The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman by Ben H. Winters

Author:Ben H. Winters [Winters, Ben H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9780061965432
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2010-09-21T04:00:00+00:00

“Oh my god—it’s her! Wait, is that her?”

“Yeah! Whoa!”

“Are you sure? She looks so … boring.” “I know!”

Ms. Finkleman kept walking, keeping her head down.

The revelations, about her “secret past” and the new plans for the Choral Corral, had spread through the school like a fever. Ms. Ida Finkleman, aka Little Miss Mystery, was the subject of every conversation, and her Band and Chorus room the epicenter of a great continuous whirl of excited speculation. The details about the rock show were a closely held secret, and students traded rumors about what songs were going to be in the show, who was playing what, and (as one particularly electrifying rumor had it) who would be biting the head off a live chicken during the finale.

And so Ms. Finkleman, the timid little agouti who for so long had survived in the jungles of Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School by remaining nameless and faceless, a total unknown, had suddenly been plucked from the protective obscurity of the underbrush and thrown out into the harsh sunlit glare of the savannah. Everywhere Ms. Finkleman looked, someone was staring, looking her up and down, taking her measure. As she emerged from her teal Honda Civic in the faculty parking lot, kids ran up, took furtive cellphone pictures, and ran away. As she traveled the hallways, students pointed at her and giggled nervously, whispering behind their hands. Every time she entered the teachers’ lounge, she discovered her colleagues having animated conversations that ended abruptly as soon as she came in.

Even the Band and Chorus room, long her private sanctuary in the howling wilderness, was no longer safe. Yesterday Principal Van Vreeland had “popped in to offer support,” but the principal’s support was not terribly supportive, especially when she just stood in the back of the room, dancing. Ms. Finkleman could imagine nothing more distracting than having the school’s highest official doing her bizarre, gyrating, snakelike dance moves—unless it was when she was joined by the assistant principal, Jasper, who stood next to her, clapping his hands at odd intervals and shifting back and forth like the Frankenstein monster.

The day before that, it had been Mr. Darlington, the lanky, awkward science teacher, who stopped by midway through their rehearsal period.

“Can I help you?”

“I just needed to, uh, borrow a, uh, music stand for an experiment we’re doing,” said Mr. Darlington, adjusting his black horn-rim glasses on the bridge of his nose. “On the chemical properties of, uh …” Mr. Darlington trailed off, smiling lamely. “Music stands.”

“That’s fine,” Ms. Finkleman said impatiently, motioning toward the cluster of music stands in the back of the room. But instead of fetching one and leaving, Mr. Darlington grabbed a clementine off her desk and folded his spindly frame into a student chair to watch Half-Eaten Almond Joy practice “Livin’ on a Prayer”—while, presumably, his sixth-grade chemistry students watched a filmstrip.

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