Accidental Magic (14 page)

Beside the poem hung a placard that told about the artist and the poet. It read:

1

“All right, we’re going to start a new unit, so get out your folders and get ready to take notes,” Summer said in what she liked to hope was her best Teacher Voice.

“What’s the new unit, Miss S.?” called a male voice from the rear of the class.

Summer frowned. Was it disrespectful to call her Miss S.? Oh, Goddess! Another question she’d have to ask her sister on the phone tonight. She cleared her throat and tried to look severe and ten years older. “Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet.
”

The girls in the class sighed and looked dreamy. The boys groaned.

“Hey, I hear there’s sex in that play,” came the same voice from the rear of the class.

“Well, yes. Actually it’s a play about star-crossed lovers whose families won’t let them be together,” said Summer.

The girls smiled. The boys rolled their eyes.

“So that means there’s sex in it. Lots, actually,” Summer said before her mind caught up with her mouth.

“Cool!”

“Of course, it’s all written in Elizabethan English,” she hastily amended, reconnecting with the excellent control she usually had over everything she said or did.

“Sucks fairy butt,” said a surly voice from the other side of the room.

“So we won’t get it?” asked a cute blonde in the front row who wore a short, pink cheerleading uniform with fighting fairies emblazoned across her perky bosom.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get it,” Summer said.

“Awesome!” chorused several annoying male voices, accompanied by giggles from the girls.

“Hey, Miss Smith, can we watch the movie?” asked the cheerleader.

“The one that shows Juliet’s boobs!” called the irritating male voice. Which kid was that, anyway? Maybe she should move him up closer. (As if she wanted the annoying child
closer
to her? Ugh.)

“I’ll think about the movie,” Summer said firmly. “What we
are
going to see is an art exhibit of Pre-Raphaelite paintings that features Ford Madox Brown’s famous
Romeo and Juliet
balcony scene.”

The classroom went dead silent. Finally a pleasantly plump redheaded girl who sat smack in the center of the class smiled up at Summer through extra-thick glasses and a face full of unfortunate zits and said, “You mean we’re taking a field trip?”

“Yes, we’re taking a field trip. Tomorrow.”

There was a general class-wide sigh of relief and several high fives accompanied by murmurs of “Dude! That means no class tomorrow!”

“Okay, don’t forget to work on the Shakespearian vocab I gave you at the beginning of class. It’s due the day after tomorrow, and then we’ll begin—” Summer was saying when—thank the blessed Goddess—the bell rang that signaled the end of the period as well as the end of the school day.

“High school sucks,” Summer muttered to herself as the last pubescent boy filed out of her classroom, almost running into the door frame as he tried to keep his eyes on her cleavage as long as humanly possible. When the coast was clear, she dropped her head to her desk, and with a satisfying thud began to bang it not so softly. “I’m not a fool for teaching high school. I’m not a fool for teaching high school…” she spoke the litany in time to her head banging.

“Oh, honey. Just give up. We’re all fools. That’s one of the things that makes a truly great teacher: foolishness. The second thing starts with a
W
.”

Summer looked up to see a tall, slender woman dressed all in black. Her acorn-colored hair was shoulder length and wavy in a disarrayed I’m-so-naughty style. She offered her hand to Summer with a smile just as the door to her classroom opened again.

“What?” The tall, slender woman whipped around, skewering the hapless teenage boy with her amber eyes.

The boy’s eyes flitted from the scowling woman to Summer, and back to the scowler again.

“Mr. Rom? Isn’t that your name?” asked the slender woman in a no-nonsense voice.

The boy nodded nervously.

“And what is it you wished to bother Miss Smith with?”

The boy’s mouth opened, closed, and then opened again. “I have my journals to turn in. The ones that were due yesterday,” he finally blurted.

The amber-eyed woman glanced down at Summer. “Do you take late work, Miss Smith?”

Summer swallowed. “No. I mean, isn’t that the English Department’s policy?”

“Of course it is.” The slender woman raised one arched brow at the boy and trapped him with her sharp gaze. “No. Late.
Work. Means no late work. Now, go away, child, before you truly anger me.”

“Y-yes ma’am!” the boy’s voice broke as he backed hastily from the room and then scampered away.

