by Lisa Lutz
“I already told you I don’t fence. You can’t expect me to teach something that I don’t know how to do.”
“Okay,” Greg said. “Fencing is off the table.”
“It was never on the table,” I said. “Back to writing. I’ve never taught creative writing before. And I already prepared my literature curricula.”
“According to Len, you don’t really need a lesson plan.”
“If you mention my dad one more time—”
“Okay. Okay,” Greg said, with just the right dose of panic in his voice. “If you agree to the switch, you are released from any supervisory responsibilities.”
One of the worst things about private school employment was the boundless chaperoning responsibility tacked on to a full teaching schedule. I was unlikely to get a better deal.
* * *
—
I entered my class, Headquarters room 203, without a word about my tardiness. I wasn’t going to start the year in their debt. This time, I would not let down my guard. This time would be different.
As I gazed at my students, I had the same thought I always had on the first day. They looked so young and innocent. Then I found a dead rat in the bottom of my desk drawer and remembered the tenet I had learned over the last eight years. The young may have a better excuse for cruelty, but they are no less capable of it.
For someone looking for omens, it’s odd how many exit signs I chose to ignore.
If a century of tradition were the only thing my time at Stonebridge brought to an end, I’d be okay with that. It’s the two deaths that keep me up at night.
Gemma Russo
I remember everything about that first day.
Ms. Witt showed up for class fifteen minutes late. She had on a pair of old Levi’s, a wrinkled light-blue button-down oxford shirt under a threadbare gray cardigan. She wore mud-splattered red Jack Purcell high-tops. Her straight brown hair hung loose and tangled, like she’d just rolled out of bed. She looked like she didn’t care about anything. She was definitely pretty, but she wouldn’t cause any traffic accidents. Her features were all kind of standard. From a distance, she was just another white woman with long brown hair. But, up close, you could see her wide brown eyes tracking everything. And when she flashed a smile, I saw her twisted tooth. It made her look dangerous or something. I liked her right away.
But when she found the dead rat, that’s when I knew she was special.
I’d heard that morning about Gabe’s planned prank. He was so stinking proud of himself, everyone knew. When Witt opened her desk drawer, she gave up nothing, like a gangster. She squinted, at first, like she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. Then there was the recognition, an eyebrow raise. Not even a millisecond of fear. The rodent was contained in a Ziploc bag, which Witt removed from the drawer and held from the corner edge.
“Is Ratatouille, may he rest in peace, property of the biology department or nature?” Ms. Witt asked.
Her eyes scanned the classroom, waiting for a response.
“We dissect mice, not rats, here,” said Bethany Wiseman.
“Thank you,” Witt said.
Gabriel Smythe was being a total spaz. His attempts to tamp down his laughter made it look like he was having a seizure. Witt lasered in on him.
“You, with the tie around your head, what’s your name?”
“Uh, uh, Cornelius…Web-ber…Mc…Allister,” Gabe said.
Gabe’s fake names are always unfunny because he takes so damn long to come up with them.
Witt dropped the dead rat on Gabe’s desk and said, “Please take this creature to his final resting place.”
“You want me to bury him?” Gabe said.
Gabe was totally freaking out by then. His face was bright red, his zits even redder. The class was dead silent.
“Well, he’s not going to bury himself,” Witt said.
Jonah let out a guffaw. I saw a slight smirk on Witt’s face.
“Chop chop,” said Witt.
Gabe quickly stood up and took the bagged rat out of the classroom. Then Ms. Witt returned to her desk and completely ignored us, as if nothing had happened.
My phone buzzed with a group text from the Ten.
Mick: Holy fuck. What was that?
Adam: That was kinda hot, right?
Tegan: Damn she cold
Rachel: What is she wearing?
Hannah: Weirdo
Mick: Def hot
Tegan: moths r obv drawn 2 her
Emelia: pretty, needs blush
Hannah: needs more than blush
Jonah: I think I’m in love
Mick: u r freak Jonah. Wish I could see her ass in those jeans
Jack: gd mouth
Rachel: sm mouth. Think it could hold your entire dick?
Hannah: OMG. Can u see that snaggletooth? Bitch could cut you
Emelia: 2 early in the day 2 think about Jack getting blown
Jack: never 2 early
Jonah: I like her teeth
Adam: Jonah = lunatic
The Ten refers to the top ten percent, give or take, of each class, which generally works out to around ten students. No one’s a Nazi about the precise number except Mick Devlin, who really likes it to be exactly ten. The tier has nothing to do with academic credentials; it’s a pure social hierarchy. Members come and go depending on a voting system that is so nebulous, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some preppy wizard from years past pulling the strings somewhere.
