her stepfather could see this, he’d laugh till his sides split. Harlan Adams just loved irony. He’d always told her that one day she’d run across a child as impossible as she had been. Apparently this school year she was about to be confronted by a whole classroom of them.
She stared around her in horror and wondered what had possessed her to shift from teaching history and current events to eighth graders. She’d had some idealistic notion that elementary-school students would be more receptive, easier to mold. Obviously she’d lost her mind. The evidence of that was right in front of her.
The opening-day bell had barely rung and already chairs had been upended. Papers were strewn from one end of the dingy room to the other. Graffiti had been scrawled across the blackboard in every shade of chalk. Unfortunately, not even half the words had been spelled correctly. Stacks of textbooks she had neatened herself only yesterday were tumbled in disarray. Pandemonium was in full swing.
A freckle-faced girl was huddled at her desk sobbing as she clutched one fat braid in her hand, while the other bobbed on the left side of her head where it belonged. She looked like a lopsided doll after an encounter with a four-year-old’s scissors.
A pack of boys was circling the girl’s chair, whooping as if they’d just succeeded in scalping her. It was an image that sent a particularly nasty chill through Jenny’s part-Native American blood.
She took in the entire scene, drew a calming breath and prayed for patience, fortitude and maybe just a little divine intervention. At this moment she deeply regretted ever thinking of teaching as a way of giving something back to the community and sticking a little closer to home than she’d been in recent years.
More than one person had warned her that this would not be as simple as dealing with a bunch of hardheaded, shortsighted congressmen or even the eighth graders she’d had the year before. She had scoffed at that. Lobbying on Capitol Hill had been a three-ring circus. Eighth graders had been discovering the power of hormones. Fourth graders were little kids.
Well, that particular horse was out of the barn. She was here, under contract for another school year, nine endlessly long months. The prospect of day after day of this made her shudder. The only way around it was to seize control now, right this second.
“That’s enough!” she said just loudly enough to be heard over the uproar. That particular tone, lethally calm, had quelled many a rioting group in the past, although most of them had been adults caught up in a frenzy of advocacy of some Native American cause or another. She waited with some trepidation to see if it worked with this pint-size mob.
If it didn’t, she could always inform the principal that she’d had a sudden mental breakdown and it would no longer be safe for her to be left alone with young children. Patrick Jackson disliked her so much he’d accept the explanation without batting an eye. Besides, teaching was her second career, anyway. She could always find a third. Change was good. In fact, at this precise moment, it struck her as both positive and inevitable.
As she contemplated her future with some enthusiasm, two dozen pairs of eyes turned in her direction, surveying her, sizing her up. The sobbing child with the unfortunate haircut watched her hopefully.
“Everyone find a chair, get it behind a desk and sit,” Jenny instructed. When no one moved, she added, “Now!”
Slowly but surely she detected signs of movement. First one chair was scraped into place, then another and another. She caught a couple of guilty looks being exchanged as she crossed the room toward the chubby-cheeked victim of the morning’s torment.
She hunkered down in front of her and grasped her trembling hands. “Sweetie, it’s going to be okay,” she soothed, though she was certain of no such thing.
“No, it’s not,” the girl said, her voice thick with choked-back tears. “My hair is g-g-g-gone.”
“But now you can have a whole new hairdo,” Jenny said cheerfully. She smoothed a tendril of hair away from the child’s flushed cheek. “Look at my hair. It’s short. Takes me two minutes to wash and dry it. No tangles, either. And you have a lovely face. Short hair will show off your beautiful eyes.”
The girl blinked owlishly at that. “You think so?” she asked hesitantly.
“I really think so.”
“But what is my mom going to say?” she asked miserably. “My hair’s been growing practically forever. She’ll kill me.”
“I’ll speak with your mother,” Jenny promised. “After all, this wasn’t your fault. It’s not as if you lopped off that braid yourself. What’s your name?”
“Mary,” the child said. “Mary Rose Franklin.”
“Well, Mary, why don’t we go and make a call to your mother right this minute and see what we can do about this.” She smiled at her. “Just think how envious all your friends are going to be that you got to miss the first day of school.”
Mary sniffed and managed a faltering smile of triumph for her now subdued classmates.
Jenny took the child’s hand and led her toward the door, then paused as she recognized the danger in her plan. The class was very likely to erupt into chaos again the instant her back was turned.
She turned slowly back to face the other students. She doubted she would ever learn which student was responsible for this disaster, but maybe she could transform the incident into a lesson for all of them. If she didn’t take control of these nine-year-olds today, it would be a very long year.
Or a very short one, if she followed through on seeking new employment. Any new employment Once the principal saw Mary’s new haircut, he might very well encourage Jenny’s career change. In the meantime, though, she leveled a stern look at her young charges.
“When I get back here, I expect to find you exactly where I left you,” she said. “And I expect to find the person responsible for chopping off Mary’s hair writing an apology to Mary.”
Several boys snickered. Jenny scowled.
“On second thought, perhaps all of you should be writing that apology,” she said firmly. “Even if you didn’t cut her hair, you all stood by and watched it happen. That makes you accessories. I’ll explain exactly what that is when I get back. Then you can read your letters aloud. They had better ring with sincerity or every one of you will spend the next month in detention. Maybe longer.” She scowled. “Maybe the whole semester. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” a redheaded girl muttered dutifully. Her hands were folded neatly atop her desk and her expression was as solemn and innocent as a saint’s.
“Yes, ma’am,” several others mimicked.
Jenny sighed and decided to let the taunt pass.
“You may start now.” She waited until heads were bent and pencils were scratching over paper before taking Mary to the principal’s office and explaining the morning’s catastrophe.
Patrick Jackson peered at Jenny over the ugly black frames of his thick glasses, then glanced at Mary and sighed heavily. “I just knew something like this was going to happen the minute I heard the board had approved your transfer to this school. I would have fought it, but it would have been a waste of time. Even though you’ve been trouble ever since you hit town twenty
