License to Shop (26 page)
Authors: Kelly McClymer
Tags: #family, #secret shopper, #maine mom, #mystery shopper mom
“
Why don’t you read to
them for me, while I go talk to the principal for a few
minutes.”
I realized, at that
moment, that the student teacher was gone. Of course she was. It
was exam week at the university. All the student teachers were
finished for the school year.
No wonder the kids were
running wild. “Go. I’ll get them reading.”
I didn’t watch to see if
she went, I knew she had. I turned to the children and called out
with a false lilt. “Story time!” They came running, skipping and
Jeremy Sisson hopped until Serenity Smith hissed at him, “Stop that
Jeremy or I’ll tell teacher and you’ll get expelled just like
Zach.”
Jeremy instantly tamed his
hop to a skip, but there was a look of defiance on his face that
didn’t bode well for his future at the school.
I grabbed two books, and
said I’d let everyone who was quiet and sitting in the next sixty
seconds vote on which one to read.
Miraculously, every child
sat and grew quiet.
I held up the first book.
“How many want this one?” About half the hands shot up.
“
Jimmy, you can only vote
with one hand,” I said, waiting to count until he had put down one
arm.
“
Okay,” I held up the
second book. “Who wants to read this one?” Two thirds of the hands
shot up.
“
I think we have a
winner.” I sat down in the reading chair, and smiled at Anna, as I
began to read.
I am not a teacher. I once
thought of substitute teaching when Anna went back to school, but
after a stint in the school industrial arts classroom where I found
three students sneaking turns at the saw table, I quickly realized
that was not for me.
But I am a good reader. I
read the first book, pleased at how attentive the students were. I
only started to get nervous when the book ended, and Mrs. Glenn had
not yet returned.
In desperation, feeling the kids getting
restless, I grabbed the second book, the one that had not received
enough votes the first time. “Good news. We have time for a second
book.”
The girls sat quietly with
little sighs of contentment. The boys groaned.
I looked at the book in my
hand. “Little House on the Prairie.” Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’d
loved her as a child. Seth had loathed her.
I found the bookmark and
began to read, trying not to watch the slowly crawling second hand
in the big round clock over the classroom door. The door where Mrs.
Glenn should be re-entering her classroom anytime now. I
hoped.
Twenty minutes ticked by
as Laura and Pa’s hands became bloodied from twisting haysticks to
keep them warm during a frightful blizzard. The children, worn out
from this morning’s fracas, and their tummies full of cupcake and
milk, sat and listened to my ever hoarsening voice like catatonic
little robots whose batteries had run seriously low.
At last Mrs. Glenn,
looking her usual capable self, stepped back into the room. The
children roused themselves and no one protested when I stopped
reading mid-sentence, so I stuck the bookmark in at the beginning
of the chapter I was halfway through. The girls would appreciate
it, though the boys would hate me—if any of them noticed my
dastardly deed.
“
Recess!” Mrs. Glenn
announced brightly and the children—batteries mysteriously
recharged, rushed toward their cubbies in that half organized, half
chaotic way of school children about to be freed into the
playground.
Fortunately, the second
grade classrooms all let out directly onto said playground, so Mrs.
Glenn softened her normally iron-rigid rule that all children had
to be lined up and quiet before she opened the door. She just
opened it as soon as the first child appeared and gave Serenity a
look that stopped the child cold with whatever comment she had been
about to make about following the rules. With a little toss of her
dark curls, the girl darted out the door, “I call the four-square
court.”
“
Thank you.” Mrs. Glenn
smiled at me, her silent thanks making me feel like I actually had
helped. “Have you ever thought of being a teacher? You’d be
great.”
“
I’ll have to think about
it,” I lied.
The only thing that kept
me from launching myself out the door like Serenity was the fact
that it would get back to the PTA moms before I even left the
parking lot.
“
No problem. The kids were
great,” I lied, suddenly realizing this could be the boost I needed
to get me recognition as a responsible mom.
“
I hope you won’t speak of
this to anyone. It is all confidential of course.”
“
I won’t say a word.”
Except to Seth. And Deb. I didn’t feel much guilt about that,
though. Mrs. Glenn had already talked to the principal and he had
the loosest lips on the planet. His idea of discretion suggested to
me he’d looked up the wrong word in the dictionary at some point in
his school career. As a student, I mean, not as a teacher, or
administrator.
“
Zero tolerance, you
know,” she said. As if that would be enough to frighten me into
silence. Sometimes teacher forgot that they didn’t have any say
over the parents.
Although, I suppose, since
they hold our children hostage five days a week, that isn’t
strictly true. “Lips are sealed,” I assured her, making the
universal “zipped lips” motion to cement my vow of secrecy.
Husbands and best friends do not count, after all.
I glanced at my watch. I
had fifteen minutes to make the twenty minute drive to my next shop
location.
It took me thirty minutes
to get to the store, and five minutes to find a parking space close
enough so that I’d be able to hurry out and pick up the
kids.
As I gathered up my
mystery shop tools, I realized I was smiling. Seth was just going
to have to understand. I wanted to be a mystery shopper, and a mom,
and a wife. I didn’t want to be an Admissions Counselor, or a
teacher, or even an FBI agent. For now.
Chicklit
Secret Shopper Mom Mystery
series
License to Shop
Once Upon a Wedding
series
FOR TEENS…and the young at
heart…
Boxed Sets…
Where to Find Kelly McClymer:
Facebook:
http://facebook.com/kellymcclymerbooks
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/kellymcclymer
Google+:
https://plus.google.com/+Kellymcclymerbooks/videos
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3rmVSdDQiHFbURQytTIjUw
About the
Author
Kelly McClymer went undercover as a mystery shopper for
several years, in order to do proper research for the Secret
Shopper Mom Mystery series. It was fun, educational, and she made a
little extra cash, too. Mystery shoppers work hard, and help
businesses who use them run more efficiently. Most mystery shoppers
do not run into serial killers, or identity thieves.
