Principal Delaney

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

Oh boy. With the way Cedar Falls is going I could have posted several 'appropriate' stories for this day, but I've decided to be sweet and post something pleasant. I sincerely hope you enjoy this, I love it, though I think it might be asking a lot of you all to like Jonah as much as I do since you all know his terrible secret.

But this is years and years before that awful secret comes to be. This is when he was still a good man, maybe even, as all the people in Cedar Falls keep asserting "the best man I know".

Enjoy! And Happy Father's Day!!

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Jonah affixed his signature to another form and glanced up, across the classroom, empty--save for one student.  She sat shoulders hunched, brow furrowed, her pencil flying across the page of her test booklet.

He tapped his large stack of papers into a neat pile and checked his watch.  She was on the open response section.  She was making good time.

He sighed and slid the neatened pile off to the side of the desk before removing his glasses and leaning back.  He rubbed the bridge of his nose where the glasses rested all day and then with thumb and forefinger he gently rubbed his closed eyelids.

It had been a long day.  On top of it being the busiest time of the school year, and on top of the extra work he’d been scrambling to finish so that his candidacy for deputy superintendent would stand out amongst the well-qualified herd, on top of it being standardized testing month across the district, and performance review week, and his thesis deadline looming, on top of all that, he’d had to deal with a rather unpleasant surprise sometime around mid-morning.

He’d been hustling to respond to interdepartmental e-mails, trying to schedule teacher meetings and following up on the status of his application for the deputy job when his secretary rapped on the frame of his open office door.

Jonah had looked up, fairly nonplussed.  Mary Ellen usually just called out loudly from the outer office where her desk sat—He was an elementary school principal, not some fancy executive.  Jonah ran a professional office, but not a particularly formal one.

“Principal Delaney?” She asked, her face grim.

Jonah felt a knot form in his gut.  Mary Ellen almost never called him anything but “Joe”.  Was she in some kind of trouble?  Was He?  His mind flipped rapidly through various scenarios that might warrant the formality and the grim expression from his warm, sociable secretary. 

His heart was in his throat; Had something happened to a student?  Had there been an accident?  Oh God, had something happened to his wife?  He forced himself to remain calm.  There was no sense jumping to conclusions.

“What is it Mary Ellen?”  He responded, pushing back from his desk and standing.  He never wanted to be anything but on-his-feet when confronted with emergency situations.

Mary Ellen looked partly apologetic.  “A student has been sent to see you.” 

Jonah pursed his lips thoughtfully and tented his fingertips on the surface of a tall stack of textbooks that lived on the corner of his desk.  A student?

Discipline issues were handled by the Vice-Principal as a rule.  Jonah had had that job for several years and knew that a student only got referred higher up the chain if it was a particularly serious offense or if there might be a legal issue.

He hoped there hadn’t been another incident involving sexual abuse.  The one the previous spring had really knocked the wind out of him.  This was Cedar Falls for God’s sake; this wasn’t supposed to be the kind of place where an elementary school principal had to be expected to navigate the murky and disturbing world of sexual assault and molestation.

He’d handled it with grace and tact and with aplomb, and had garnered notice for it from the big names over at the central schools offices for his skill and diplomacy and especially his discretion in the matter.  He hoped that appreciation might translate into positive momentum for his bid at the deputy job.

But really he’d rather it hadn’t ever happened and he would prefer not to ever have to deal with such a miserable incident again.

“Hannah is unavailable?”  He asked slowly. Maybe the Vice-Principal had just stepped out.  Was this the morning she had her ultrasound?  He thought that would be next week, but perhaps he had the date wrong.

“No.” Answered Mary Ellen hesitantly.

They stared at each other for a moment, neither quite sure how to proceed.

“The student’s teacher asked for you specifically.”  Mary Ellen said heavily.

Jonah squinted.  Which teacher was so intent on breaking protocol, and whatever for?

“Which teacher?”  He asked, hoping he sounded more curious than accusatory.

