Underdead by Liz Jasper

Author:Liz Jasper [Jasper, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-09-12T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

* * *

The next morning before work I hesitated like a coward in the administration building’s elegant parquet hallway before slinking through the back door into the faculty lounge to get my mail. I didn’t think I could handle more of the ostracism I’d experienced after Bob died.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to. My colleagues just went about their business as usual, yawning, bustling, filling coffee cups, reading mail, and generally ignoring me, for which I was truly and ridiculously grateful. I never thought I’d be so delighted to be ignored! It was so much better than being avoided, and had Gavin been in the room I would have thrown my arms around him in gratitude. He had managed the impossible and kept my discovery of the murder weapon quiet. It was just as well he was back at the station—he probably would have hurt himself trying to get away from me, and my reputation as a treacherous fiend would have been cemented for good.

In my mail cubby, under a pink phone message and a still warm recycled-paper copy of the daily announcements, lay a creamy white envelope with the Bayshore Academy insignia in the upper left-hand corner and my name in perfectly slanted script across the front. It was from Maxine. She was the only one I knew who still used a fountain pen. I could never get the things to work, myself. My words always came out as invisible dry scratches framed by vast puddles of ink that got smeared across the paper when I wrote the next line.

I ripped open the envelope and pulled out a matching correspondence card embossed with the Bayshore crest. Maxine was happy to inform me the police had finished with my classroom and I was free to begin using it again.

My shoulders sagged in relief and I offered up a silent prayer of thanks. I’d been forced to show a movie yesterday and I didn’t think I’d survive another day of it. My students were even harder to control than usual when the only diversion was a flickering twenty-inch image of badly dressed scientists with hair at least twenty years out of date and a tendency to talk in sleep-inducing monotones. I know I’m promoting an unfair stereotype, but even I had trouble focusing on what the eminent scientists were saying under the runaway eyebrows. I kept waiting for the Queer Eye guys to rush in and do a group makeover. You can imagine my disappointment when they failed to show up, four times in a row.

Shortly after the bell rang for morning break, Becky and Carol appeared at my door, bearing coffee. “Hey, guys. What’s up? Ooh, Starbucks! What’s the occasion?”

My happy smile faded a little as Becky, looking unusually somber, reached back to shut and lock the door behind her.

“Uh, oh. What’s up? Am I in trouble or something?”

Becky’s eyes opened wide. “In a matter of speaking,” she choked.

Carol looked appalled. “Becky!”

I looked from one to the other. “What’s going on?”

Carol opened her mouth to speak, but Becky got there first.

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