The School Bully (4 page)

“She took my phone!” the girl protested. “My dad is going to be super mad if she doesn’t give it back. It’s new. It’s got 32 gigs. If she breaks it…”

“…then it’ll be your fault for not leaving it in your bag.” Logan Chance was towering over the girl now, his expression indicating that he wasn’t interested in hearing her argument. “This is an assembly. You were told on the way end to turn your phone off.”

He held out his hand. “Miss Fowler, if you’d be so kind….”

Anna put the phone in the headmaster’s large hand, pleased to be backed up.

“My father...” the girl began again.

“…can pick up the phone after school,” Logan Chance said, scowling. “And if you interrupt this assembly again, he can pick you up, too because you’ll be spending afternoon in detention, in the corner. Understood?”

The girl quailed and sat down, leaving Anna torn. She was pleased to see her antagonist subdued, but frustrated that the tactics she disagreed with were clearly having an effect. She also returned to her seat, her eyes trailing the headmaster as he made his way up to the stage.

When he took the podium, he started his address by apologizing for the interruption even as he reaffirmed what he told the staff on their first day.

“Discipline has been a lot tradition at Bridgestone, and it will remain so under my leadership,” he said. “If discipline and structure were ever needed here, it’s now. I won’t rehash the sordid details of the scandal that rocked this school last year. But today marks a new dawn
for the institution. All will be accountable. It will make no difference to me if they are teacher or student. Respect will be shown for authority, and teachers will be expected to comport themselves in the most professional manner possible.”

He went on, reminiscing about his days at Bridgestone. Anna felt her admiration melt away. His version was a sanitized one that rehashed his glory days as lacrosse captain and Big Man on Campus. He painted a
Rockwellian
image of the school, omitting how he and the other popular kids preyed on students who didn’t fit into their mold. Anna allowed cold anger to settle into her stomach, secretly grateful for its return. She did not want to like Logan Chance; she wanted to pay him back for the way he’d treated her - as both a student and a headmaster. She wasn’t about to start respecting him because he backed her up in front of the other students. He’d likely just done it to make himself look tough.

The bell signaling the first class of the year rang, and everyone got up and moved towards the exit. By the time Anna reached her classroom, the students were already milling around. She prided herself on providing materials and resources that catered to various learning styles. She was a big fan of hands-on learning, even for older kids and was pleased to see the students examining the microscopes, art and items she’d picked up on nature walks.

She walked to the front of the classroom and turned on a CD player she kept on the edge of her desk. The students fell silent as the room filled with the sounds of classical music.

“Did you know that Beethoven went deaf as an adult?” she asked. “Some people think he was born deaf, but that’s not true.
 
He was forty when he lost his sense of hearing.”

She moved into the crowd of kids. “He started going deaf much earlier, though. But the time he was twenty, the only way he could detect the higher notes was through vibration. He sawed the legs off his piano so he could feel them better.”

The kids were silent now.

“My name is Miss Fowler,” she said. “I’ll be your teacher this year. I’m going to go out on a limb and tell you that I’m not like the other teachers here. This is a very conventional place, but I’m an unconventional person. I won’t send you to the office, for instance, because I don’t agree with the disciplinary policies of this school...”

“You mean the
paddlings
?” a girl asked.

“Exactly,” she said. “I completely disagree with treating kids like that and won’t refer you to the office because of it. If there’s an issue with you, I’ll contact your parents directly. You’re all thirteen and fourteen now. I expect you to act in a mature manner, so even that should be unnecessary.”

“Yeah!” some of the kids chorused.

“That doesn’t mean there won’t be discipline in this classroom,” Anna cautioned. “I’m not a pushover and I will have order here.” She looked at the girl who’d had her phone confiscated. The other students looked agreeable; only this one still seemed surly.

She turned, and told them to go to their seats. After some jostling everyone settled in to their desks. The rest of the day was spent passing out school books, going over class rules and getting acquainted. Anna made sure each student got individual attention. She made notes of their hobbies and interests. The kids seemed genuinely pleased to have someone show an interest in them personally; Anna wondered if their social climbing parents ever asked them the kind of questions she was asking.

Only Hannah Bartlett remained sullen. Anna could tell the girl wasn’t used to having things taken away from her. The girl just shrugged when asked her questions. Anna figured the sulky protest would continue until her father came to reclaim the phone.

She snapped her book shut. “That’s fine,” she said. “We’ll just start participate without you, Anna.”

Anna had decided to start the first day by turning one of the walls into a mural.

“Now that I’ve gotten to know you all individually,” she said. “I want to see some of who you are in the mural.”

The kids were all excited as they helped stretched the canvas across the wall.
But when Hannah got up to join in, Anna pointed back to her desk.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You can’t take part. There are consequences for your actions and you lost your phone through your own fault. I’m completely sympathetic when someone is genuinely sad, but when someone sulks when they should be the one making amends I have no tolerance. There will be other activities for you after you learn to behave in a more mature manner.”

The girl’s face turned read.

“Fine,” she said. “But you’ll be sorry.”

Anna ignored her. The other kids painted through the day, taking a break for lunch. Their fellow students, who were already knee deep in conventional course work, looked at the eighth grader with admiration and envy. Hannah brooded in a corner; whenever Anna happened to catch a glimpse of the girl, she shot daggers at the teacher with her eyes.

