NIS: Mrs. Trotter - Chapter Three

"I can't go in there," I protested. "Not like this!"

"You have to," Principal Steinway told me as he opened the classroom door. "Don't worry…" he looked inside and smiled, "…you won't be alone."

"What? Hey!" I blinked as he pushed me into the room. "Oh!"

"Good morning!" the principal said loudly and my students scrambled to find their seats.

They were all juniors, 16 and 17 years old, and this particular class was jokingly referred to as "Basket Weaving" by most people and I found that annoying. Arts and Crafts seemed like a strange elective to offer and I'd ended up teaching it because I had the room on my schedule. It made me feel like a summer camp counselor instead of a professional teacher and I'd been somewhat unhappy with the assignment, but hid my frustrations well.

Twenty girls had signed up for the promise of an easy A on their report cards. My four male students were the ones who'd formed a secret "Mrs. Trotter Fan Club" of sorts. They'd quickly changed electives just to have an hour of my undivided attention and while I found it flattering and feigned ignorance, it wasn't always easy to ignore their unabashed infatuation. Like young Michael McMurphy, they were shy and desperate for the female attention I could give them. But every silver cloud has a dark lining and theirs took the form of Amy and Valerie, and their very pregnant friend, Heather.

She wasn't the only one either. The juniors seemed to be especially fertile in addition to promiscuous as I had seven pregnant students in this class alone. I wondered if the school shouldn't offer a Lamaze elective. They were all between five and nine months, meaning they'd gotten pregnant during the previous school year, but of course, any girl who'd gotten knocked up over the summer wouldn't be showing yet either and so I really had no idea how many of my students might be expecting. 

"Stop!" Mr. Steinway commanded, freezing everyone momentarily, even Matt Collins as he stood on my desk in his bare feet.

In fact, the boy was just as naked as me and apparently he'd been selected for the NIS Program this week. The contradictory experience told on his face as Matt's eyes were wet with tears, his cheeks red with humiliation, and the corners of his mouth turned downward unhappily. His penis, however, jutted proudly from his groin, six inches long and not very thick above his low hanging scrotum. Precum dripped onto my desk as his cock jerked upward with an involuntary muscle spasm. He must have been very close to cumming and when he turned his back to us, I could see his round, pale butt tightly clenched with the effort to hold his orgasm back.

"What's going on in here?" the principal asked no one in particular and most of the kids had been staring at me, but now they looked at their feet.

"We were just, um…" Valerie shrugged.

"Checking out Matt," Heather offered as she scratched the dull stretch marks under her belly. "Right?"

"Yeah," Amy agreed, looking up with a smile for Mr. Steinway. "He didn't mind anyway."

"They did it!" Cindy said, pointing a finger at the three cheerleaders. 

She was the class tattle-tale and six months pregnant to boot, sitting sideways in her chair. Heather and a couple of the others couldn't even sit at their desks and they had plastic chairs and clipboards to write on.

"What?" Heather looked shocked.

"Shut-up!" Valerie said. "You were doing it too!"

"Doing what exactly?" Mr. Steinway asked, still not letting anyone move, not even Matt.

"Just touching him," Amy said. "He didn't say no or anything."

"I did too!" Matt said, looking over his shoulder with a sniffle. "I told them to leave me a lone, but they made me…"

"Oh God!" Valerie rolled her green eyes. "You're such a whiner!"

"It was a reasonable request," Heather said, sticking her tongue out at the boy. "And you know it!"

The students were looking at me again and none of them had been surprised to see me naked, I didn't think. The whole school must have known by the end of the first period, but the collar might have come as a shock. It wasn't unusual to see a naked student collared on his or her first day or even on the second, but to see a teacher bound helpless that way…I didn't much care for the sly grin on Amy's face, or the looks she shared with her two friends. Those girls didn't like me, I knew that much, and I'd only began to appreciate that I could quite easily find myself at their mercy. Much as poor Matt had been for the first fifteen minutes of class.

"Only touching?" Mr. Steinway cocked an eyebrow and everyone nodded slowly, even Cindy.

"We didn't stick anything up his butt or anything," Heather said with a giggle, but stopped when the principal gave her a stern look.

"Is that true, Mr. Collins?" he asked the boy. "Were they only touching or did they do something else?"

"They pinched me," he said.

"Only his nipples!" Valerie retorted. "That's allowed!"

