Ch. 7: Preview #1

Decided to pop back over to the school for a little bit. Just for one chapter, I think. Enjoy!

***

Brett Walker, twelfth grade Life Management Skills teacher, felt a growing tightness in his throat, which spread to his chest, then to his extremities.  As if his body had transmuted into lead.

“Mr. Walker.”

Now a slight chill down his spine, as if the air had just grown colder.

“Mister Walker.”

The sharp, calculated tone prompted him to turn back again, to face Principal Caldwell as she leaned over her desk. Even hunched over, she was … imposing.  Still a full head taller than him.  Barrel-chested.  Ungodly thick arms, enormous even compared to other women’s.

And she was quite irritated, as her pointer finger scraped farther, sliding the referral slip back across the desk, back to him.

“I-I don’t understand,” he stammered, his voice coming out dismayingly weak in comparison.

“Don’t you?”  The principal’s brow arched.  She waited.  “Don’t you?”

“I … I’m not sure I—”

She huffed, like a tall dark mare to a gelding.  “Spare me.  You know full well that Dean Roker is to handle all disciplinary matters with the students.  The fact that you’ve decided to waste my time with this is … frustrating.”

The tone of that last word sent a second chill across his skin.  “I understand that, but I’ve already tried her several times and she refuses to listen to me.  I—”

Her hand made a fist and pounded the surface of the desk with a rattling THUD -- so loud that he lurched a half-step backward.

“Mr. Walker, repeat back to me what you just said.”

He could almost feel her voice pummeling him with every word, much as her fist had pummeled the desk.  She hadn’t even raised her voice!  It was just this way she had of speaking, which … God, he felt small.

“I,” he began in a carefully diplomatic voice, “was simply articulating that I felt as if—”

“Articulating?  More like prevaricating.  Repeat it exactly, word for word.”

He gulped.  This … This was not good.  “I-I …”  He cleared his throat.  “I said she refuses to listen to me--”

“There.”  Her sharp voice cut through the air like a blade.  “You have just accused … our excellent dean … of ignoring a staff member.  Mr. Walker, do you understand that that is a serious accusation?”

His mouth felt so dry.  “But it’s the truth!”

“Wrong.  That is incorrect.”  Her words hung heavily in the air as her thick, powerful body rounded the desk, kicked the guest chair aside with an effortless flick of her shin – which sent it tumbling backward, but she didn’t seem to notice or care – and holy shit, she stopped so close in front of him, he almost thought she’d run him over.

“I will say this once, and once only.”  The principal was a terror behind a desk, but so much worse looming above him.  Her scowl seemed to fall on him like a physical weight on his shoulders, leaving him sorely tempted to backpedal away.  But she would just call him out on that.

“Our esteemed Dean Roker listens to all staff members.  She sets time aside each and every day to make this a top priority.”  Even the crossing of her bulked-up arms right in front of his eyes made him almost gasp.  “She did listen to you, Mr. Walker.  She listened, evaluated your statements, considered your situation.  And she dealt with it appropriately.”

Dean Roker had ‘dealt’ with it exactly the same way Principal Caldwell had: by sliding the referral slip for Blaire McAdams right back across her desk, refusing to take it.  What kind of dean, or principal, refuses a referral slip when offered!?!

“W… Well, I disagree with her decision,” he protested softly.  Even that small defiance felt like a feat.

But the principal didn’t even bat an eye.  “I would respond that you have not fully considered your situation then, if that’s the case.”

“What’s my situation?”

She leaned back against the desk, only to make room for two eye-poppingly wide forearms folding underneath her jutting breasts.  Jesus Christ …