“Mr. Roderick.” Mary Ellen said and then glanced behind her into the outer office where the student in question would be sitting in one of the durable government-issued upholstered armchairs, awaiting judgment.

Jonah’s face changed.  Roderick.  He thought he understood.  Without another word he moved from behind his desk and strode to the doorway.  When he reached Mary Ellen he stopped and looked into her face—reading her expression only confirmed his suspicion.

Finally he spoke.  “Thank you Mary Ellen.” He said quietly.  She looked like she wanted to pat his shoulder in sympathy but she refrained.  Jonah made the conscious choice to avoid looking into the outer office.

“What seems to be the issue today?” he asked his secretary formally, loudly enough for the banished student to hear the stern, unyielding tone in his voice.

“Here.”  She handed him a note ‘from the desk of Mr. Marcus J. Roderick Jr.’  “She was caught cheating.”

Jonah sucked in a sharp breath.  “Send her in Mrs. Gillis.”

Mary Ellen nodded and stepped from the doorframe.  Jonah decided he’d like to be standing behind the desk when she entered.  He felt he should look as authoritarian as possible.  He quickly walked back across his office and turned around, making it to his place just as her small figure stepped into the door frame.  She was still so small for her age.  She hesitated, waited on the threshold to be given permission to enter.

He let her wait there in limbo for a moment.  It wasn’t this student’s first time in the principal’s office.  In fact it wasn’t exactly unusual for her to be sent to the elementary school’s main office for one discipline issue or another. 

She couldn’t meet his eyes.  She stood fidgeting in the doorway, distractedly pulling at a hangnail, her weight shifted onto one foot while the other twisted back and forth nervously.  He felt a twinge of guilt for dragging out her agony.

“Have a seat Miss Delaney.”

She bled into the room without looking up and melted into one of the chairs before his desk without a word.

He looked at the top of her head and didn’t know whether he wanted to smile or scowl.  He opened the note from Roderick and began to read it silently to himself.  He heard her shift in her chair and knew her anxiety to be mounting.  Still standing behind his desk he looked at her over the top of his glasses.  “Do you know what this note is about?”

Keeping her eyes downcast she nodded.

“Care to elaborate?”  He asked, carefully re-folding the stationary.

Her small shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug.

A moment passed.

“Viola look at me.”  He said finally, dropping the Principal voice and switching to his Dad voice.  Jonah wouldn’t have thought it possible but she hung her head lower still.  He sighed.

The bell rang for the first round of lunches and he knew the office was about to get very noisy very quickly.  He crossed to the door and closed it quietly.  Her head turned slightly, following him, but she didn’t look up.

He fought to quell his mounting impatience.  He had a dozen or more things he needed to accomplish before the hour was out but those things would simply have to wait.

He crossed back to his desk, sat, and re-read Roderick’s note.  “I’m going to have to call your mother.”  He said with a sigh, laying the open note down on the desk between them.

She responded by melting further into the chair, her shoulders collapsing, her small hands going to her face.  She looked so small.  He swallowed.  “Why don’t you just tell me what happened?” he offered gently.  “Tell me your side.”

He placed his elbows on the desk and folded his hands over the damned note.  He supposed he was grateful Roderick had sent her to him, but it put him in a very uncomfortable spot.  There were certain things he was obligated to do as Principal, and those things didn’t always work in cooperation with the things he needed to say and do as a father.

For instance, if his little girl began to cry now, in his office, he would feel compelled, as her father, to comfort her.  But as her principal he needed to remain unmoved and impartial.

Also, as her Principal, he knew she would need to be suspended for this offense—they had a fairly strict ‘three-strikes-and-you’re-out’ policy and took a very firm line on cheating and plagiarism.  No father wants to suspend his own child—not even the rule-abiding Jonah Delaney.

The muffled sounds of laughter and animated conversations on the other side of the door made the tense quiet of the office all the more oppressive.  Still Viola was silent.