"And Amy kind of, um…she squeezed, my uh…"

"I played with his balls a little," Amy sighed. "So what?"

"I didn't like it," Matt told her with a pouting frown.

"You did too!" She laughed at him. "Look at your dick! It's still hard!"

"Faker!" Heather said.

"He's such a baby!" Valerie sighed theatrically.

"I see," Principal Steinway said, holding his hands up for silence. "Well, it all sounds reasonable to me, but this is Mrs. Trotter's class, so…What do you think?"

"Me?" I blinked at him, feeling the eyes of everyone in the room crawling across my flushed skin.

This situation wasn't a hard one to decide. Plainly the request had been reasonable enough. Students had a right to touch and explore their naked classmates and Matt hadn't suffered any injuries except to his ego. He'd been embarrassed, obviously, probably teased mercilessly by Amy and her friends, but verbal bullying was a separate issue and separate from the reasonable request of touching the boy's body. My decision had to be obvious and everyone knew it; pronouncing judgment, giving tacit approval of what had happened, was only a formality.

I did wish it were otherwise though, simply because whatever was appropriate for Matt would have to be appropriate for myself as well. I couldn't say touching wasn't reasonable just to protect my own precious dignity and besides, I had little doubt that Amy would appeal to Mr. Steinway and he'd make the more proper ruling without a second's hesitation. I was effectively being forced to rule on my own future fate at the hands of my students and we all knew it. Fortunately, I hoped, there was a way to remind Amy and the others that reasonable requests were a two way street.

"Matt…" I cleared my throat, wiggling my fingers uselessly as I felt the desperate urge to cover myself. "Touching is perfectly reasonable and you need to remember that in the future. You can't refuse. Okay?"

"Yes!" Heather grinned at her friends.

"Told ya so!" Valerie sneered at the boy. "Wuss!"

"But…" I pointed a finger in the air, "…you do look like you could use some relief. If you'd like one of the girls to assist you, I think that would only be fair."

"What?" Amy stared at me. "I'm not gonna jerk him off!"

Naturally she'd assumed Matt would pick her, being the most attractive and popular of his classmates.

"Really? I can pick anybody?" The boy almost smiled, still standing on the desk and suffering what must have been a painful erection. His cock had turned dark with excitement as it bobbed up and down without any help whatsoever.

"Yes, you can," I agreed, giving Amy an apologetic smile that I didn't mean. It would be a good lesson, I thought, getting her hands physically dirty after teasing Matt the way she had. I'm sure the metaphor would have been lost on her otherwise and the girl needed a lesson.

"Can I pick you?" Matt asked and it took me a second to understand what he'd just said.

"Of course you can!" Principal Steinway answered before I could think of a reason to say no. "Mrs. Trotter is naked in school, isn't she? That makes her, uh…fair game!"

I ignored his chuckle and shook my head, refusing to see the humor of the situation.

"I'm afraid, um…" I shrugged helplessly. "I can't give you relief, Matt. I'm wearing the collar and, uh…You'll just have to pick someone else. Sorry."

"Nonsense!" Mr. Steinway said. "There must be some way to give poor Matthew some relief. Perhaps…Hmmm…Have you considered using your mouth, Mrs. Trotter?"

"What?" I almost fainted at the idea. My cheeks burned with acute embarrassment as Matt's face lit up with a smile. The other kids gasped, giggled, and whispered excitedly at this unexpected development.

"You did promise him relief," the principal reminded me. "And you know as well as I do that the collar isn't really a punishment; it's an educational tool, Mrs. Trotter."

"But…I've never…I can't do that!" I stammered. "He can pick someone else! Amy! She can do it!"

"Yeah right!" Amy laughed. "She's just trying to break the rules again, Mr. Steinway."

"She'd make one of us do it!" Valerie said and I couldn't believe my ears.

"I've never made anyone…" I started saying, staring at the girl and wondering how she could even think that.

"Mrs. Trotter wants to make Amy do it," Heather said with a nod, "and she isn't even naked!"

"She's such a bitch sometimes," Valerie sighed, but with a smile just for me and I frowned right back at her.

"What did you just call me?" I asked.

"You're acting like a spoiled bitch," she said and I believe the girl honestly forgot I was still her teacher.

"You're out of my class," I said. "Tell your parents I want to have a conference with them…"

"Huh?" Valerie's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

"…before I let you back in," I finished. "Otherwise you'll take an F in the class and have to make it up over the summer."

