The Amanda Pepper Mysteries: Bundle #4 by Gillian Roberts

Author:Gillian Roberts [Roberts, Gillian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
Publisher: Untreed Reads
Published: 2015-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Twelve

ONE OF THE OFTEN-OVERLOOKED good things about teaching is that it’s very Zen, an ongoing lesson in living in the minute. To do even a mediocre job, and to avoid all hell breaking out, a teacher has to be present in mind as well as body.

That sounds easy, but if taken seriously, it’s anything but. Being on, being alert, being aware of what’s happening in twenty to thirty separate bodies and minds makes for an incredibly difficult job even without the mandate of wedging culturally important information between the audience’s ears. Imagine what pay and benefits Actors Equity would demand if their member performers had to hold the stage, being alert and on for five to six hours per performance. Hamlet each and every school day.

But the good side of this is that it means the teacher’s mind can’t wander and obsess, even if really important nonclassroom matters loom, like planning how to prepare for meeting the senior Mackenzies. Making A Good Impression. This translates into the mundane quandary of what to wear. Certainly not the otherwise perfect white silk blouse the teacher currently has on, not tomorrow and not perhaps ever again, because ten minutes earlier, her pen leaked navy blue ballpoint gorp, a splat the size of a cat’s head over its right sleeve.

And this particular teacher could not, at the moment, think of a single other item in her wardrobe.

She might have thought about how messy the loft was and how much scrubbing and tidying she’d have to do tonight, and she knew her mother certainly wished she would. But luckily, there was no opportunity to think about such concerns. She had to Be Here Now And Always.

I was also too busy paying attention to the classroom to ponder the meaning of the note in my mailbox this morning, complete with smiley-face, of course. Dr. H., it said. Sunshine had reverted to plain English for The Supreme Boss of Us. That Dr. part was an ongoing mystery. Nobody knew in what field that doctorate had been pursued, or what offshore diploma mill had produced it, because he showed no special learning—not even basic smarts—in any area yet plumbed. But no surprise, Sunshine believed in it and accorded it the full dignity of a normal abbreviation. After that, the note degenerated into pure Sunshinelish. 1ts 2CU—f2f b43@ bk. OK?

Sunshine’s notes forced me to sound them out the way a kindergartener might. “Onets— wants— two—to—Oh, C.U. To see you. Face-to-face be…no. Before three, about book.” The effort exhausted me and only the OK? didn’t require effort. Hers was the longest, least efficient, shorthand I’d ever seen.

It had to be about Sonia Lawrence’s difficulties with Lord of the Flies. If I needed further proof of Havermeyer’s lack of a brain, and I did not, here it was. Any half-wit could have told her that even if we were at war with evil, understanding the enemy, recognizing the impulse toward it would be a good thing, the equivalent of arming our side.

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