This is the current roster of the senior Ten, in no particular order, along with their primary role in the organization:
Emelia Laird—hot girl you can bring home to Mom
Tegan Brooks—girl goon, gatekeeper
Hannah Rexall—dancer, humblebrag virtuoso
Rachel Rose—hot girl you don’t bring home to Mom
Jack Vandenberg—he who provides alcohol, enforcer
Adam Westlake—spokesperson, man about town
Mick Devlin—dandy, editor in chief
Jonah Wagman—jock, nice guy
Gabriel Smythe—court jester, suck-up, moron
Me—she who does not belong in this picture
None of the Ten mentioned Witt’s father. It was unlike them not to run a background check on fresh meat. As soon as Dean Stinson dropped her name, I did my research. I decided to keep that information to myself. But I had to chime in to the chatter to reinforce my shaky position in this ridiculous club.
Gemma: I want to be her when I grow up.
* * *
—
Ms. Witt didn’t say anything until Gabe returned to class. His shoes were muddy and there was a stripe of dirt on his shirt.
“It’s done,” Gabe said. “He’s interred behind the greenhouse. I gave him a eulogy and all. Would you like to hear it?”
Gabe glanced over his shoulder at the class, waiting for a few laughs or any nonverbal sign of encouragement.
“No,” Witt said. “We weren’t close.”
“Well, he’s in a better place now,” Gabe said, still trying to dig out of the ditch of submission in which he’d found himself.
“Take a seat, Cornelius,” Witt said. “I think we’ll start class.”
Witt wrote her name on the board.
“This is apparently advanced creative writing. I am Alex Witt. Address me however it is done here. Alex or Ms. Witt. Whatever. I just found out this morning that I’m teaching this seminar, so don’t expect a thoughtful syllabus at this point.”
Carl Bloom’s hand shot up, angled forward, like a Hitler salute. I’ve always meant to caution him about it. Never got around to it last year. Maybe this year. Carl has the unfortunate distinction of walking and talking like a nerd and yet struggling in every one of his cla
sses.
“Ms. Witt,” he shouted. “Why isn’t Mr. Ford teaching creative writing anymore?”
Witt glanced up at Carl and then jotted something down in her notebook.
“That’s a great question. You should ask him. Over and over again,” she said.
As Witt scribbled some more, paying no attention to us, half-assed whispers circulated the latest information on Ford. Mel Eastman, who always knows the most while seeming to gossip the least, informed us all that Ford had taken over Ms. Whitehall’s core curriculum.
“What happened to Ms. Whitehall?” Ephraim Wiener asked Mel. “Did she die?”
“Not unless you killed her,” Mel muttered below his earshot.
I think Ephraim Wiener would have preferred that. Then he could finally stop pining for Whitehall. Boys are like that. They’d rather you die than reject them.
Mick Devlin stood up from his seat in the back row and ambled up the aisle with that lame half-gangster lean/limp he’d adopted late last year. When Devlin reached Witt’s desk, he extended his hand like one of those stock Wall Street–movie douchebags and formally introduced himself.
“Mick Devlin, Madame Witt. At your service.”
“Mick Devlin?” she said. “I’m going to remember that.”
Most people call him Devlin. Some girls call him “the devil,” and some mean it in that captivating bad-boy way. I don’t. Devlin’s eyes landed on Witt with generic lust, but his half smile, so boyish and goofy, balanced him out. Tegan once pointed out that the top and bottom of Mick Devlin’s face should have belonged to two different individuals. She demonstrated with his school photo and a pair of scissors, cutting his face in half just above the nostrils.
“See,” she said. “They don’t belong together.”
It was true. If you looked at him divided, neither part was particularly appealing. But I don’t see what the other girls see when they look at Mick. Emelia thinks it’s his eyes that give him power. From what I’ve heard, it’s his giant penis.
What also gives Mick power is his role as editor in chief. Every male member of the Ten is called an editor. It’s so stupid, I’m not even sure how to explain it. They don’t edit the school newspaper or a magazine. They manage an exclusive website that only select Stonebridge boys can see. It’s called the Darkroom. Suffice it to say, there’s not a whole lot of “editing” going on.
Witt tilted her head at Mick’s hand, looking confused or suspicious. Eventually she took it, but I could see he held on too long, like he does. Witt gave him a withering glance and he quickly let go.
“How old are you?” Jack Vandenberg said in that frog-deep voice of his.
Witt’s eyes narrowed as she determined the identity of the questioner. Jack, the biggest man on campus, is often mistaken for a teacher by the freshmen. Of course, he likes the tiniest girls. He won’t even look at a junior or a senior…with one exception. He likes the little bric-a-brac girls—small-boned, flat-chested. I have a theory that Jack is an undetected pedophile. In ten years, he’ll still want the same kind of girl. If you’re eighteen and date a fifteen-year-old (who looks thirteen), you can slide under the perv radar. But later he won’t have the age or discipline to hide his sickness.
“Name, please?” Witt said, annoyed.
“Jack. Vandenberg.”
Witt consulted the attendance sheet, nodded, and then cast her eyes on the rest of the class.
“I’m not going to take roll. There are nineteen students on the attendance sheet and nineteen in the class. I need a seating chart to learn your names.”
“I can do that for you,” offered Sandra Polonsky.
That’s Sandra’s thing, acting like everyone’s valet. One time, I sat next to her at lunch and told her to quit being so goddamn submissive. She thanked me for my advice and then bused my tray.
