by Jan Freed
Jack’s tip-of-the-tongue reprimand turned into a silent plea. Oh, honey, not through there.
But his best student was already trying to squeeze her extra large Levi’s between the petite space separating two empty desks on her left.
Metal ground against metal in protest. Elaine grabbed for a tilting chair back with one hand, clutched at her sliding textbooks with the other, and lost her grip on both. One desk toppled sideways, the other forward, while books thudded open-faced against the thin blue industrial carpet. In the sudden silence, the fifth period bell sounded shrill and jarring.
The bell’s echo faded into snickers.
Elaine stooped over to gather the fallen books, her long brown hair not quite screening her mottled red flush and mortified dark eyes.
Jack had risen halfway from his chair before he remembered Wendy Johnson. He sank back down. After the popular cheerleader’s accusation of sexual harassment last semester, he didn’t dare risk comforting a female student. Thank God Wendy had transferred to another class for the spring semester. The admissions office had notified him of a replacement; a transfer student from California who apparently wasn’t going to show up today.
“Kim, would you shut the door?” he asked the tall brunette sitting in the first row. “Tony, Jessica, pick up those desks and then take your seats, please.”
Tony’s killing glance spoke volumes about what Wendy must have told him. Still, Jack couldn’t fault the boy for siding with his girlfriend.
“All right, the rest of you get out your holiday reading assignment for a quick review before the quiz.”
As intended, the swell of groans successfully diverted attention from Elaine. She walked unobstructed to her desk and slipped into her seat, her relief palpable.
Jack waited until all nineteen gazes watched him warily before beginning his “welcome back, the party’s over” spiel. “First of all—”
The door burst open. A petite girl with shocking red-orange hair swooped inside and stopped short. She adjusted her books, her lime green sweater and her yellow vinyl shoulder bag in graceful fluttery movements, then cocked her head; an exotic little parrot come to roost among wrens.
“Sorry I’m late, Mr.—” she yanked a card from between her books and peered at it closely “—Morgan. But this school is really huge, and some idi... some person scheduled me for P.E. before your class.”
She walked forward and extended her schedule card for him to sign, as if disrupting his class was no big deal and her explanation settled everything. The closer she got, the more outrageous her skirt became. Made of some clingy fabric in a purple and lime green geometric print, the hem would rise above dress code regulations if she so much as sneezed.
“Would you sign this, please?” The surprisingly mature voice commanded, rather than asked.
Too late, Jack realized he wasn’t staring at the card she held out. Heat burned slowly up his neck along with his rising gaze. He looked deep into black-fringed violet eyes...and forgot what she’d asked.
Those eyes could pass for a young Liz Taylor’s. And Liz’s eyes were a one-time phenomenon—or so he’d thought during his ongoing study of film history and screenwriting. He couldn’t get over the resemblance.
She lifted a single brow, its dark color confirming that the color of her tousled chin-length hair came from a bottle. “They told me to get this signed today by every teacher. Is there a problem, Mr. Morgan?”
“No problem.” He cleared his throat and reached for her card. Dashing off his signature, he noted her name. “Welcome to Texas, Sarina. I’ll cut you some slack for being late since this is your first day here. But I’ll expect you to be on time to my class from now on.”
A slight furrow marred her pale smooth forehead. “I’ll do my best.”
She’d do her best?
A wondering murmur broke out among the students Jack had forgotten. He hastily closed his mouth, then straightened in his chair. “I know you’re new to this school, and maybe things were different in California. But the first rule of behavior in my class is to be on time. No exceptions. If you’re late, you’ll accept the consequence.” He lowered his brows in a toe-the-line expression. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Not exactly.”
Unbelievable. “What don’t you understand?”
“Well, the consequence is a little murky. My English teacher in California always said clarity is the basis of good communication. Could you be more specific?”
The murmur broke out again. Beto Garcia’s unmistakable bark of laughter prompted several nervous chuckles. The faintest hint of a dimple appeared in Sarina’s left cheek. She cast a mischievous glance at the class.
