it is your daughter who will be leaving.”
Betty laughed politely. “Oh no, I don’t think so. Bill?”
Bill took out his phone – what he half-jokingly referred to as the most powerful phone in Florida – and dialled a number.
“We do not allow cellphones in the Principal’s Office,” Cobb said.
Bill ignored her. “Grant,” he said, smiling when the call was picked up. “Sorry to be calling in the middle of the day. No, no, nothing like that. Not yet, anyway. No, I’d like you to do me a favour, if you would. The principal of Amber’s school, you know her? That’s the one. I’d like her fired, please.”
Faint fingers of a headache began to tap on the inside of Amber’s skull. So this was how far they were willing to take things today. All the way to the end.
“Thank you,” said Bill. “Say hi to Kirsty for me.”
Bill hung up, and looked at Cobb. “You should be receiving a call any moment now.”
Cobb sighed. “This isn’t amusing, Mr Lamont.”
“Don’t worry, it’s about to get decidedly funnier.”
“I have made my decision. There is no arguing—”
Bill held up a finger for quiet.
Cobb was obedient for all of four seconds before speaking again. “If you’re not going to talk rationally about this, then I have nothing more to say to you. It is unfortunate we could not work out our—”
“Please,” said Betty. “Give it a moment.”
Cobb shook her head, and then her phone rang. She actually jumped.
“I’d answer it,” Betty advised her gently. “It’s for you.”
Cobb hesitated. The phone rang twice more before she picked it up. “Hello? Yes, yes, sir, I’m just … what? But you can’t do that.” She turned her face away. She was pale now, and her voice was hushed. “Please. You can’t do that. I didn’t—”
Amber heard the dial tone from where she was sitting. Cobb sat frozen. Then her shoulders began to jerk, and Amber realised she was crying.
Amber felt queasy. “Bill,” she said, “maybe we don’t really have to get her fired, do we?”
Bill ignored her and stood up. “Right then,” he said. “Amber, we’ll let you get back to class. You’re working at the diner later, aren’t you? Try not to eat anything – we’re having duck tonight.”
Her folks headed for the door, and Amber looked back at Cobb, who stood up quickly.
“Please,” Cobb said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry. You’re obviously very important people and … and Amber is obviously a very special girl.”
“Very special,” said Bill, one foot already out of the office.
“I’m sorry I didn’t recognise that,” Cobb said, hurrying out from behind her desk. “Special students deserve special treatment. Latitude. They deserve latitude and … and understanding. Leeway.”
“Leeway, latitude and understanding,” Betty said, nodding. “They’ve always been our touchstones for a happy life.”
“Please,” Cobb said. “Don’t have me fired.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Betty. “It’s really up to Amber. Amber, do you think Mrs Cobb should keep her job?”
There was some part of Amber, some sly and distant part, that wanted to say no, that wanted to punish her principal for her shrillness, her pettiness – but this was a part that wasn’t thinking of Cobb as a person. No matter how much Amber may have disliked the woman, she was not prepared to ruin her life just to teach her a lesson.
“Uh yeah, she can keep it,” Amber said.
“Thank you,” Cobb said, her whole body sagging. “Thank you.”
“Wait a second,” Bill said, stepping back into the office. “Mrs Cobb, you accused us of being bad parents. If you want your job back, you’re going to have to do more than just apologise.”
“Oh yes,” Betty said, clapping her hands in delight. “You should beg for it.”
Amber stared at her parents in shocked disbelief, and Cobb frowned.
“I’m sorry?”
Betty’s smile vanished. “Beg, I said.”
Amber had been wrong. She thought she had known the full extent of her parents’ punishments, but this was a level beyond. This was vindictive, like they were running out of patience on some scale no one else could see. This was something entirely new.
Cobb shot a quick glance at Amber, then looked back at Bill and Betty. “Uh … please,” she said quietly. “Please can I keep my job? I … I beg of you.”
Bill shrugged. “Yeah, okay.” He swept his arm towards the door. “Shall we?”
They left the office, left Mrs Cobb standing there with tears running down her face, and walked the length of the corridor without speaking. Right before her parents turned right, for the parking lot, and Amber turned left, for the classrooms, Bill looked at her.
“This girl you had the ‘fracas’ with,” he said, “Saffron, right? Wasn’t she a friend of yours?”
“When we were kids,” said Amber, her voice soft.
He nodded, considered it, then walked away.
Her mother patted Amber’s shoulder and looked sympathetic. “Children can be so cruel,” she said, and followed her husband.
THE HEADACHE THAT HAD been building since lunch finally struck by the end of school, driving thin needles of pain deep into Amber’s temples. She popped a couple of Tylenol and, by the time her shift at the diner was half over, the pain had faded to a dull throb somewhere at the back of her skull.
“My folks are getting weirder,” she said.
Sally looked up from the magazine she was reading. “Sorry?”
“My folks,” Amber repeated as she wiped the table. She did her best to sound casual. “They’re getting weirder.”
“Is that possible?”
“I didn’t think so. But do you know what they did today? They were called into my school and they made my principal cry. She literally shed tears. She was begging and everything. They … they traumatised her. It was so messed up.”
Sally