“No thank you,” said Witt. “And you are?”
“Polonsky. Sandra Polonsky.”
That was also her thing, saying her name like she’s James Bond.
Witt drew on the whiteboard a four-by-five grid so uneven that it suggested a neurological disorder. Witt regarded the grid, tilting her head like she hoped that would square it. She picked up the dry eraser and began vigorously deleting her crooked lines.
“Just be grateful I don’t teach geometry,” she said.
Some of the nerds started shouting their names. Witt winced and said, “Shhhh.”
“What was that on the board?” Adam Westlake said in his sweet, harmless voice.
“The aforementioned seating chart,” Witt said, taking a step back and regarding her work.
Adam approached the front of the classroom as the new teach finished wiping the board clean, and he picked up another dry-erase pen.
“Do you mind?” Adam said, uncapping the pen. “I have a steady hand.”
Then he flashed his dimples, which works every time.
“By all means,” Witt said, stepping aside. “For the first week or until I learn who ninety or so percent of you are, I need you to sit in the same seat. I learn better visually. So sit wherever you like, and then write your full name down on the corresponding chair.”
She turned around as Adam completed an almost perfect grid, as if he’d sketched it with a ruler the size of a human.
“Well done, um…” she said with a question mark at the end.
“Westlake. Adam Westlake.”
Maybe everyone introduces themselves like James Bond.
Witt pointed to the top and then the bottom of the board and said, “This is the front row, and this is the back row. Write down where you plan to sit for the next few weeks until I know who you are. Sort this out while I get a cup of coffee.”
Witt picked up her bag and headed for the door. A few of the front-row obsessives charged the board to claim their real estate. Witt lingered at the door.
“I want to be clear on something,” she said. “I’m going to learn the name that corresponds to the board. And I’m going to grade that name. If you get up to any nom-de-plume shenanigans—and I’m talking to you, Cornelius—I’m cool with that, but you better be prepared to live and breathe under your assumed name. You can never go back.”
When Ms. Witt walked out of the room, I felt as if she had taken all of the oxygen with her. I knew then that things were going to change.
Ms. Witt was my friend, my ally, my confidante. She charmed, teased, amused, incited, and befriended us.
Alexandra Witt was the pied piper of Stonebridge Academy.
Mr. Ford
The first time I saw Alex Witt, I thought she was a student out of uniform. I would have paid good money to see her in uniform.
She walked into the teachers’ lounge looking lost. I asked her if she needed any help. She said yes, she was searching for coffee. I pointed her in the right direction. She got up close to the coffeepot and was watching the drip, like a kid staring at her pet goldfish. I thought maybe she didn’t know that it was the kind of carafe that you could pull out and pour as it brewed. That’s how all of them are now; how could she not know that? Finally, she removed the decanter and poured herself a mug. She took a sip and scowled. She held on to the sink for balance and looked down at the drain.
Then I realized who she was. There was only one new hire that year. It was odd that she didn’t introduce herself. Women always do that.
“Hi. I’m Finn Ford,” I said.
She put down her mug and glared.
“You. You. You’re the one.”
She started pointing at me, angry. I said I was sorry. I wasn’t clear what I was sorry for. But I have a policy to always apologize to women. She was going on about all of the lesson plans she had pored over for the lit classes she thought she would teach.
“Dean Stinson said you were cool with the change,” I said.
“Did he, now?
” she said.
She was so pissed off I wouldn’t have been surprised if she pulled out a switchblade and held it against my jugular.
“I’m really sorry,” I said.
“I reread Moby-Dick,” she said. “I can’t get that time back.”
I loved Moby-Dick and asked her what she would change. She said she would have had Ishmael shove Ahab overboard around page 200.
“And then what?” I asked.
“Who gives a shit?” she said. “Finn Ford. Why does your name sound so familiar?”
“Because I’m the asshole who inadvertently made you read Moby-Dick for nothing.”
“Moby-Dick for Nothing,” she said, smiling. “Now, that book I wouldn’t mind reading.”
I liked her then. I thought she was crazy. But I liked her. She was stuck on my name. Fuck. I tried to get her off topic. She seemed easily distracted. I like that in a woman.
“I heard you staked your claim to the Thoreau Cabin,” I said.
“What? No. It has no name. Besides, that’s the wrong name, if it has a name. Everything on campus is named after writers from the British Isles. It’s bullshit if you throw in one or two American names, just out of convenience. Besides, it’s not on the map.”
“That’s what we call it,” I said. “There’s a pond nearby. We have a name for that too. And if you want to talk about boring books—”
“Why is this coffee so bad?” she said, as she took another sip.
“Because it’s bad coffee,” I said.
“Your name. I know that name. It’s going to drive me crazy,” Alex said.
“Are you really planning on living in the Thoreau Cabin the entire year?”
“Stop calling it that! I’ve been there one night. I wouldn’t put the address on my tax return.”
“I think it’s safe to say that place doesn’t have an address.”
“Finn Ford, Finn Ford. You wrote a book, right?”
“I did.”
“I think I read one of your books,” she said.