Could this girl possibly be making fun of him? Jack wondered. “The consequence of not arriving on time is clear and simple. For every minute you’re late, you’ll spend fifteen minutes in detention.”
The dimple vanished. “Are you serious?”
He didn’t dignify the question with an answer.
“Do you realize how far the gym is?” Her eyes flashed amethyst fire. “It’s a five-minute walk without fighting through two crowded hallways and two flights of stairs on the way. I’ll do my best to be on time, Mr. Morgan. But it may be physically impossible.”
“Then you’ll spend a lot of time in detention, won’t you?”
“That’s unfair!”
The knot in Jack’s chest grew colder and tighter. He held the girl’s frustrated gaze, no longer dazzled by the sight. “Are you quite finished?”
She glanced at their riveted audience, tightened her mouth at their damning silence, then nodded mutinously.
He forced his voice to remain neutral. “There’s a great deal in the adult world that is unfair, Sarina. Some people—the people who form the backbone of our society and economy—learn how to cope with challenge and adversity. Others continually blame circumstances for getting a raw deal and then ride the rest of us piggyback throughout their lives.”
Watching her expression register which type of person he’d pegged her for, he reached for an extra copy of The Grapes Of Wrath and extended the book along with her schedule card. “Please take your seat in the fifth row and read chapter one. We’ve wasted enough of the class’s valuable review time.” He turned pointedly to their avid audience. “Unless you’re all prepared to take the quiz now?”
About a third of the students squirmed and avoided his gaze. Another five or six grumbled cowardly beneath their breaths. The rest slapped Steinbeck’s masterpiece onto desktops with less care than they would hamburgers onto a grill.
Not that Jack cared. He’d made his point. If he’d had to sacrifice popularity to do it, at least he hadn’t compromised his standards.
Sometimes those standards were all that stood between him and the restless stranger inside howling for release.
SOMETIMES SELF-RESPECT was all that stood between Sarah and the emptiness inside mocking her brave facade.
But blending smoothly into Mr. Morgan’s class should’ve been her first priority. If only the self-righteous prig hadn’t said “Do I make myself clear?” in that combination Darth Vader-Mount Sinai tone of voice, she wouldn’t have felt the need to take him down a peg. But he had. So she did. And now she’d given him a reason to watch her closely.
“Keep those eyes on your own paper, Beto,” a cavern deep voice advised. “If you’d done the assigned reading, you wouldn’t need help from your neighbors.”
Sarah cast a speculative glance at the tall broad-shouldered man passing out quiz questions in the second aisle. Everyone hid something behind the front they presented to the public. What would rattle if she dug around in his closet? Pretending to read the open book on her desk, she watched him hand out the last quiz and move to the front of the class.
The image consultant in her approved of his conservative haircut. But his wardrobe needed a serious overhaul. His white dress shirt, boring navy tie and off-the-rack navy slacks didn’t do justice to a body made for European
-tailored clothes.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen, you’ve got—” he glanced at the wall clock and back “—twenty minutes to answer five questions. If you finish before then, bring your paper to me and then begin reading chapter four.” Rounding a huge oak desk, he sat and faced the rows of bleak expressions. “Good luck,” he added wryly.
Sarah swallowed a snort. What kind of teacher expected kids to read Steinbeck over the Christmas holidays? A very unpopular one, she’d bet. At least, unpopular with the boys.
He probably flipped more than a few young female hearts with those intense hazel eyes, that short dark hair left long enough on top to spill just so over his forehead, that strong square jaw shadowed with beard, making the patchy scrub on several male chins in the class seem endearing at best. She looked up and met his mocking stare.
“Finished with the chapter so soon?” Mr. Morgan asked.
Jerking her gaze down to page one, Sarah cursed her adolescent blush. How this man cracked her usual composure she didn’t know. What she did know is she would never, ever make it through four months in his class without getting expelled... or exposed.
