”
Peter swiveled his chair to face the computer, tapped in her name and brought up her record. Melissa was luckier than most of the students at Luther. No father in the picture, but a mother who at least cared enough to attend the teacher-parent nights. Which did little to alter the reality that Melissa was essentially a fourteen-year-old substitute mother who, between meal preparation, child care and other domestic responsibilities, had precious little time left for schoolwork.
As her record came up, Peter reminded himself, as he did on a daily basis, of the parting advice the former principal had offered. “These kids can get you right here.” He’d tapped his chest. “You can care deeply. You have to care. But at the same time, you must keep an emotional distance. If you don’t, you’ll destroy yourself. And you won’t do the children much good, either.”
“Right, then,” Peter said. “You need one hundred and twenty credits to graduate. So far, you only have fifty. Shall we talk about what we need to do?”
Fifteen minutes later, Melissa was gone and Ray Jenkins was sitting in the chair she had occupied. Ray was, Peter guessed, at least five years his senior and had thinning fair hair, faded blue eyes and a pallor that suggested most of his waking hours were spent indoors. Peter had seen framed pictures on Ray’s office wall of his two sons in football uniforms. Both had the tall, blond, athletic looks that Peter imagined Ray had once possessed. And, something else about Ray, a weary sort of bitterness about the assistant principal made Peter suspect that not being promoted probably wasn’t the first disappointment in his life.
“She’s basically a goof-off,” Ray said after Peter described the course he’d laid out for Melissa. “Don’t let her con you. The real reason she’s so hot to go back to Stephen’s is she started hanging around my son again.”
“She has a boyfriend, doesn’t she?” Peter thought for a moment. “Yes, I know she does. Marcus Adams. I managed to get him into an auto-shop program and he was absolutely rhapsodizing about her. No driver’s license yet, but he rides his bicycle over to her house and helps her baby-sit.”
Ray’s lips curled slightly. “That’s this week. All I know is she’s always calling the house to talk to Brad. He said he felt sorry for her once and took her to a movie. Now he can’t get rid of her.”
“Yes, well,” Peter said. “I’m sure we all dimly remember what fourteen was like.” He got up from the desk and wandered to the window, where out on the quad, a vigorous game of basketball was under way. After a moment, he turned to look at the assistant principal. “Melissa is a bright, resourceful girl and I personally have a great deal of confidence in her.”
Ray smirked. “Well, good for you. I guess I’ve just been around these kids a lot longer than you have.”
Peter said nothing, and they moved on to other matters.