Bottoms Out by Etienne

Author:Etienne [Etienne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

• 23 •

Jacksonville, FL

THE CLARK sisters invited Chris to join them on their front porch, and he followed them up the steps, where the sisters settled down in rocking chairs.

Sarah said, “Now have a seat, Chris, and tell us what’s got you so riled up?”

“Is it that obvious?” he said before taking a seat.

“Oh, yes,” Parah said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so upset, so tell us about it.”

“I came over here to ask you to recommend a good school for Ted.”

“I thought he was in school,” Sarah said.

“Not as of this morning, he isn’t,” Chris said, and he related his encounter with the teacher and headmaster in some detail.

“Oh, my,” Sarah said, when Chris finished telling the story. “Things just keep on getting worse, don’t they?”

“All that nonsense about drugs was one of the reasons my sister and I retired much earlier than we’d planned,” Parah said.

“Right,” Sarah said. “They kept loading us down with so many students in each class that it became impossible to address individual needs. Their favorite solution was to drug the kids to keep them quiet.”

“I’m shocked to find that the whole ‘drug them to keep them quiet’ business has infiltrated the parochial schools,” Parah said.

“That’s because most of their teachers aren’t nuns these days,” Sarah said. “The nuns were the ones who maintained discipline and order.”

“So, what’s the answer for Ted?” Chris said.

The sisters looked at each other and chorused, “Homeschooling.”

“That’s a great idea, but neither Mickey nor I are home enough during the day to handle it, even if we were qualified,” Chris said.

“That may be true,” Sarah said. “But we’re here all day every day, and we don’t have anything at all to do.”

“After all, we were elementary school teachers for forty years,” Parah said. “We can give Ted what he needs.”

“And we not only know what textbooks to get, we know where to find them,” Sarah said.

“But we won’t need very many textbooks,” Parah said.

“Why is that?” Chris said.

“Follow me,” she said.

Chris followed Parah into their house and to what would have been a third bedroom, if it hadn’t been outfitted with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along three walls. There was a pair of small desks under the windows between a pair of wingback chairs, and each desk held a desktop computer. She walked over to one section of the bookshelves and pointed.

“Fifth grade textbooks for most subjects are right here in front of you, and the sixth grade books are on the next shelf. Some of them are a few years old, but history doesn’t go out of date, nor does English and literature. We’ve only been retired for a couple of years, and things won’t have changed that much.”

“She’s right,” Sarah said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we only needed three or four books in addition to workbooks and other materials.”

“I taught fifth grade and my sister taught sixth grade,” Parah said. “Between us, we’ve got the next two years covered. You have thought beyond the sixth grade, I hope?”

“Yes, Ma’am.

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