And exposure would threaten not only her life, but also Donna Kaiser’s job as associate principal of Roosevelt High. Sarah’s former college roommate had argued that disguising a twenty-seven-year-old career woman as an eighteen-year-old student was brilliant. A week ago Sarah had agreed.
Funny what terror did to a person’s good judgment.
The quiver started in her legs and shimmied its way up, gaining force along the way. By the time it reached her shoulders she could barely breathe, barely focus on the printed words returning her stare. Images flashed with snapshot- speed in her mind, each more sickening than the last.
An empty glass and plate edging the pool of blood beneath Mike’s head. The compelling gleam of urgency dying in Larry’s eyes. His bright scarlet blood staining the terry robe, her hands, the carpet, her soul, until she’d wanted only to empty her stomach, then scrub the sticky warmth and cloying smell from her skin.
Unconsciously hugging her stomach now, she bit back a moan.
“Sarina...are you feeling all right?” Mr. Morgan asked.
Her head came up. The unexpected concern in his green-brown eyes was almost her undoing.
She blinked rapidly, unfolded her arms and nodded. When he continued studying her in a thoughtful probing manner, she forced her attention back to the book on her desk. But the words were too blurred, the allure of sympathy—even from a stranger—too strong. Slowly, reluctantly, she peeked up through her lashes.
He was writing in a spiral-bound notebook, his concentration so intense she wondered if she’d imagined that instant of compassion. A feather of disappointment brushed her heart. She listened to the scratch of pencils, the squeak of desk chairs beneath fidgeting bodies, and drew a strengthening breath. His disapproval was good, she assured herself. It hindered his ability to see through her flamboyant disguise. Not that he had that much imagination.
For the first time, she noticed what her awareness of the teacher had obscured: the windowless classroom walls. Orderly and serious, with absolutely no sense of humor or style. In other words, exactly like him.
Papers marched across a large bulletin board in precise alignment. The blackboards were actually black, as if they’d been washed rather than erased clean. Displayed prominently beneath the clock, where restless young gazes were sure to drift, a poster board provided the only spot of color in the room.
No way, Sarah thought, her gaze widening on the bold red letters.
But apparently there was not only a way for this guy to confirm his anal retentive mentality, but ten of ’em—all listed in a chiseled typestyle under the heading Morgan’s Ten Commandments. Amusement nudged her last trace of horror aside.
“Thou shalt not be late to class,” she read silently, hearing his authoritative voice resonate in her head. “Thou shalt not talk out of turn. Thou shalt not steal the concentration of fellow students by wearing inappropriate clothing, jewelry or hairstyles.”
Uh-oh. No wonder his jaw had dropped during his thorough once-over of her getup. A smile tugged at her mouth as she continued reading. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s test answers, nor his homework, nor his term papers, nor any thing of thy neighbor’s that does not rightfully belong to you. Thou shalt not kill the English language.”
Ha! Good one. Maybe he had a touch of humor after all. “Honor thy Teacher: that thy days be long upon the classroom which the Teacher thy superior giveth these.”
Sarah laughed out loud.
She might as well have belched in church from the shocked looks turning her way. Gesturing helplessly to the poster board, she caught one pair of dark merry eyes among the stares. Beto, Mr. Morgan had called him. The small Hispanic boy flashed an engaging grin. Sensing a kindred spirit, she grinned back.
Ding!
She whipped her head around as Mr. Morgan lifted an index finger from a small domed service bell on his desk.
“No laughing during the quiz,” he warned, his stern gaze censuring.
Sarah laughed again.
Not on purpose. It just sort of popped out before her brain could say, “Don’t laugh, stupid, he’s serious.”
Mr. Morgan leaned back in his creaking chair and tented his long blunt-tipped fingers. “Would you like to share what’s so funny with the class, Sarina?”
She always advised her clients at WorldWide Public Relations to meet hard-line questioning with unwavering eyes, unflappable politeness and unfailing honesty. “No, thank you.”
His fingertips whitened.
“It’s not that funny,” she assured him hastily.
