Deadly Lessons. David Russell W.

word personally distasteful. I suppose from his perspective as the person in the school at whom the buck purportedly stopped, the word could be distasteful.

      “I believe he was feeling a bit under the weather,” I reported to my supervisor. “And good morning.” I continued walking away from him, down the hallway towards the main office.

      Don nearly snarled at me. “He was under the weather, or he couldn’t bring himself to show his face around here.”

      I turned. “Are you asking a question or making an editorial comment?”

      “I’m asking you. Is he sick? Is he quitting? What’s going on?” Sweat was forming on his nearly bald head.

      “I don’t represent Carl with regard to his teaching duties. From what I understand, he called in sick, he has arranged for his classes to be covered. End of story. If you have questions about his health or the appropriateness of his sick leave, I suggest you take it up with the union representative.”

      Don stepped in front of me to bring me to a halt. “You know something, Winston? I used to like you.”

      “Thank you,” I interrupted. “That’s very nice to know.”

      “You have an impressive resumé, you had a very good interview, I hear good things about you from the students,” Don continued.

      “I feel a ‘but’ coming.”

      “You’re damned right there’s a ‘but’ coming. ‘But’ you’re a smart ass. ‘But’ representing a teacher who may have been sleeping with and killed a student is a really odd way of endearing yourself to me. ‘But’ going out of your way to alienate yourself from me is not a good way to ensure a continuing appointment to this school or even this school district.” He was on a roll.

      “Are you out of ‘buts’ yet?” I posed calmly.

      “Don’t push me,” he hissed quietly, since a couple of teachers had rounded the corner and were doing a poor job of pretending not to listen to our exchange. I decided to take advantage of the audience to ensure the line was clearly drawn in the sand.

      “I have no desire to push you. But endearing myself to you is not only not paramount on my list of immediate or long term goals, it would likely ‘unendear’ me to the rest of the staff, who are frankly more useful to me personally and professionally than you are. Since you’re bringing up my status as teacher, let me remind you of my continued status as litigator, and if you think you’ve got bad PR now, wait until you see what happens when I sue you, personally and the school board corporately should I not secure tenure because I failed to ‘endear’ myself to you. Have a nice day.”

      I walked away in a self-righteous huff. After spending time with both Sandi and Furlo, I had a pressing need to ensure that the last word in a conversation was mine for a change. It took only thirty seconds for me to feel guilty about snapping at Don. Having all of this go down couldn’t be easy for him. I also knew I was going to face a very tough class first period: Law Twelve.

      Law Twelve class is intended to serve as a general introduction to legal principles and perhaps interest senior students in a career in the practice of law or law enforcement. The class has the potential to be very interesting, intellectual and enlightening, unless, of course, school counsellors use it as a dumping ground for any student who needs a Grade Twelve credit. My three law classes contained an eclectic mixture of students, some of whom were generally interested in law and how the legal system worked, some who reluctantly did the minimal amount of work in order to get through the course, and a small spattering whose interest in law class was directly related to their perceived need to beat some kind of Youth Criminal Justice Act prosecution hanging over their heads. This morning, I knew one hundred per cent of my budding legal practitioners would have only one case on their mind.

      Reaching into my letter box in the office, I pulled out a stack of those little pink-coloured “while you were out” message slips. Not only had every major and minor media outlet attempted to contact me at school that morning, but it seemed a fair chunk of my students’ parents had also tried. I have 214 students. Maybe I should have called in sick. Carefully sorting the messages from parents from the messages from reporters—and promptly depositing reporters’ requests for interviews in the garbage—I caught the stare of Fiona Bertrand, the head secretary. She was not pleased.

      “Good morning,” I tried.

      “Perhaps for those of you who aren’t charged with having to answer phone calls non-stop for the same teacher,” she huffed.

      “Sorry. I’m certainly not pleased the media is hounding you at school. They were not invited.”