Jonah’s eyebrows knit together and he watched her carefully.  This hang-dog behavior wasn’t like her.  Oh, she knew how to act regretful and remorseful whenever she got pulled out of class for discipline, but normally that certain mischievous something, that spark of defiance and spirit never truly disappeared; it was always there, undercutting whatever role she happened to be performing, be it apologetic student or innocent victim or any other mask she threw on as necessity called.

But now she seemed genuinely crestfallen.  Woeful even.  He detected none of her usual fire, none of that stubborn defiance that he admired and adored so much—even in times when she was misbehaving.  His affection for her ‘willful spirit’ often made it difficult for him to parent objectively, and even worse for him as her principal.

He reached up and undid the button hidden behind the knot of his tie.  “You understand you’re in a great deal of trouble here young lady.”  He said half-heartedly.  He grimaced as he watched her fold her hands in her lap and a fat tear dripped from her chin.

Dammit.  “C’mon sweetheart—“ he said soothingly, “—tell me what happened?”

She released a shuddering sigh and finally looked up, her violet eyes swimming in tears.  His heart twisted.

“C’mere.” He said and sat back.  To hell with being principal.  With a trembling lower lip she rose and moved automatically around the desk and let him pull her into a hearty hug.  She wept against his collar and he didn’t try to stop her, only held her close, stroked her hair and murmured low, sweet words of comfort.

She was so small that with her standing and him sitting in his desk chair they were approximately the same height.

“I’m sorry Dad.” She whispered at last, her words muffled and trapped in the now-damp fabric of his collar.

“Tell me what happened.”  He said softly, continuing to stroke her hair and back soothingly.  She sniffed against his collar and he has to suppress the smile that tugged at his lips.

“I don’t want you to hate me.” She said, a whine-y note pulling the pitch of her voice high and tight.

This was always a concern of Viola’s.  No matter how many times he assured the girl that his love was unconditional, no matter how many different ways he demonstrated it, she seemed ever preoccupied with the idea that she might someday alienate him, that she might someday do something terrible enough to make her father stop loving her, or angry enough to hate her.

She’d been a very needy child, asking Jonah countless times a day if he loved her, would he ever stop loving her, would he forgive her no matter what?  She was clingy and possessive and had quickly won the reputation of being the biggest ‘daddy’s girl’ in the house which seemed to cause friction amongst his daughters.  Now in sixth grade she’d outgrown the need for constant verbal affirmation and her clingy-ness had become a less stifling brand of affection, but at times like this it was clear the insecurities still lingered.

“Viola,” he said wearily, “You know I could never hate you.” She sniffled again and shivered.  He squeezed her a little tighter in response and finally she snaked her small arms around his neck and hugged him back.  He smiled. 

He let her hug him for a few more moments before leaning back gently and putting her at arm’s length.  He fixed her with a kindly gaze and allowed a small, reassuring smile.  “Whatever it is, it isn’t the end of the world Vi.”  He teased lightly.  “C’mon, out with it.”

She returned his smile with a fragile, watery one of her own. And then she was somber again.  “I got caught cheating.” She confessed.

He pressed his lips into a line but tried to keep his eyes kind.  At least she hadn’t tried to lie or make excuses.

“Why were you cheating?” he asked carefully, his hands still holding her arms securely at the elbows.

She furrowed her brow and looked away.  He saw her throat move to swallow several times and knew she didn’t want to say.

“Sweetheart, we studied every night this week for that test.”  He said coaxingly.  “You knew that material like the back of your hand.” He smiled but her face only crumbled further.  Pretending to want to hold her hands he surreptitiously checked both sides of each small hand to see if the test answers were scribbled there.  To his enormous relief the little hands were clear of notations and he squeezed them supportively.

“I know!” she wailed and tried to pull out of his grip once or twice but abandoned the effort when she realized he’d no intention of letting go.  “Am I getting suspended?” she suddenly demanded, her tone strong and clear and defiant. 

