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Teaching her a lesson 001
"This is unacceptable, Mr. Canon," Taylor Stern said as she slapped her essay down on my desk. Behind her, her classmates looked up from their own recently returned papers, no doubt curious about how I would respond to Taylor's latest outburst. I decided to keep things low-key from the outset, not wanting to escalate the situation. "Watch your language, and what seems to be the problem?" I looked up at her as nonchalantly as possible. Taylor briefly removed one of her hands from her hips to flip her hair back over her shoulder, twice as uncomfortable for me with her chest thrust out and unobstructed, daring me to break eye contact and give her something else to accuse me of. She pointed to her paper. "What the hell is this?" "Your paper." "It says I cheated." "It says you violated the school's code of conduct regarding plagiarism, which you did," I added to myself. This was the fifth time in the past two years, during which I had been stuck with her in my class, that she had done
Teaching her a lesson 002
"Taylor, you plagiarized. You were caught. You lied about it and were caught in that too. If you persist in this behavior, I'm going to have to send you to the office. I believe next time you'll be up for a Saturday class. Now you can take your seat and let me get on with the class, or... see you tomorrow for the Saturday class." It wasn't the most productive punishment, reminiscent of the Breakfast Club tradition of locking up a bunch of angry and unruly kids in a room for Super Detention, but it was five hours of easy money for me. I mostly got to sit back and grade, plan, and do the work I would be doing anyway. Every so often, I looked up to nudge them awake or keep them off their devices. I doubted it had any corrective effect as the students already had enough tedium during the week, but Principal Horen believed in it, and I wasn't so opposed that I was unwilling to cash in. There was a tense moment with a truly malevolent glare, and she drew it out long enough that I began to
Teaching her a lesson 003
After a final challenging stare-down, she snatched the slip of paper from my hand and stormed out the door, slamming it behind her with enough force that Mr. Hallett from next door came over to make sure everything was okay. I assured him that it was, and with Taylor out of our hair, the other students and I salvaged what we could from the final minutes of class. Thankfully, it was my final instructional period of the day, with seventh period as my prep. My patience for teenage tomfoolery had been picked clean for the day. As always, Taylor and her shenanigans were the icings on the cake of stress.The bell rang, and students filed out. I closed the door behind the last of them, suppressing my guilt at shirking hall monitoring duties. I needed to take a few deep breaths and relax before I could get back to the endless pile of grading, parent contacts, and preparing everything I could for Monday so that I might actually have part of a day of the weekend to myself.I had just slumped dow
Teaching her a lesson 004
The glare diminished, but only slightly. "Yeah, I remember.""Alright. I want you to head down to my office, and we'll talk about this, and figure out the next step. I need a minute with Mr. Canon first, though, okay?"With one final withering look at me, Taylor pivoted and flounced out of the room. Was that a smirk I had caught on her lips? Maybe. After all, she had engineered a way to ditch the seventh period.I had to hand it to her, Louisa Barbour was a heck of a smooth operator when it came to de-escalating situations. We had all seen the videos of uniformed brutes body-slamming mouthy preteens, but our Louisa was a genuine asset. This wasn't the first time I had seen her work her magic, but it was the first time it had been done to rescue me. Only a couple of years out of the academy, but she had a hell of a great head on her shoulders."Thanks, Louisa. I have no idea how things went sideways like that. She's been in a heck of a mood today - I caught her cheating, and she made me
Teaching her a lesson 005
I squared up with her and said, "Hey, I get it. Really, I do. And I'm not saying we let her off easy. Hell, let's put the onus on her. We'll give her a choice. She can work with me after school every day until the end of the school year and get caught up on all the stuff she missed, cheated on, and all that. I'll also talk with her other teachers and get assignments from them. Let her actually do the work and earn real passing grades. Or, if she says no, well..."Louisa mulled it over. I liked that she was the kind of woman who wasn't thinking about the perks of avoiding the paperwork mess of expelling a student or the pitfalls of an entitled brat and her parents suing the school when Taylor decided to twist her version of our altercation. No, it was plain in her eyes that she was considering what was the right thing to do for Taylor and for the principles she held dear. She was a good woman, and Ms. Salata was lucky to have her."All right. Talk to her, see what she says, and let me k
Teaching her a lesson 006
At least, when I wasn't dwelling on ignoble thoughts. They were merely fantasies, nothing I intended to act on. I would have her write her essay for me and maybe apologize, but that was it. Absolutely. School let out at 2:55. By 3:30, I was pretty sure Taylor had decided to blow off my leniency. I was such an idiot, a fool who had spent all the money he had saved to help a student who refused to be helped. After completing as much work as I could with this scheme, I typed up an email to Louisa informing her that Taylor had blown me off, to disregard my earlier message, and to let the hammer drop. Taylor had been given every opportunity to make amends and instead... "So, are we doing this or what?" A voice from the doorway interrupted my thoughts. I looked up, and there she was. She wasn't wearing her earlier outfit; instead, she was wearing a thin white tank top and athletic shorts that were cut high on either side. They almost met the school's past-the-fingertip rule if not for an
Teaching her a lesson 007
"That should have been telling; she even hinted that she might endure a lecture if the door was already closing behind her. But I was in analytic mode. I had to test it and make sure it wasn't just attitude. After the way she'd wigged out Friday over a tube of chapstick, who could say what whims motivated this young woman? No, I had to be sure. "First off, Taylor, I think an apology is in order," I started. She only looked at me blankly, as if not comprehending what she might have done. "For your outbursts Friday, and for wasting my time today." "Oh. Sure, if you say so. I'm sorry for Friday, and for today. OK?" The lack of sincerity could not have been clearer, but she still rolled her eyes to slam the point home. "No. It's not OK." And it wasn't, but I also needed more data. Was she humoring me, or was it actually working? "I... Hmm." I tapped my lip. How to test it? Instantly, a dozen answers stampeded from that too-loud part of my subconscious, but I silenced it immediately. The
Teaching her a lesson 008
"The whole chapstick thing, I guess," she said. She was nearing the bottom of the board again. Rather than squat, this time it appeared she was going to simply bend further. Maybe her thighs were sore from her workout. Maybe she was doing it on purpose to mess with me. Hell if I knew. But she was bent nearly ninety degrees now, and her tank top was hanging down enough that I could just barely make out the bottom of her sports bra clinging to the underside of her chest. It was a faded pink, almost the same color as that egg-shaped chapstick that had started all of this."Say it like you mean it," I pressed. "A complete, sincere-sounding apology." I deserved this. She deserved this. An apology was only fair. If Louisa had drawn a different conclusion about what she'd walked in on, it might have ended my career. A heartfelt apology was the least I owed."Jesus, fine. I'm very, very sorry I tried to get my chapstick back, Mr. Canon. And for teasing you.""You were?" I blinked. Had it reall
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