Page 7 of Love Me Not
“Hey, Ms. Pavolski,” one of the players said.
“Hello, boys.” To their leader, I said, “You can’t hold a meeting in the hallway.”
Unfazed, he crossed his arms. “I’m not holding a meeting.”
“Then what do you call this?”
“Some of the guys wanted to come see my room.”
“A number of people are gathered in one place, right outside your room.”
He looked over the crowd. “I guess so.”
“That’s the definition of a meeting.”
Lips tight, he dropped his arms and lost the smug grin. “I didn’t tell them to come here.”
“Doesn’t matter. By chance or by arrangement still counts as a meeting.” The second bell rang, indicating that all students and faculty should be in their respective classrooms. “Now they’re all late for class. Good job.”
Giving me what my grandmother would have called a stink eye, the coach clapped his hands loud enough to echo down the hall. “Get to class. I’ll see you on the practice field at fifteen thirty.”
Using military time outside of the military was so pretentious.
The students dispersed in all directions, backpacks swaying as they went. Three students shuffled into the coach’s classroom, clearly delayed by the roadblock he’d created.
“Will they get in trouble?” he asked, nodding his head toward the departing students.
He should have thought about that five minutes ago. “They’ll get a pass on the first day, but I suggest limiting team meetings to your locker room.”
Again, he argued, “That wasn’t a team meeting.”
“I don’t care if it was a séance. Keep it out of the hallway.”
With my own students to worry about, I spun on my heels and marched into my classroom, content that I’d wiped that annoyingly bemused grin off his far too handsome face.
Chapter Three
“That was a long day,” Georgie mumbled as she dropped into a chair.
Poor woman. “Someone has to teach the freshmen.”
She leaned forward and dropped her forehead onto the table. “I’ll love them in a week, but every year I forget what the first day is like.”
“Sounds like giving birth,” said Latrelle Harper, the third member of our department.
He was staring into the open fridge and we both turned his way.
“What do you know about giving birth?” I asked.
“I know my wife hates me for the three months before and about two minutes after. Then the baby gives her a gassy grin and she likes me again. Two years later, memories of the pain are fully faded and she starts talking about having another one.”
This explained why they had five children under the age of twelve.
Georgie’s face scrunched in distaste. “I guess there are similarities. I just didn’t think that going from twenty-two to twenty-seven kids per class was going to make much of a difference. I was so wrong.”
If the incoming classes continued to grow at the current rate, the school would have to add more teachers. We couldn’t possibly handle thirty-plus students per classroom. Both students and faculty would lose in that scenario.
“How long until retirement?” said Freshman Science teacher Harvey St. Charles as he strolled into the room and dropped into the chair beside Georgie.