He had to clench his teeth together hard to suppress a smile.  This was his Viola, this feisty brat before him was far preferable to the dejected silent type anyday.

“I think you know the answer to that.” He managed to sound appropriately formal.  She glared at him as though it were his fault.

“Fine.” She said, setting her jaw obstinately.

He rolled his eyes to the heavens.  She was eleven.  As diminutive as she still remained he was forcibly reminded at moments like this one that she was very firmly in the pre-teen range of emotional rollercoasters and attitude problems.

“I think you know that it is decidedly not ‘fine’, Viola Faye.”  He said with an edge.  She huffed.  “I’m not offering again honey, this is the last opportunity to tell me your side of these events.”

It was her turn to roll her eyes.  She tisked. “Mr. Roderick is a jerk.”  She exploded.

“Viola.” Jonah’s tone was a warning.

“He is.” She insisted.

His daughter and her sixth grade social studies teacher had had a personality conflict since the first day of the school year.  Jonah suspected it had only about half to do with her personality and the other half of the tension was due to her last name.  Roderick was harder on Viola than the others because of who her father was.  Jonah sighed.  He supposed he’d rather that than have him be too lenient with her for the same reason; Jonah couldn’t stand a kiss-ass.

“Your opinion of the man’s personality is irrelevant here I think.”  Jonah said, fixing her with and over-the-rim-of-his-glasses-stare.  “Unless you mean to imply that Mr. Roderick has been unfair in sending you out of class?”

Viola was forced to shake her head ‘no’.

“So?”  Jonah prompted.

“So: it was all dates.”  She pouted miserably.

Jonah blinked.  “What do you mean?  All dates?”

She nodded vigorously.  “All dates!  All of it!  That’s all, just match the dates with the correct event and fill in the date and all of it! It was just dates and nothing else!”  Her voice was in a fevered pitch and her breathing was erratic.

“Okay, okay, calm down.”  He said rubbing her arms soothingly. 

“Because I know this stuff!”  She insisted.  “We studied, you helped me, I was ready!”

He nodded.  It was true.  They had studied nightly, he’d helped her wrap her mind around all the concepts and cause-and-effect and sequence of events in the history unit and he had been confident that she would ace the unit test.  She knew the major players, the important events, she understood the why and how and the consequences of the actions taken—but  she had a particular mental block when it came to dates.

“And like, I know the order, mostly, but the actual dates?!”  She was practically shrieking.

He breathed out heavily.  He could empathize with her rage at the injustice of it.  It was a shitty, lazy, completely asinine way to conduct an evaluation.  In Jonah’s estimation any history teacher that gave an exam based solely on dates knew very little about history and even less about teaching.  It was ridiculous.  Of course he couldn’t tell her that. 

“I see.”  He said calmly.  “So you, what, you looked at someone’s paper?”

Some of the fire went out of her face and she nodded grimly.  “I’m sorry dad.”  She whined.  “I just didn’t know what else to do.”  She melted back into him and he hugged her.  “And he said I was an idiot and a cheat and that a cheat grows up to be a criminal and that I was no good, and a disgrace, and a liar, and I didn’t deserve to be in his classroom and and and—“  He felt her shudder and melted back into him, buried her face in his neck once more and she blubbered indistinctly into his collar.  It took all Jonah’s strength not to fling her aside and storm down to the man’s classroom with a cudgel.

“Ok.”  He said after a moment of letting her cry.  “Wait here.”

He settled Viola into the seat by his desk with a box of tissues and a kiss to the top of her head, asked Mrs. Gillis to keep an eye on her, and headed down toward the sixth grade wing.  He smiled and waved at some second graders as they munched on their fruit snacks and sipped their chocolate milk from cardboard jugs in the cafeteria. 

