Lauren Takes Leave by Gerstenblatt, Julie (ebooks children's books free txt) 📕

giving him help after school and during lunchrecess, eating at my desk instead of with friends in the teachers’ café. Andall the while, he’ll continue to look at me with those bulging eyes and thatcrooked hair, stressing me out with his inherent awfulness. Eventually, I’llfantasize about running him over with my car in the parking lot, and I’ll endup in jail.

Whose punishment is that, I ask you?

“Hey, Martin,” I say, snapping back to attention.

“Yeah?” He looks at his watch. There’s only a minute leftin the class period and he’s counting down the seconds.

“Good job.” I smile, giving him a thumbs-up. Like a rabbitfreed from the jaws of a raccoon, he darts from the room, bewildered but notunpleased.

The other children file past me and I wave good-bye, wishthem a nice day, remind them of the homework.

A weight lifts from my shoulders. Like Martin, I feel likeI’ve just dodged a bullet.

My substitute is nowhere to be found. Neither is a pen. Iscribble an unimaginative lesson plan for the remaining sections of sixth-gradeEnglish, using a hot pink highlighter, and leave it in the center of mycluttered desk, hoping the sub can find it.

Then I call down to the guidance counselor’s office,explaining my situation. “So you’re going to miss the lunchtime grading sessionfor the state exams?” she asks accusingly.

Oh crap. Forgot about that.

“It looks that way, Shirley,” I say.

“Well, that’s not fair to the other members of the EnglishDepartment, who are going to have to work longer now to grade your papers aswell as theirs. They’ll probably have to stay after school.”

I picture the seven other members of my departmentsilently cursing me for my absence while they sit, hunched over test booklets,trying to decipher chicken scratch and determine whether the responses areworth a random score of a 3 or a 4. I search my brain for a solution. “Maybe…Ican…how about if I come in early tomorrow to do it?”

“You know they have to be completed today. The state needsthem by the end of the week.” She sighs.

Like I’ve planned this or something. Like I’ve concocted alame excuse to get out of my responsibilities.

“Shirley, I have jury duty for God’s sake! It’s notlike I’m going on a tropical vacation! I’ve had a tough morning, okay? Sojust…let it go!” I slam the receiver back onto the phone, knocking the wholething off the wall.

“Jeez!” I cry. My hands are shaking as I pick up the phoneand reattach it. Now I’m going to have to buy Shirley some Lindor truffles. Fromexperience, I know she likes the peanut butter ones.

I’d like to crawl under my desk and hide from the worldfor a while, but there’s a knock at my classroom door.

It’s my principal, Martha Carrington.

Of course it is.

And she doesn’t look happy to see me.

Naturally.

“Come in!” I say with fake enthusiasm, pulling the dooropen and making a sweeping gesture with my hands.

Martha’s neat hair is brown and her small eyes are brownand her fuddy-duddy clothes are brown, and I can’t for the life of me determinehow old she is. Fifty-five? Seventy-one? A hundred and forty-three?

She enters my classroom stiffly and does a lap around theperimeter, like a general surveying his conquered territory after battle. I seethe disorganized space from her point of view and cringe inwardly. My classroomis a safe haven for abandoned items that never make their way to the lost-and-foundbox at the end of the hallway. Currently, I am providing shelter for a homelesssweatshirt, soccer cleats, a football, and several textbooks from otherclasses. There is a pile of newspapers in the right hand corner; glue sticksand scissors are scattered on desks.

“We’re just wrapping up our journalism unit,” I say, byway of explanation. I pick up some loose feathers and tuck them into my pantspockets. She wouldn’t understand.

Martha turns and studies me, left eye twitching.

“So…?” I begin, as a way of politely asking, What thehell are you doing in here, when I could be having a cup of coffee with Kat andchatting away my free period before heading off to the courthouse for the restof my awful day?

“You don’t seem ill,” she states flatly.

“That’s because I’m not,” I counter.

“Then we have a serious problem here, Mrs. Worthing.”

“Martha, call me Lauren, please.” I say this every timewe’ve spoken since she first arrived at our school five years ago. I think shedoes it so that I’ll call her Mrs. Carrington.

You see how well that’s working.

She crosses the room to my desk and begins typing furiouslyat the keypad of my computer, logging me out and logging herself in withoutasking my permission. Then she actually sits down in my desk chair. I standawkwardly at her side, looking on. Her beady little rodent eyes meet mine. “Myrecords tell me that you have been absent from school nine times this year.”

“Nine times?” I ask, with actual surprise. I thought itwas more like six.

“Yes, Mrs. Worthing—Lauren—nine times.”

Indeed, the blue screen staring back at me does reflectthat information. “Wow. I guess I really have been sick this year.” Ipull up a chair and sit across from my own desk.

“I guess,” Martha intones, trying to match myvernacular. I feel like throwing in some “yo’s” and “whatev’s” just to hear herrepeat them back to me.

The thought makes me stifle a chuckle, but it stilldoesn’t explain why she’s visiting me in my classroom, or why she seems to beupset with me. Again. Thinking back to our last meeting, I tuck myclammy palms under my thighs to keep my hands from wanting to strangle her.

“Yet this morning’s notes from my secretary show that youhave called for a substitute for later this morning.”

“Oh!” I say, understanding now. “Did she not show up?” Iask. “I need her here by nine thirty.”

“The substitute is not the problem.” Here she stops, seemsto consider what to say, like plotting her next move in a game of Battleship. Shetilts her head and raises a finger to the side of her face, stroking agrotesquely large mole just under her right ear. I try to stay focused on her eyes,but she doesn’t make it