Cold Blooded

By Amanda Griffith

      Rather than the characteristic hum, the students sounded like buzz saws. Desks grated like knives rasped on steel. It was just too dad gum noisy. The sub teetered across the classroom, heels clicking and collapsing on the linoleum. So sad to see her announce her defeat before she even started. Her face clouded, and her eyebrows knit. So sad.

      "Pull out your homework." She should have cleared her throat first instead of in the middle.

      Kirsten said, "I didn’t get any of it." Soft as a peach on the outside, hard as the pit on the inside. I knew what she was up to. What she’d been up to every day since the sub stuck her toe in the water.

     "You didn’t really teach what was in the homework," David said, his dark eyes flashing, teeth revealed.

      "Quiet! Who can do number one?"

      "I can," I said, craving a reduction of the fever in the ranks.

      "Out of your seat. Detention!"

      I gasped. I had only been trying to help!

      A paper football whizzed up and hit the teacher in the back of her head. Possibly she deserved that.

      Ms. Sutton whirled and faced the class. She bent over to pluck the paper wad off the floor, and her jumper rode up showing her plump thighs. Torn lace draped below her hem. David snickered. The teacher’s neck turned red and spread like poison ivy.

      "Who – threw– this?" she said holding the football over her head. Her flesh began to jiggle. More laughter – mine included.

      "David, did you do this?"

      "You always blame me!"

      "Kids were looking at you."

      "Go figure," he said, leaning way back in his chair. "I guess I’m hot."

      "Brandy, come up here!"

      "Why am I getting a detention?" I wailed.

      "I’m having enough trouble without students jumping out of their seats! David, you, too, detention!"

     "I’m not going to serve it," David said. I didn’t know who I disliked more, David for causing the problem or the sub for allowing it.

     Ms. Sutton checked the clock every thirty seconds and shifted side to side in her chair behind her desk. She didn’t have the guts to stand in front of the class

      "I’m calling your parents," she said to me as I left. I groaned.

      In the hallway, David came up from behind me and said in my ear, "I’m gonna get you for that." I panicked. I could take her on my tail but definitely not him. He could be lethal to anyone who got in his way.

      Soaked to the bone, I hunched at the bus stop the next morning. Water seeped into the collar of my pink cotton shirt and dribbled down my back under my tank. It formed puddles in the sandy dirt, and my sneakers marinated in the water. When I slunk into the class and into my seat, I was determined to keep my head down and speak to no one. Rain splattered the windows, and wind blew it into a swirled pattern on the glass.

      Resting my chin on my folded arms, I studied David through my eyelashes. When he squinted at me, I spun my gaze to the front.  Ms. Sutton in a polyester black suit with lavender ruffled blouse scrawled math on the dry erase board. Don’t let David notice me. Bother Ms. Sutton instead.

      "Ms. Sutton, would you show us again how to do the measurements for the line figured from the angle because I don’t get it," David said.

      "I’m not sure what you mean. Which problem are you talking about?"

      "Number twelve."

      She came to David’s desk and looked over his shoulder. "Number twelve isn’t solved that way. You’ll need to use an algebraic equation."

      "What? You told me yesterday to use the angles to figure the line lengths. No wonder we can’t figure out the problems." He looked around for sympathizers and found a school of them.

      "Students, listen to me," she said. "You have to figure out what’s required for each problem. I can’t give you one way to solve a whole set of review questions. It tests everything you’ve learned in this unit."

      "You just called us stupid again," said Kirsten. "My parents said you shouldn’t put us down."

      "Stop talking out. Let’s go through the problems you don’t understand one by one. That’s a good way for you to fix anything you missed."

      "Why do we always have to fix things? For once it would feel good to get it the first time," said David.

      "I’m so sick of this. You are so spoiled your parents should be ashamed."

      "You know, Ms. Sutton," I said, "it’s your own fault the kids are talking out."

        Ms. Sutton’s cheeks reddened in blotchy patches. Her eyes widened with fear. She seemed to say to me with her eyes, "Et tu Brute? Then fall Caesar."

      Kirsten snickered, hiding her delighted eyes behind her math book. Unashamed, David stared at the teacher with his sinful pools of dark malice and then turned and winked at me. I was off the hook.

            The teacher crossed the rows with wobbly legs and dialed the phone. "I need to speak to the principal," she said like she was digging a splinter out of her finger. Students giggled. Kirsten smile at me and nodded.

      The sub raised her voice, near hysteria. "I need to talk to him now." Several seconds passed. She darted a look at us with uneasy eyes and held the phone with determination.

      "This is Ms. Sutton, the math substitute for Ms. Nichols. I have a serious problem. I need you to come up here right now."

      David’s voice, low, but full of ridicule, could be heard saying, "Can’t handle it. Old biddy."

      Ms. Sutton stood by the door, arms folded, knees knocking.

      The principal arrived. He postured studying the kids with crossed arms and then boomed at us in an authoritative manner that matched his six foot six inch height. Silence at last.  

      "What’s been going on here? Why has this substitute had to call me in here just so she can teach without being interrupted?" With the patient confidence, he towered and glowered. No reply.

        "I’ll get to the bottom of this." He spoke with the sub in a hushed voice at her desk. Their eyes locked on me.

      "Brandy, come with me." Cold sweat. What did he want?

      I followed him into his office, a few nervous steps behind.

      He crossed his legs behind his desk and gestured for me to sit in the leather, brass studded chair in front of him. "Brandy, were you disrespectful? You’re a good kid. What’s going on?" He leaned toward me trying to be friendly, but his jaw was taut.

      I tested the waters. "She keeps putting us down."

      He seemed taken aback, and I squirmed in my chair. My eyes roamed the room. I spotted a phone message on his desk from Kirsten’s mom. The subject blank was filled in "re: math sub," and he had scrawled underneath, "Check this out." Mr. Edwards grabbed the phone message and stuffed it under some papers.

      "What does the sub say?" He fixed his eyes on me and did not move a muscle.

      "During the last class period she said our parents should be ashamed of us." Floundering in the water.

      "Are you sure she said that?" he asked, scribbling down notes on a legal pad.

      "Yes." I felt a well of power.

      "Is there anything else you would like to tell me?"

      "She doesn’t explain the math and then gets mad when we can’t do it."

      "Anything else?"

      "Well, she picks on certain kids." I was amazed at myself. It had just come to me. Tell only one side of the story. It was the truth, wasn’t it? Who was I kidding? I’d creamed her, and I knew it.

      The door to his office closed behind me with a thud. Tears erupted from my lids unbidden and dripped down my cheeks.

      In the din of the cafeteria the next day, Kirsten beckoned me over. Until yesterday, she had never even looked at me.

      "Brandy, you were great," Kirsten said. Her ears were pricked for gossip, and she scooted over to share a seat with me. I’d never been this close to her before. What was that? A missed a spot on her face where her makeup wasn’t blended? Was she just human after all?

      "What d’you mean?" Play innocent.

      "The principal has a petition to get rid of Ms. Sutton signed by several of our mothers. What you said finished her off. She won’t work here or anywhere else, the fat cow." Her words crashed against my ears. No pretense of babyish traits now. Cold fish.