Anna had seen it before; she’d dealt with kids that had never learned to trust. They were suspicious and hostile. But with those kids it had been because they’d spent a life being neglected, mistreated or abused. Hannah’s attitude came from an opposite place. She’d been nothing but coddled, and anytime she didn’t get what she wanted, she likely sulked until her parents or nanny gave in. Anna wasn’t about to follow that trend.

The day ended too soon for all of them. The kids filed out, one at a time, with smiles on their faces. Anna felt gratified. Her unconventional approach had helped the kids bond to her and to each other. The following day they’d ease into work; she’d try to make it fun and she’d also try to continue to raise their consciousness.

She felt especially good about letting them know she was independent enough to reject the school’s disciplinary policy and provide something of a refuge in her classroom where students wouldn’t have to worry about being spanked. It had not only set her apart from the conservative administration, it had been her own way of sticking it to Chance Logan. This made her smile.

Anna remained in a good mood the rest of the afternoon, so good in fact that it gave her energy to clean up the classroom and organize the art supplies. She liked the way the sun streamed through the window as the shadows lengthened. She was at her desk, making a list of paints she needed when a voice came over the static-laced intercom.

“Miss Fowler.” She was surprised to hear Logan Chance speaking. “Are you still here?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I’d like you to come to my office please.
Immediately.”

She looked at the clock. It was getting late; it was nearly six in fact.

“I was just about to head home,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow we could...”

“No, Miss Fowler. I need you in my office now.”

The intercom clicked off. He’d not even given her time to respond.

“Fine,” Anna grumbled under her breath. She reached down and picked up the canvas bag bulging with the papers and books it was her habit to lug to and from work. The halls were empty as she walked; everyone had gone home. Even the office was deserted. The lights were out, the fading light made the warm wood on the walls glow. The headmaster’s office door was cracked. He had a light on already. She knocked.

“Come in.” His voice was curt and when he looked up at her, he did not smile.

“Sit down, Miss Fowler,” he said.

She sighed and sat in the chair.

“If this is about the mural, no one said I couldn’t decorate...”

He cut her off. “I don’t care about the mural. What I do care about is hearing that one of my teachers has announced on the first day that her students are somehow exempt from the consequences that this school has deemed acceptable policy.”

She stared at him, surprised. How could have found out so quickly that she’d told the kids she’d protect them from
Bridgeston’s
corporal punishment policy? She thought that had earned their trust. But one of them had told!
But who?

“Hannah Bartlett’s father came to pick up her iPod this afternoon. I had a word with both of them in my office. Hannah told me that you informed her and the rest of the class that they had no need to fear being paddled.”

Anna lifted her chin defiantly. “And they don’t. I will not accept that as a punishment for my students.”

“It’s not your choice,” he said, shaking his head.

“Oh yes it is!” she shot back. “You will not subject them to such cruelty…”

“Cruelty?” he said with a smirk. “How would you know? Have you ever been paddled?”

“No,” she said. “But I don’t need someone to hit me to know it hurts.”

“Sometimes a little pain is just what someone with a bad attitude needs.” He stood up from his chair and walked behind her. She turned to see him shut the door as he continued talking.
“Especially when that someone is defiant and obviously looking for a fight.
I have a theory about people like that, Miss Fowler….”

He was walking over now to the wall by his desk where the paddle hung. He lifted it from his hook.

“My theory,” he continued, “Is that all people, on some level, want limits. They want to find someone to put them in their place, give them structure. When they don’t get it, they act out. I think that’s the case with you. I think it’s time someone laid down those limits.”

He walked towards her and in the split second before his hand shot out to take hold of her arm, she comprehended his intentions.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” she cried as he lifted her from the chair.

“I’m doing what the former headmaster here should have done to you years ago - I’m about to teach you that no one escapes the paddle if they deserve it. In this case, not even adults.”

Anna was struggling as he pulled her over to the desk. This could not be happening! It simply could not be happening!

“I’ll call the police!” she cried. “I’ll have you arrested for assault and battery!”

“Well, if you’re going to do all of that then I guess I’d better make this one to remember.”

Logan Chance swept aside the items on his desk and forced Anna to bend down over it. She felt his hand go to the waistband of her skirt and pull her forward so that her feet had cleared the floor. She could only kick her legs helplessly now as his large hand pressed against the small of her back.

“Anna Fowler, stop struggling!”

“Fuck you!” she seethed, her efforts to get away continuing.

“That’s two school rules broken,” he said. “Or did you forget that profanity is forbidden.”

“Fuck you, asshole!” she said, defiantly. “Fuck you, fuck your rules and fuck your stupid school!”

“Very well,” he replied, and a split second later Anna heard a loud “pop” that coincided with a searing pain across the seat of her form-fitting skirt.

She cried out, not prepared for the paddle’s vicious bite. Tears sprung to her eyes and she renewed her struggles, but she was no match for the 6’3” former lacrosse captain. The paddle came down again, falling across the lower half of both buttocks. She felt like her bottom had been seared and to her horror she began to bawl from the pain. She tried to form the word “Stop,” but had no time before Headmaster Logan Chance brought the paddle down a third time.

Tears were pooling on the desktop beneath Anna’s face. She wanted to reason with him, to plead for mercy, but her words were barely
discernable
, and to her humiliation she heard herself begging and promising to “be good.” In the back of her mind, she thought of all the students before her who’d been in the exact same position in this office.
 
No wonder they came back to their classrooms with heads hung low and tears drying on their faces.