“Mr. Vern!” Janet said, gasping. With the lights on, Quinn was surprised to see that Janet didn’t look at all like what she’d pictured from her voice. She was Asian, for one thing—the first hint of difference among what to this point had seemed like a pretty buttermilk school. Janet’s makeup was there not to conceal, but to accentuate natural beauty. She had shoulder-length black hair, a lightness around the edges that was either highlights or sun-kiss, and a cute, round face that probably helped her get away with gaslighting her teachers like this. “You can’t say he hasn’t been studying! You know that I tutor Tucker after school.”
“It’s true,” the girl behind Janet said. Quinn bounced from Janet to the girl. She had blond ringlets and a side ponytail. Chewing gum snapping. White jeans and a T-shirt so tight it might’ve been body paint. She looked how Quinn had expected the popular girls in Kettle Springs to look, how she had imagined Janet looking, from her voice and lipstick.
“Ronnie. Please stop helping,” Mr. Vern said, sighing, before swiveling around back to Janet and Tucker. “I . . . I’m sure you do tutor him, Janet, but the test has been on the syllabus since the start of the year . . .” Dark spots had grown under the teacher’s arms as he stood in the heat of the projector’s spotlight and struggled to control the class. Quinn didn’t usually have much sympathy for teachers, but she could see her dad reflected in this man’s anxiety.
“It’s true,” Tucker said. “Mr. Vern. I’ve been studying all about nutrition.” The boy seemed to strain for some further proof, scratching one side of his weeks-old buzz cut. “Learning about what’s, uh, good to eat.” Mr. Vern looked away from the speaking boy and the lamp of the overhead projector, trying to gather himself.
“Oh come on,” a final voice yelled from the back of the room. “Just move the test already, Mr. V, and let’s get on with class.”
There, in the back corner behind her, a seat chosen to be out of the way or so the student could keep an eye on everyone in the room: Cole Hill.
Quinn hadn’t noticed him on the way in.
He had a pen in his hand and a notebook open in front of him. He seemed ready to work if the world would let him.
“Oh, is that what you think I should do, Mr. Hill?”
“I’m just saying . . . ,” Cole began, trailing off as soon as he realized that he had the whole class’s attention. “I’m just saying,” he repeated, continuing more quietly, “we’re wasting time. We should just push forward with the lesson.”
“Well, now that I have your permission, maybe I will,” Mr. Vern said, then pointed both hands out, overlapping accusatory fingers. “But you and your friends won’t be around to see it.”
“What?” Janet blurted, a record skip in her steely, lip-glossed composure.
“You’re out, Ms. Murray.” Mr. Vern pointed to Janet. “You are disrupting this class on purpose by arguing about the test. You and Ronnie. Out. Tucker, too. Gather your books. Cole, you too. Go to the in-school room. Now. Have fun wasting your own time. Not your classmates’ time.”
“I was trying to help! This is bullshit,” Cole said, standing.
“You know what’s—” Mr. Vern stopped himself. He was upset, shaking. In the slapped silence of the classroom, Quinn swore she could hear his teeth grinding. “You will not talk to me that way. What’s upsetting is that you’re all”—he took a beat to point at each student who’d interrupted him—“you’re all out of control. You think the world was built for your amusement. And for years we’ve—the town has just taken it. But people are waking up. That you’re a b-b-blight on this community.” He took a deep breath, tried to slow his stutter. “And you’re not ruining my lessons for a moment longer.”
Cole was standing now, closing his notebook, clicking his pen. “Okay, sure, fine. We’re going.”
The fifteen or so kids who weren’t being sent out of the classroom all stared at Cole as he hitched up his bag and exited without further protest, followed close behind by Tucker.
The tension in the room was so thick, so palpable, as the rest of the group made their way out that Quinn couldn’t help it: she laughed.
It just came out. A small giggle. A perverse, nervous, involuntary response.
“Oh, this is funny!?” Mr. Vern whirled, pointing to Quinn.
It wasn’t funny. The tension, the absurdity of the teacher’s tantrum, the very fact that she was so far, so surreally distant, from her home: the sound slipped out before she could cover her mouth.
The teacher moved to his desk to consult what must have been a roll sheet. “Maybrook? You find this funny?” Quinn felt the blood drain from her face. She didn’t know how to answer—or if she was even supposed to. “No, this isn’t funny. This isn’t one bit funny. This is insane! Your new friends are an impediment to learning at this school and that’s just in class. In the real world, on the internet, they are a . . . a . . .” Blight. She filled in, when he couldn’t find the word. Mr. Vern swallowed hard.
Okay. Maybe Quinn had misjudged the situation. This was about something bigger than senioritis, fucking with a nerdy teacher, and not wanting to take a test. “I, for one, am fed up with their antics, with their videos and their . . . their . . . their bullshit.” There it was, it was out, the word he’d so clearly wanted to say earlier. He held three fingers to his lips, then hissed: “They’re probably filming this right now. Isn’t that right, Janet?”
If they were, this guy was done. A filmed tantrum like this was the kind of thing that parents brought to school boards.
“Isn’t it, Janet?” Mr. Vern repeated.
Janet and Ronnie had been hovering at the doorway, Cole and Tucker already out in the hall.
“Go! Detention! Now!!”
“All Tucker did was ask a question,” Janet complained.
“A question! A question—right. Well, you’ve got in-school suspension. Do you want to make it out of school?”
Janet threw her hands up, resigned, started back out the door.
“Wait. Come back here. Give me your phone. Now! You can pick it up at the end of the day.”
“You can’t do that!” Janet snapped. “That’s private property!”
“We weren’t even filming!” Ronnie seconded.
“Yours too,” Mr. Vern said, beckoning Ronnie to return back down the center aisle.
The two girls fumed, but both handed over their phones to Mr. Vern.
“And take your new friend with you.” Mr. Vern tapped the edge of Quinn’s desk. “Make sure she gets down to the ISS room without getting lost. I’ll be calling the office to let them know you’re coming.”
“Me?” Quinn asked, still astonished at the sudden turn her morning had taken.
“Yes, you, Maybrook. Go giggle with the cool kids outside of my classroom. In fact . . .” Mr. Vern seemed to have an epiphany, his mood manic. “Janet, Ronnie?” he asked.
The two girls stood at the doorway, arms crossed.
“Tell the boys, who are no doubt standing right outside, snickering at me. Tell them you’re all banned from Founder’s Day,” Mr. Vern said, turning to the rest of the class with an Ain’t I a stinker? look on his face.