“Why don’t you let us be the judge of that?”
Wonderful. “I was laughing at your...bell, Mr. Morgan.”
A minnow of warning flashed silver-green in his gaze. “My bell?”
“Yes.” Like he didn’t know what she meant. “That little dinging noise...” Don’t be stupid, Sarah. “Caught me off guard,” she finished judiciously.
He looked pleased. “That’s what makes it effective for stopping inappropriate behavior.”
Grrr. “That’s what makes it more distracting than laughter during a quiz.”
The room grew unnaturally still and quiet. She listened to herself breathe and realized too late the gravity of her error.
Mr. Morgan pushed back his chair and rose, his slow deliberate movements more unnerving than a show of anger. “Come outside with me a moment, please, Sarina.” His quelling gaze swept the wide-eyed students, who’d dropped all pretense of working on their quiz. “You’re on the honor system, class. Don’t disappoint me.”
Sarah unstuck her clammy legs from the metal desk and stood. Whatever this control freak dished out would be trivial compared with facing the wrong end of a pistol and watching two men die. Still, walking confidently to the door he held open required all the skill she’d learned in assertiveness training.
Somehow she managed the charade. Somehow she passed by Mr. Morgan without stumbling and entered the hallway. The scent of his aftershave followed. Citruslike, familiar...sheesh, it was Old Spice! Her grandfather used to wear that stuff.
Turning, she met his fuddy-duddy glare and clamped down on a highly inappropriate urge to laugh.
ELAINE STARED in awe through the classroom doorway. She glimpsed Sarina’s spreading grin an instant before the door closed.
“Awri-i-ght,” Beto breathed softly, breaking the stunned silence.
Whispers buzzed around the room, collecting reactions to the new girl that would pollinate the entire senior class by the end of the day.
As usual, Elaine kept quiet. With teachers there was always a “right” way to act and dress, a “correct” answer to questions. But with her classmates, she would never act, dress or talk right as long as she was fat, smart and shy—a combination that was social suicide.
When she’d knocked over the desks earlier...
&nb
sp; She shuddered, violently rejecting the memory and substituting a less painful one of the new girl. Sarina. Even her name was cool. Small but curvy, wearing clothes normally reserved for Seventeen magazine models and a few girls like Wendy Johnson, Sarina had the confidence to look and act outrageous. Elaine had never seen anyone stand up to Mr. Morgan like—
“Shhh!”
Tony’s fierce command stopped the whispers and Elaine’s thoughts instantly. Alarm riveted her motionless until she remembered she hadn’t said a word.
“Quiet, you morons. I wanna listen,” Tony explained, cocking his ear toward the door.
Elaine found herself straining along with everyone else to hear the conversation in the hallway. Now that it was quiet, she understood every tension-filled word.
“...and if you expect to stay in my class your attitude has got to change. Do I make myself clear, Sarina?”
She paused a fraction too long. “Yes, Master Morgan.”
“She’s nuts,” Jessica murmured.
“She’s awesome,” Tony corrected, and gestured to keep quiet.
“You want me to come, sit and stay on command. If I salivate when you hit that bell, do I get a doggie treat?”
“That’s enough!”
Every spine in the classroom stiffened. Mr. Morgan had never yelled at a student. Not even at Wendy Johnson, who’d accused him of horrible things and almost cost him his job.
“Look,” he said in a more subdued tone. “This is your first day in a new school and I’m sure the transition has been difficult, especially enrolling midterm as you did. But antagonizing me isn’t going to make your life any easier. I have rules in the classroom, yes. I made them to establish the best learning environment possible in an imperfect world. The attitude I want you to have requires following those ten simple rules. Do you think you can do that, Sarina?”
Three beats of silence pulsed. “I’m sure you’ve learned that honor and respect can’t be bullied, bribed or even belled from another person.” She matched his solemn tone. “But I do apologize for disrupting the quiz, Mr. Morgan. Please don’t take my behavior out on the kids.”