reason did Mary Jane give for spitting at her teacher?”
A heavy sigh came from the seat next to Juliet. Her daughter’s ankle-length black boots bobbed. Juliet didn’t dare look over. She couldn’t afford the distraction.
She also didn’t have time to find another school right now.
But even without that look of confirmation from her daughter earlier, Juliet couldn’t believe Mary Jane would really do such a thing. Drop something and break it, spill something, trip over something, probably. But spit at her teacher? The child was never deliberately mean.
“She spit on her teacher!” Mrs. Cummings said. “I really think the reason is irrelevant.”
“Maybe.”
Mary Jane could take the truth, but she was still a child. Her feelings could be hurt by thoughtless adults passing judgment without knowledge or understanding.
“Do you mind if we just ask her?” The whisper brush of hose against hose as Juliet crossed one ankle over the other sounded loud. “The first amendment to the Constitution of this country states that everyone has a right to a trial.”
Her hands locked on the top of her desk, Mrs. Cummings didn’t move. Though her smile was rather ghostly, it remained in place as she studied Juliet. Then, slowly, she turned her gaze to the little girl whose wide-eyed look almost lost her mother the ground she’d just won.
“Okay, Mary Jane, can you tell me why you spit on Mrs. Thacker?”
“I didn’t actually spit on her.” Mary Jane’s voice, though somewhat subdued as she stared her principal in the eye, was her usual peculiar combination of childhood lisp and adultlike delivery.
Mrs. Cummings sat up straighter, her lips pinched with disapproval. “We have witnesses, several of them.”
“I did spit and it did get on her,” Mary Jane explained, eyes sincere. “I just didn’t mean it to get on her. She walked around the corner and I couldn’t make it stop coming out.”
God, Juliet loved this child. “Why did you spit at all?” she asked.
Mary Jane glanced down, moving her boots back and forth against each other. “Jeff Turner said that I was backward because there were lots of things I don’t know how to do ’cause I don’t have a dad to teach me.”
She and Mary Jane were happy together. Why couldn’t the world just let them be?
“Things like spitting?” Juliet asked.
Mary Jane nodded. “So I told him I could too spit, as good as anyone with a dad. And he told me to prove it, so that’s what I was doing when Mrs. Thacker came to call us in from recess.”
Trying not to smile at that image, or to think about the hurtful things kids did to each other, Juliet looked back at the principal. And waited. This was her call.
“The point is—” Mrs. Cummings, hands together, leaned toward Juliet “—that your daughter, whether she meant to or not, spit on her teacher in front of all the other children. We can’t just ignore that fact. Maintaining the discipline required to prevent mayhem with six hundred students all in one building for six hours every day takes diligence and carefully protected boundaries.”
“I understand, but—”
“I was quite willing to sign the necessary forms to allow Mary Jane to attend this institution even though she lives outside our boundaries, but she has not lived up to her side of the agreement. I’m going to—”
She couldn’t bear to see Mary Jane become the outsider again as a new kid in yet another school. “Please, Mrs. Cummings.” Juliet sat forward. She’d beg if she had to. She was just beginning jury selection on the biggest trial of her career—opposing Paul Schuster, a prosecutor who put far much more value on winning than on truth.
“She’s explained that the spitting wasn’t intentional,” Juliet said quietly.
The frown on the principal’s plain face was not encouraging. Even if Juliet won this one, they lost. She couldn’t feel good about sending Mary Jane to a school that didn’t want her.
The child was uncharacteristically still beside her as Mrs. Cummings sat back, eyes lowered. Silent.
There was a time to speak, and a time to let the facts speak for themselves. Watching her imp of a daughter sitting so solemnly beside her, chin sliding lower on her chest as the seconds passed, Juliet willed the facts to speak quickly.
“I don’t know how I could explain this to a classroom full of third-graders.” The principal finally looked up, her gaze pinned on Juliet. “If I let Mary Jane back into class, they’re going to think that what she did was okay.”
“I don’t work with kids all day long like you do,” Juliet said, “but it seems to me that they’ll think what you tell them to think. Couldn’t this be a lesson in how things are not always what they seem? Or an example of how telling the truth can get you out of trouble?”
“Spitting at all is against school rules.”
Filling with desperation, Juliet spoke urgently. “I know, ma’am, and I’m sure no one’s sorrier than Mary Jane. But spitting on the playground can’t be a reason for expulsion, can it?”
“No,” Mrs. Cummings said, eyebrows raised. “Not by itself. But this isn’t Mary Jane’s first infraction.” She looked over at the girl. “And I’m sorry Jeff Turner was bothering you. I’ll have another talk with his father, but I just don’t see how I can overlook the fact that you’re in this office more frequently than anyone else in your class.”
Juliet leaned forward. “The other incidents are in the past,” she said, finding it difficult to breathe around the tightness in her chest. “Mary Jane accepted her punishment and made all necessary reparations. All we have on the table today is spitting and, judging by your own words, that’s not punishable by expulsion.”
The principal sat for a long time, and then her face softened slightly. “All right, I’ll give her one more chance. But if there’s a next time…”
Thank you, God. Juliet didn’t hear the rest of the warning. The bottom line was that Mary Jane couldn’t make any more mistakes.
“But you’re going to have to stay after school for a week, young lady, and clean Mrs. Thacker’s blackboards for her as punishment.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And apologize to her in front of your classmates.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
With that, Mrs. Cummings nodded.
Juliet gave her daughter a hug and a whispered “I love you,” and hurried back to her office at Truman and Associates, one of the city’s leading law firms. They’d had a narrow escape.
“MR. RAMSDEN, I’m Paul Schuster. Thank you for seeing me.”
Blake took the older man’s hand, was surprised by his weak grip, and indicated
