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.She’d even had a nightmare last night about the encounter, and in it she had seen his face.She’d awakened at that point, drenched with sweat and on the verge of screaming, and she was thankful that all details of that terrible visage had disappeared with the dream.“You want me to go in with you?”She turned at the sound of the voice.It was Ray.“Come on,” he said.“I’m going up, too.We’ll check out your room.”It was nice of him, and the fact that he didn’t try to make her feel silly gave her confidence.She accompanied him up the stairs, and together the two of them gave her room a cursory search.There was nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary, and feeling more relieved than she was willing to admit, Linda thanked him for his help.“That’s what friends are for,” he told her.She smiled.“I’ve heard that.” She began going over her lesson plans for today and was just starting to write her first period’s assignment on the board when Ray returned.He looked disgusted and upset.“Linda?” He said no more, merely beckoned her with his finger, and she followed him to his room, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.Someone had left a pile of feces on top of his desk.Linda gagged, moved back outside the doorway.“Well, at least we know you’re not crazy,” he said, trying to make a joke of it.She looked at him.“You thought I was crazy?”“Of course not.Bad joke.” He looked back at his desk and grimaced.“I need to call the janitor, get this out of here.”“Take your kids to the library until they get it cleaned,” Linda suggested.“Are you kidding? The Fascist won’t let us in without at least two days’ notice.”“Just show up.”“She’ll bite my head off!”“Let me get this straight,” Linda said.“You’re not afraid of ghosts, but you’re afraid of our librarian.”“That’s about the size of it, yeah.” He frowned.“Ghosts? Is that what you thought you saw?”“I don’t know.Maybe.”Ray glanced toward his desk.“No ghost did that.Disgruntled student would be my guess.” He walked over to the phone on the wall.“I’d better report this.”Linda headed back to her room.“Good luck,” she said.Just in case, she gave her own room a more thorough search, but she could detect nothing peculiar, nothing that had been moved or taken, and with a sense of relief, she continued writing the assignment on the board.In the middle of second period, a TA from the office arrived.The entire class looked up from their books at the intrusion, and the girl walked self-consciously around the first row of desks to hand Linda a sealed envelope.“Back to work,” Linda told the class.Groaning, they returned to their books while the TA left.She opened the envelope.Inside was a memo from the principal, dated today:Dear Ms.Webster,I request that you come to my office immediately after your last class this afternoon.There are several important issues I would like to discuss with you.Thank you for your cooperation.It was signed by the principal, and a “CC” in the corner alerted her to the fact that Bobbi had been copied on this as well.Linda read it again.She didn’t like the formal tone of the memo, nor the fact that the request had been made in writing, and during break she went down to the department office and called Lyle Johns, president of the employees’ association, and told him that she wanted a representative from the union to accompany her to the meeting.At lunch, she discussed the memo with anyone who would listen, trying to get as many opinions as she could.Nearly everyone expressed puzzlement save Joseph Carr.The band teacher sat on a couch in the lounge with an enigmatic smile on his face and refused to participate in the conversation.“Hey,” Ray finally asked him.“When’s your next steering-committee meeting?”“It’s the charter committee, not the steering committee, and I’m afraid that information is privileged.”The other teachers looked at one another with raised eyebrows.“Excuse me,” Alonso said.“We’re all supposed to be the captains of this ship.We all have a stake in how this thing turns out, and we all have a vote.You can’t keep secrets from us.”Carr did not respond.That mysterious smile remained on his lips, and he turned his attention toward Linda.“We have discussed your case,” he told her, “but I can’t say anything about it.”“My case?” she said.“What is my case?”Chuckling, Carr pointed to his watch.“Oh, look at the time.” Standing up from the couch, he headed toward the door.Nobody said a word until he was gone.“Bring a union rep with you,” Alonso advised, and there were nodding heads all around.“Don’t worry,” Linda told them.“I’m going to.”Boyd Merritt, the rep, met her in the English department office after sixth period to look over the memo.“It doesn’t give us much to go on, does it?” he admitted.“Do you have any idea why the principal would want a meeting with you?”Linda shook her head.“I’ve been anticharter from the beginning, and I know she carries a grudge.But other than that.” She shrugged her shoulders.“That’s it.I can’t think of anything I’ve done.Certainly not anything I can be disciplined for.”“Well, we’ll just go in and see what happens,” Boyd told her.“But let me do all the talking.This is kind of a test case, and for all we know, Ms.Hawkes picked you at random just to teach us a lesson.She’s been itching for a showdown ever since your charter went through.She might just be trying to throw her weight around
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