Chapter One
I’m in my element this morning. Our principal called an all-staff meeting before school so we all had to wake up at the crack of dawn to be here. My fellow teachers are dragging, but I’m not. I man the refreshment table—the one I voluntarily set up. I brought in a Starbucks carafe of coffee and a few dozen donuts. In the center of the spread, there’s a tray of intricately iced sugar cookies replete with swirling designs and hand-rendered illustrations of the Lindale Middle School mascot. Go Lizards!
“Wow, Audrey, you’ve really outdone yourself.”
I bask in the approval of my coworkers.
“Best cookies around,” another one says, taking a second cookie with a wink.
My smile feels permanent.
But then it slips right off my face.
Noah Peterson walks into the room, and I’m shocked his arrival isn’t accompanied by claps of thunder and billowing smoke. There should at least be some foreboding music.
He already has a thermos of coffee and a breakfast taco in hand. He has no reason to come over to my table. He should take a seat near the door and sit patiently for the meeting to start, but he just can’t help himself.
I turn and busy myself rearranging the napkins that were already layered in a neat fan.
He reaches me in no time at all because he’s gargantuan and his strides eat up the distance.
I look up at him, donning a perfectly bored expression as if to say, Oh, it’s just you. What a letdown.
“Morning, Noah. What’s in the thermos?” I wonder. “Diesel fuel? Battery acid? Human blood?”
Okay, apparently, I just can’t help myself either.
Every day I wake up and think, Good morning to everyone except Noah Peterson.
He points down at one of the sugar cookies.
“What’s that supposed to be?”
He knows what it’s supposed to be—I spent hours icing them to perfection—yet still, I find myself replying, “It’s a lizard.”
“Oh, gotcha.”
My eyes are narrowed little slits. “It’s…pretty obvious.”
He tilts his head to the left, squints, and pretends to study it harder. “It kind of looks like a snake.”
He picks one up and holds it out for another teacher so he can get a second opinion.
“Oh, cute snake,” the teacher says, innocently following Noah’s lead.
My hands are tight fists. “Okay, you don’t get any.”
There’s humor in his gaze now that he knows he’s won. “I thought they were for everyone.”
“Not you.”
“I already touched this one.”
I take it out of his hand and thunk it into the trashcan beside the table then walk away.
Just great.
Now I have to reset my mental Days Without Incident tally back to zero. I was at an all-time record: two.
Still, I don’t regret it. I didn’t bake those cookies for Noah. He doesn’t deserve to taste my delicious treats.
The meeting is due to start any minute, but the conference table is still relatively empty. Most of my coworkers choose to hover around the periphery of the room, lost in the masses so Principal O’Malley doesn’t call on them to answer any questions.
I take a seat and carefully lay out my pens and personalized notepad.
Property of Ms. Cohen.
I’m aware of Noah as he takes a seat on the opposite side of the table, a few chairs down.
Quickly, the seats fill around him.
He’s everything I’m not. Easygoing and adored by all.
His picture makes it into the yearbook every spring beside the superlative Lindale’s Coolest Teacher. I never win any superlatives, not even the lame ones.
Apparently, I’m a “try-hard”, as I once heard another teacher so lovingly put it when she didn’t realize I was still in the lounge nuking my Lean Cuisine. I’m the teacher who shows up obnoxiously early for meetings and volunteers to stay late for carpool. My classroom looks like the aftermath of a Michaels explosion. I have elaborate bulletin boards with layered decor, inspirational posters, reward charts. My students barely have room to sit.
When Noah first saw my classroom at the start of the school year, his eyebrows hit his hair.
“Wow…this is a lot even for you, and that’s not a compliment.”
I chose to ignore his mocking tone and instead smiled as if he’d just said the nicest thing ever. Something like: Audrey, you’re my hero. There’s no one smarter or cooler than you.
“Thank you.”
“How long did this take you?”
“I bought most everything.”
With that lie, I toed my trashcan further underneath my desk so he couldn’t see the empty glue sticks wrapper proclaiming, Now with 200 sticks! Then I tucked my hand behind my back to hide the Band-Aid I was wearing on my right thumb. Cricut injury.
“Is that a papier-mâché replica of the Eiffel Tower?”
“Oh…yeah. You can find anything on Amazon these days.”
The Eiffel Tower took me a whole week. It fills an entire corner of the classroom. Children can sit underneath it and read on soft pillows and blankets.
What do other people do on their summer breaks?
Now, Principal O’Malley walks into the conference room with a cup of gas station coffee and a rattling key ring. He’s dressed in a faded gray suit and a patterned tie from the ’90s. He’s short and squat with a tire protruding from around his middle. The few wisps of hair left on the top of his head are desperately holding on for dear life.
When he calls an all-staff meeting, we know to buckle up for a long ride.
Like a drunk uncle given free rein of a mic at a wedding, Principal O’Malley knows how to fill time. He has the uncanny ability to stretch a brief announcement into an hour-long rambling speech.
I zone out for a minute when we’re discussing the efficiency of the lunch lines and find myself tuning in again to an entirely different topic.
“As you all go about your day, I want you to try to embody the acronym TEACHER. Terrific. Energetic. Awesome. Cheerful. Enthusiastic—”
“You missed H,” someone calls out.
Principal O’Malley stops and starts to backtrack, ticking off the letters on his meaty fingers.
Oh dear god…
“Doesn’t H stand for hardworking?” someone else asks.
“I thought it was helpful,” Noah chimes in, knowing exactly what he’s doing.
For ten minutes, the meeting gets derailed as Principal O’Malley takes a vote on whether we think H should stand for Helpful or Hardworking.
The tally comes out to an even split, and Vice Principal Trammell—the real brains behind the operation around here—steps in and politely suggests we move on to the next topic on the agenda.
“Ah yes.” Principal O’Malley clears his throat and affects a whole new solemn tone when he continues. “I have some horrible news to report. Our beloved Mrs. Mann was in a motorcycle accident yesterday.”
There’s a collective gasp from around the room, and then everyone wants details.
“Omg!”
“Poor Mrs. Mann!”
“She was struck by a motorcycle?!”
“She was riding on one,” Principal O’Malley clarifies.