When he neared the sixth grade wing he heard Mr. Roderick from the far end of the hall and he grimaced.  Jonah couldn’t stand teachers who yelled.  There was no need, in Jonah’s opinion, to ever have to scream at students like that.  But Roderick was a bitter, frustrated little man.  He was a bully.

Jonah was aware, in part, that what he was doing, and what he was about to do, was unconventional at best and downright crossing the line at worst, but his long legs carried him toward Roderick’s room nonetheless.  He should wait, he knew that, wait until the man’s free period and discuss it then, but something in his gut compelled him to seek the asshole out right then, have it done with on the spot.

Roderick was in the middle of some rant about ‘respect’ and how the students didn’t know the meaning of the word and it took all Jonah had to keep his face passive when he knocked on the door of the classroom that used to be his own and opened it without waiting for a response.

Roderick froze in mid-sentence, his face beet-red and bulging, and his armpit stains in rare form.  “Mr. Roderick, do you have just a minute?”  Jonah said politely, then nodded and smiled to the room full of miserable looking students.

“I-“  Roderick looked sorely put-out at the interruption.  It must have been a whopper of a diatribe.

“My apologies class” Jonah said warmly to the abject sixth graders. “I’ll get him right back to you.”  He turned a mild smile on Roderick.  “Mr. Roderick?”  Then Jonah stepped into the hall and waited, leaving the man no goddamned choice but to join him.

He heard Roderick threaten them with detention and zeros and other punishments as he assigned them pages to read silently and finally the little red man marched into the hall and closed the door behind him.

“She was caught red-handed Jonah.”  Roderick said in the way of a greeting.

“I understand that Marcus.”  Jonah spoke very calmly.

“Then what’s the issue?”  He said irritably.

Jonah adjusted his glasses slightly and tried not to let himself react to the tone Roderick was taking.  “I’m a little concerned about the format of the exam.”  He responded placidly.

Roderick blinked his piggy eyes and then sneered.  “I can give whatever exam I choose, Jonah, you know that—you were curriculum director.”

Jonah pressed his teeth together firmly and forced a smile.  Was the man so petty and sour that he was still bitter about Jonah’s appointment to curriculum director over him?  Or maybe losing the vice-principal job two years after that rankled more?  Then, his appointment to principal must have smarted a great deal, thought  Jonah a little smugly.  A swirling fire flared in his belly.  He refused to let this miserable little man take out his inadequacies on Viola.

“May I see a copy of the exam?”  Asked Jonah, choosing to gloss over the snide comment.

Roderick didn’t move.  “It’s a unit exam.”  He said mulishly.  “I can structure it however I see fit.”

Jonah cleared his throat and pulled on one shirt cuff and then the other, urging himself to keep his temper.  “I’d like to take a look Marcus.”  He said with a smile, folding his arms across his chest casually.  “If you don’t mind.”

Still Roderick stood rooted to the spot.  “It doesn’t matter what’s on the damn test Delaney, she cheated and that’s the issue here.”

Jonah’s smile evaporated and he stared at the man squarely.  “That’s not being debated here Marcus.”  Jonah’s voice was low.

“So are you suspending her or not?”  Jonah noted the sick flash of glee behind the man’s bloodshot eyes and wanted to slam the asshole up against the wall.

“You know very well that I have to do that.”  He spoke clearly and crisply.

Roderick didn’t bother masking the triumph he felt.  “Rules are rules.”  He said gloatingly.

Jonah took a long breath in.  He was almost vibrating with fury.  “I need to see that test.”  He said, his voice a quiet threat.

They glared at eachother for a prickly moment.  “Fine.”  Roderick threw out, as if it mattered not at all to him.  The man twisted the door handle with more force than was necessary and stalked back into the classroom.  The low murmur of chatter that had been thriving in his absence dried up quickly and Jonah observed twenty or so pairs of eyes fixate purposefully on open books, suddenly very earnest in avidly scanning the assigned chapter.