“How in the world did you do that?” Summer said, gaping at the tall, young woman.

She smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Jenny Sullivan, your across-the-hall neighbor and fellow English teacher, as well as a Certified Discipline Nymph. Sorry, I would have introduced myself last week at the beginning of the semester, but I was on that delicious staff development trip to Santa Fe.” Summer blinked blankly at her, so Jenny hurried on. “You know, Discipline in the Desert 101. Goddess! There are just so many applications for desert discipline in the high school classroom.” She shook herself. “Anyhoodles, just got back today and heard that you’d taken your sister, Candy Cox’s, place on our staff, and thought I better welcome you.” She paused and glanced at the closing door after the student. “I see I arrived just in time.”

“What’s the thing that starts with a
W
?” Summer asked.

“Whips?” Jenny said hopefully.

“Whips? We can use whips here? Candy never told me that.”

“Wait—wait. I think we’re having a communication difficulty. You asked me for a
W
word and, naturally, I thought of whips.”

“Okay, no. Let’s start over.
You said foolishness and something that starts with a
W
make us great teachers.”

“Oh!” Jenny brightened. “Sadly, the answer to that is not
whips
, though it should be,” she finished under her breath.

“Then it’s…” Summer prompted.

“Whatever.”

“Pardon?”

“The other thing. It’s the Whatever Factor. Honey, I can already tell that your problem is you give a shit too much about what the hormones and germs are thinking.”

“The hormones and germs?”

“Aka teenagers.”

“Oh.”

“Darling Summer, you need to understand that teenagers rarely think.” Jenny patted her arm. “Come on, let’s lock up, and then I’ll treat you to a drink at Knight Caps.”

Summer started to grab her keys and her purse, then her eyes flitted to the clock on the wall. “Uh, Jenny. It’s barely three. Isn’t that too early to drink?”

Jenny hooked her arm through Summer’s and pulled her toward the door. “When you teach high school, it’s never too early to drink. Plus, rumor has it you ate lunch in the vomitorium. You’ll need a good healthy dose of martini to cleanse your system of those toxins.”

“Vomitorium?” Summer asked as Jenny took her hand and led her toward the door.

“Just another word for the cafeteria. And, yes. You should be afraid. Very afraid.”

“Wow. Teaching is so not like I imaged when I was in college.”

“Darling, nothing is like you imaged in college. This is the real world.” Jenny paused and then snorted. “Okay, well, Mysteria isn’t actually part of the real world in the
real
ity sense, but you know what I mean. College is college. Work is work. Teaching is work.”

Summer sipped her sour apple martini contemplatively. “Teenagers are a lot more disgusting than I thought they’d be.”

“Preaching to the choir here,” Jenny said.

“I mean, Candy told me to change my major to anything that didn’t involve teaching, and I just thought she was, well…” she trailed off, obviously not wanting to speak badly about her sister.

“Here, let me help you. You thought Candy was just old, burned-out, and disgruntled. And that you, being twenty-some-odd years younger and ready to take on the world, would have an altogether different experience with
touching the future
.” Jenny said the last three words with exaggerated drama while she clutched her bosom (with the hand that wasn’t clutching her martini).

“Yeah, sadly, that’s almost exactly what I thought.”

“Until your first day of real teaching?”

“Yep.”

“And now you want to run shrieking for the hills?”

“Yep again.”

Jenny laughed. “Don’t worry. A few short lessons in discipline from an expert—that would be
moi
, by the by—and another martini or two, mixed with one of Hunter’s excellent five-meat pizzas, which I’ll split with you, will fix you right up.”

“Okay, except I never have more than one martini, and, well, I’m a vegetarian.”

“One martini? Sounds like you’re a little tightly wrapped, girlfriend.”

“I like to think of it as maintaining a healthy control.”

Jenny rolled her amber eyes. “In my professional Discipline Nymph opinion, I might mention that ‘healthy control’ is often an oxymoron. And you’re a vegetarian? Really?”

Summer chose to ignore Jenny’s comment about control and said, “I’m really a vegetarian. I don’t eat anything that had a face. Makes me want to throw up a little in the back of my throat even to think about it. So get my half with cheese and veggies.”