Mona maneuvered the station wagon up the twisting road as she spoke. The automobile wove its way through a dense forest of gloomy pines that blocked the afternoon sun. Like the forest in my dream, Bobby realized, trying to suppress a prickle of irrational fear.
“…And we even had to remove Madame Blavatsky’s works from the school library.” Mona was still talking about Metamora’s fey fad. “I suppose it’s inevitable, given the school’s location.”
“‘An idyllic spot overlooking the wide blue waters of the Muskrat River.’” Bobby quoted the school brochure, which she’d studied thoroughly. “It doesn’t sound very otherworldly.”
Mona smiled. “You’re forgetting the Mesquakie Massacre. The girls prefer to think of the campus as a haunted spot, soaked in the blood of innocent settlers, killed by savage Indians back in 1823. Lately they’ve become quite obsessed by the idea that the campus is cursed, I suppose because—” She broke off and shrugged. “Well, adolescent girls have morbid imaginations and a tendency toward the dramatic. What can you do? We were probably just as bad when we were their age.”
“I guess,” murmured Bobby politely.
Thinking back on her own high school years, Bobby couldn’t remember any morbid tendencies. Basketball, golf, softball, tennis, badminton, baseball, football, pond hockey, swimming, track, and, of course, field hockey; pursuing those activities had kept her too busy for the hobbies of other girls her age. But now she was faced with a whole school full of “average teens,” the kind of girl who pined over the latest crooner and spent her allowance on lipsticks instead of a leather baseball mitt. Bobby knew the rules of every game from archery to tetherball and could recite the five points of perfect posture, but what did she really know about adolescent girls? How did a gym teacher go about “molding young minds,” as the professor of her Child Development class had put it?
The woods had begun to thin, and the road to level out. Now there were birch trees, with silvery leaves, scattered among the stately pines. The blue sky was visible again. At a fork in the road, a sign pointing left read MESQUAKIE POINT STATE PARK.
“That’s where the settlement was.” Mona gestured as she turned right. “And undoubtedly where the massacre happened. But it does no good to tell the girls that. Last term Linda Kerwin brought a ouija board back to school after Christmas vacation, and she and her friends worked themselves into a perfect frenzy, convinced they’d made contact with a pioneer girl their own age. Supposedly she told them she’d been tortured and, er, ravished by the Indians. Some of the staff thought Linda needed a psychiatrist, but I was mostly impressed that they’d spelled all the gruesome details out, letter by letter! And Miss Otis said Linda had no ability to concentrate!” Mona laughed so infectiously that Bobby joined in.
“What did happen?” she asked.
“Oh, Miss Craybill confiscated the ouija board and Linda lost town privileges for a week. School life is a series of tempests in a teapot. I hope you won’t find it too dull.”
“I’m sure I won’t,” Bobby replied. I’ll be too busy figuring out this teaching business, she thought to herself.
What had Miss Craybill said during their brief interview? “My Games Mistress needs to demonstrate discretion…impeccable behavior…responsibility as a role model….” The imposing phrases blurred in Bobby’s brain.
A final twist in the road brought them in sight of a pair of massive stone pillars. A wrought-iron gate stood open and a black-painted iron arch between the two pillars spelled out the words “Metamora Academy” in elaborate wrought-iron curlicues. The station wagon jounced through the opening.
“Welcome to Metamora!” said Mona Gilvang.
Chapter Two
Miss Watkins Weighs In
“You’re telling me to be a gym teacher? At a girls’ high school?” Astonishment had snapped Bobby out of her usual lethargy and she was sitting straight up in her blue cotton hospital robe, eyes wide and jaw hanging open.
It was June, three months before Bobby stepped off the train in Adena. June, when the as-yet-unheard-of Miss Fayne was exchanging vows with her fiancé. June, when Bobby was trapped in Bay City General Hospital, plodding her way hopelessly through the round of doctor’s appointments, massages, and physical therapy treatments. June, when the sunny weather, the gay cotton dresses the girls wore, the warm smell of mown grass all mocked Bobby as she contemplated the ruins of the dreams she’d dreamed and the plans she’d made. Her accidental fall had shattered them as surely as it had shattered her right humerus.
“You majored in physical education all through college,” Miss Watkins pointed out, in that reasonable, encouraging tone that drove Bobby batty.
The June heat made the hospital vocational counselor’s tiny office unbearably stuffy. A fly buzzed in the corner of the narrow window, blindly searching for a way out.
I’m that fly, Bobby thought, just as trapped. A wave of wretchedness washed over her and she slumped back down, wishing in her misery that a giant fly swatter would splat down on her and end her unhappy life. Miss Watkins was waiting for an answer.
“I don’t have any talent for teaching,” Bobby said. “I only majored in phys ed because, well, it’s what you do when you’re good at sports.”
Hadn’t well-meaning Miss Watkins reviewed her record and seen the mediocre parade of Cs that had trailed her through college? Bobby knew she wasn’t bright. But it hadn’t mattered, so long as she could play field hockey. She’d planned to go pro. The recruiter for the U.S. National Women’s Field Hockey Team had as much as promised her a place on the squad. But who wanted a wing with a compound fracture in the right arm?
Miss Watkins was flipping through Bobby’s academic records, a little furrow in her brow. “But just last semester you took a special graduate-level seminar—Coaching: Team versus Player.” She looked up at Bobby with a smile meant to be encouraging. “And you ‘aced’ it, as my students used to say.”
Even the usually crisp Miss Watkins looked wilted by the heat, Bobby noticed. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and her brown curls clung damply to her temples. She had shed the lime green jacket that matched her sleeveless linen sheath. “Well, Bobby?” she asked, her voice sharp.
Bobby shrugged. “That was a fluke,” she said impatiently. Coaching wasn’t the same as teaching, didn’t this woman know anything? Bobby’s eyes wandered to the fly, which had stopped buzzing and was walking in fruitless circles in the upper corner of the glass pane.
Miss Watkins pushed her chair back. “Listen to me, Bobby, you’ve got to snap out of this fog of despair!” She stood up and lowered the top half of the window a few inches. Using a green punch card, she gently guided the forlorn fly to the edge of the frame. It hovered uncertainly an instant, and then zoomed off into the world beyond. “Believe me—you’re not out of the game yet!” She sat back down and pushed the green punch card toward Bobby. “Do you recognize this?”
“No,” said Bobby, tearing her eyes away from the fly’s flight to freedom to look at the punch card. “What is it?”
“It’s the Spindle-Janska Personality Penchant Assessment I administered last week. It’s one of the most respected diagnostic tools a career counselor has at her disposal. Do you want to hear the results?” Without waiting for an answer, the vocational counselor opened a folder and began reading. “Subject has discipline and focus in the highest degree. Reductive communication this subject’s strong suit. Charisma combined with a strong sense of command make this subject ideal for high-ranking military office, guru, or high school principal.”
“That can’t be me!” Bobby gasped in disbelief. “I’m just your typical athlete, all brawn, no brains. Are you sure you haven’t mixed my test results with someone else’s?”
“Bobby, Bobby,” chided Miss Watkins, “you’ve got to lose this insecurity complex you’ve built up about your brains. Who captained the