After shoving stacks of papers to and fro, sloshing a coffee mug recklessly to the near-edge of the desk surface and knocking over a tin of paperclips, Roderick finally managed to obtain a copy of the exam in question.  Looking harassed and indignant at the same time the man stalked back out into the hall and left Jonah to close the door after him.

He practically slapped the exam into Jonah’s chest “Here.”

Jonah couldn’t help the incredulous upward tilt of his eyebrows.  This man was pushing it to the absolute limit.  Was he trying to get Jonah to fire him?  As much as Jonah would have liked to terminate the man’s employ there was far too much red-tape, far too much union influence to touch the man.  He had tenure.  He had job security.  He had to be endured.

With a pleasant smile that he didn’t feel Jonah slowly took hold of the test.  “Thank you.  So sorry to pull you out of class like this.”  He added as he began to look over the exam.  He wasn’t, of course, in the least bit sorry.  He felt a rather savage glee in having disrupted this grumpy little toad’s day as much as Roderick had done to his.

“Yeah.”  Roderick huffed.  “Why don’t you take a look and send me your thoughts.”  He said bitingly and moved to re-open the classroom door.  Jonah lifted his arm casually and placed a hand non-chalantly on the doorframe as if to brace himself for leaning.  He never took his eyes off the inane test he was inspecting.  Even so, Roderick got the message.   He wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have heard the little man growl.

Jonah finished looking over the test several full minutes before he seemed to.  There wasn’t much to see, wasn’t a lot of substance to the thing, but he made a great show of reading and re-reading the sections, turning the pages and looking more closely, nodding thoughtfully or making small noises of comprehension as he did so.  He wanted the jerk to squirm.  To have to wait for him.  He kept his arm stretched across the door jamb in a most laid-back way and rather enjoyed how much taller he was than Roderick.

“I’m sorry Marcus—“  Jonah said politely, flipping the two pages over again and again, searching, “I hate to be a pain—“ he gave a small laugh “but I don’t seem to have the whole test here.”  He made an apologetic face and finally removed himself from the position of barricade with an easy grace that made Roderick seem even more stout than he already was.

The man blinked and glared.  “That’s all of it.”  He snarled.

Jonah arranged his face in an expression of polite bafflement and looked at the pages again curiously.  “Oh, my mistake…”  He trailed off momentarily.  “But Marcus, I’m not seeing an open response section or a long comp… “  he trailed off again, examining the pages with deliberate care.  “There’s no reasoning section, not even a content area multiple choice…”  He looked at Roderick once more.  “Am I missing it?” 

Roderick looked smug.  “I am allowed to structure the unit test however I choose.”  He reiterated slowly.

Jonah licked the inside of his teeth, keeping his expression pleasant and unperturbed.

“Of course, of course—“  Jonah placated graciously, wanting nothing more than to slug the man in his detestable, bloated face.  “You can arrange the exam how you see fit, determine the structure according to the needs of your classes—“

“Right. So we’re finished?”

Jonah smiled harder.  “Of course within the unit exams certain requirements have to be met.”  He finished with aplomb.  Take that you smug son-of-a-bitch.

“I can structure my tests—“

“Of course, of course!”  Agreed Jonah with an accommodating nod.  “Section tests and quizzes, absolutely.”  He ceased his agreeable nodding and cocked his head to the side, thoughtfully.  “Maybe you meant to give this as a quiz?” 

Roderick’s jaw went slack and his left eye twitched but Jonah pressed on.

“Because as a quiz this is genius!”  He lied charmingly.  “A great quiz for dates, perfect for that.”  He adjusted his glasses and looked back to the stapled-together sheets that hardly required two separate pieces of paper.  “But as a unit exam I’m afraid this couldn’t stand alone—as you said I was the curriculum director!”  He chuckled amicably and flashed Roderick his most charismatic smile.  He was enjoying the deepening shade of red-purple the man’s face was becoming.  “Because I’m sure you wouldn’t intentionally structure an entire comprehensive exam to cater only to one highly-specified learning style… I’m sure, with all your years as an educator you would know better than to put all your proverbial eggs in one basket?”  Jonah smiled sweetly at the man’s corpulent face, “And I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and guess that you would never intentionally structure a test in such a way that made it impossible for students with certain learning disabilities to ever hope to pass it.”  Jonah knew there was a definite edge in his voice now and a gleam in his eye, though he kept the friendly smile fixed on his lips.  “State guidelines, national standards, you know what I mean.”  He said it in a tone of camaraderie, as if the guidelines for learning were some device of big-brother designed to be a needless pain-in-the-ass for over-worked educators.

“She cheated.”  Roderick leveled irately. 

Jonah blinked.  “Yes.”

“Caught her red-handed.”  But he said it as if he meant he’d caught Jonah.  “Your daughter’s a filthy cheat Delaney, and my exam has nothing to do with it.”

Jonah pursed his lips and thought of the miserable little girl in tears in his office and wished he could ask the man to step outside.  “This is a travesty of an exam Roderick.”  He said darkly.  “And I’d bet Viola isn’t the only student who wasn’t able to do it.”

“She’s the one who got caught.”  That oily smile made Jonah feel electrically charged and ready to explode.

“Yes.”  He said and nodded slowly.  “And she will face the consequences.”  He assured the man in slow, careful tones.  “But I want the results of this exam tossed.”

Marcus moved reflexively as if he’d been shoved.  “You have no right!”

“I want them tossed, or at best counted as a quiz grade, and you are to give a proper unit exam that meets the current school, town, state, and national standards. Is that understood?”  Jonah forced himself to breathe normally and stare the man down.  “I know it’s a lot to ask on short notice” he said, trying not to sneer too much, “So if you feel you haven’t the time to pull one together perhaps you should use the one I created for this unit while I was still teaching.”

Jonah knew he was meant to wither under the glare Roderick was fixing on him, but he could almost laugh instead.  What a ridiculous, bitter, frustrated little bully of a man.

“Infact.”  Said Jonah thoughtfully, looking off into space.  “Why don’t we do that and call it a day?”  He didn’t ask it so much as he decided it.  “I’ll pull it for you and have copies made.  You can administer it tomorrow—I’m sure the class is well prepared, and I’ll have Viola take hers today so that this suspension won’t affect her unit grade.”

Roderick lips pursed into a tiny, wrinkled ‘o’ and he looked mad enough to spit.  “Special treatment.”  He accused hotly.

 “Not at all,” Said Jonah calmly.  “She’ll take the zero she earned on your foolish ‘quiz’ and we’ll see how she does on the larger exam.  You may grade it.”  He offered the ridiculous papers back to Roderick.  “And you get what you wanted—“ he added in a low, stern voice.  “I have to suspend my own daughter today.”  He nodded at the man.  “Have a good day Mr. Roderick” Jonah said more loudly as he opened the door to the sixth grade room with a smile.  “Apologies again for taking so much of your valuable teaching time.”

Roderick sneered and pushed passed Jonah brutishly.  Jonah had a pang of guilt, knowing that the man’s black mood would likely be taken out of these hapless sixth graders.  He gave them all an encouraging and sympathetic smile before nodding courteously toward the red-mottled face of their dangerously livid teacher and strolling back to his office.

Jonah followed through on his duty and processed all the forms suspending Viola, but he modified the suspension to make the first day of her sentence an in-school suspension, pretending that Velvet wouldn’t be available to pick the child up and be at home with her on such short notice, so Viola spent the rest of the day in Jonah’s office doing her work, eating her lunch and reading. 

Jonah hated to admit it to himself, and he didn’t let-on to Viola, but he actually rather enjoyed her presence in the office while he muddled through all the work that he had to accomplish.  With a small smile he realized that it felt a lot like being at home, where Viola would curl up somewhere in his study while he graded papers or worked on his thesis or paid bills. 

She didn’t speak too much, and he didn’t engage her in conversation; she was in trouble, after all, and he was her principal.  But it wasn’t half bad having her there, working quietly alongside him.

After Jonah had seen all the bus students safely loaded onto their busses and waved goodbye to the parents who’d come to pick up their children, and after he’d settled end-of-the-day business with Mary-Ellen and with Hannah, Jonah poked his head back into his office.

“You ready to take that test?”  He asked.

She looked up from the book she was reading and grinned.

Now, as Jonah sat in the chair that used to be his, at the desk that he’d once occupied, in the room that had been a favorite for students to enter every day, he sighed lightly and smiled.  He replaced his glasses on his face, loosened and pulled the knot of his tie down, and ran his fingers through his hair.  His shirt sleeves were already rolled up to the elbows, his top button undone hours ago, and he started to feel himself relax.  Began to allow the tension of the day to bleed out of him. 

He watched her put her pencil eraser to her lips as she re-read her rapidly scrawled essay response and he grinned.  He was proud of her.  He chuckled quietly to himself.  He was a sap.  On the day his daughter was suspended from school he was proud of her.  He shook his head with amusement.

“What’s so funny?”  Viola asked, looking over with a half-smile.

“No talking during the test.”  He grinned at her.

She giggled and looked back at the exam.  “I think I’m done.”  She announced, and Jonah could hear excitement in her voice. 

“Have you looked it over?”  He asked in his best sixth-grade-teacher voice.

She flipped through all the pages again, swiftly running her gaze over the various sections, her lips moving silently.  She was beautiful.  He smiled.  And very, very bright.  And well prepared for a proper unit exam.

At last she bounced to her feet, a jubilant smile on her face, and practically skipped over to his desk, test in hand.  “I liked the sequence of events section.”  She told him.

“Better than a bunch of dates?”  He asked with a wink.

“Much.”  She said emphatically and rolled her eyes a little.

He laughed softly and took the test from her.  He stood, stretched and reached over to ruffle her hair.  She giggled.  “This used to be my room you know.”  He told her as he gathered up his papers and handed her his briefcase to carry.

“Really?”  It sounded as if such a thing was hard to imagine.  He nodded. 

“You’d have liked it.”  He told her.  “I had these great giant maps up on the wall over there—“  He pointed.  “And I had that whole corner dedicated to ancient Egypt.”  He smiled at her squeal of enthusiasm.  “And we did projects all the time, and re-enactments with costumes and props.”

“Oh wow!”  She said, sounding envious.  “I wish you were my teacher!”

He gave her a bittersweet smile and pulled her to his side in a one-armed squeeze.  “Me too.”  He admitted.  “Now let’s get the heck outta here, huh?  I’m starving.”

They headed toward the door together.  “Did you leave my test for Mr. Roderick?”  Viola asked, a little glumly.

“I’m going to make a few photocopies before I leave it in his mailbox.”  Jonah said lightly.

“How come?”

“Why?”  Jonah corrected gently.  She nodded.  “I just don’t want anything to accidentally happen to your test.”  He said, trying to keep his tone perfectly neutral. 

She looked up at him with a side-long glance and he knew she understood.  “Also I think I’d like to read your responses.”  He added with a smile. 

She laughed joyfully and his heart felt light in his chest.  He knew he needed to quell her jubilant mood before they got home.  Knew he had to tell her just how grounded she was going to be as a result of being suspended.  Knew he had to tell her to behave appropriately contrite around her mother and siblings, act properly glum and remorseful.  But for now he couldn’t bring himself to do anything to bring her down.  He wanted to celebrate her achievement with her.  If he hadn’t had an armful of papers and folders and forms he may just have lifted her up like he’d always done when she was a little girl and spun her around until she couldn’t breathe for giggling.

He contented himself with shifting all his load to one arm and throwing the other around her shoulder.  They walked like that the rest of the way to his office.  He let her chatter on about this and that and smiled the whole way.