"You can't do that!" she yelled and everyone else just watched. "She can't give me an F…Can she, Mr. Steinway?"

"After you insulted her?" He shook his head sadly. "I think a teacher deserves a little more respect than that, don't you?"

"But…" Valerie blinked at him. "She's naked!"

"And that changes what precisely?" he wondered. "Stop by the office after school today. Mrs. Watkins will have a letter for your parents."

"You're excused, Valerie," I told the girl. "You may go to the library for the rest of the period."

"This is crazy!" she shouted. "You're naked! You can't kick me out!"

"Unfortunately for you," the principal said, "being naked has nothing to do with it. Please, don't ask for a suspension as well."

"Fine!" Valerie yanked her purse off the back of her chair, picked up her books and stomped out of the classroom, slamming the door behind her.

"Thanks," I said softly, giving the principal a look that expressed regret as much as gratitude. Valerie wasn't really a bad girl inside.

"You're one of my teachers," he replied with a shrug. "But you know…"

"What?" I narrowed my eyes.

"You'll be naked all week," he told me. "For all school related activities…"

"Uh!"

"…including parent-teacher conferences," he continued with a smile. "But I'm sure you've already thought of that, right?"

Oh God! How could I meet with the parents of one of my students if I was naked? I wasn't even sure if I'd seen them before at one of the PTA meetings. I'd met a lot of parents and I remember how some of the men had looked at me. I'd felt naked at times, sitting beneath the lascivious gaze of men old enough to be my father in most cases. This time I really would be naked!

"Maybe, um…" I cleared my throat. "I could give her a few hours of detention instead."

"It's up to you, Mrs. Trotter," Principal Steinway said for the benefit of my students. "You know I'll support whatever decision you make."

"I'll think about it," I decided, but I already knew I couldn't be meeting any parents. No way!

"So, um…" Amy spoke up with an impatient smile. "Is Mrs. Trotter gonna suck Matt's dick, or what?"

"Please," I whispered, begging the man with my eyes, but Mr. Steinway wasn't about to let me off the hook.

"Let's call it fellatio," he corrected the girl casually. "And yes, Mrs. Trotter is going to set a fine example for all of us today."

"I've never done it," I whispered. "Honestly. I don't know how. Please, don't make me do this."

"I can't make you do anything," he replied gently. "But what choice do you have, June?"

He was right, of course, as he had to be. I'd told Matt he could choose anyone and normally that wouldn't have included a teacher, but since I was naked in school…Fair game. That's what I'd become and I realized I'd traded my clothing for a big bulls-eye as much as anything else. The naked students were always singled out by students and teachers alike and I'd frowned at some of the things they'd been asked to do, the unwanted attention they'd received, but I'd never really done anything about it.

That knowledge shamed me as much as anything else. Being naked, being collared and helpless, kneeling before one of my students in act of willful, deliberate submission, none of that humiliated more than I already was. And it's such a curious thing, acceptance, like dropping a heavy rock that's been carried too long. I felt free suddenly. I felt light as a feather and almost giddy with a flood of relief. The rationalizations were a blessing and a curse all at once. I clung to a dozen reasons, a hundred of them, and all without merit…except for one.

I was naked in school.

Matt had gotten off my desk with Principal Steinway's approval and now stood naked at the front of the class. His erection hadn't diminished at all; it stood stiff and ruddy from his pale body, the smooth glans glistening with precum. I can honestly say that I'd never seen a penis from that perspective before – from slightly beneath it as I knelt on the cold floor, sitting on my heels with my wrists bound to the color I wore. More to the point, I'd never wanted to and I felt my heart pounding in my ears as Matt's male musk filled my nose with every rapid breath I took.

I'd probably hyperventilate if I wasn't careful, I thought, and the idea of passing out almost seemed like a good one. I'd never tasted cock before. I hadn't even kissed my husband's despite his desires. He'd asked me so many times and I'd always turned him away, but now I was about to touch my lips to Matt's swollen penis. I'd kiss, lick, and suckle a seventeen-year-old high school boy in front of his classmates for no other reason than his cock was hard and I was naked. Presumably this would teach all of us a valuable lesson, but for the life of me I couldn't imagine what that lesson might be.

"Oh my God!" Heather gasped, leaning over Amy's shoulder to get a better view.

"She's really going to do it!" Cindy said and most of my other students were talking excitedly as well.

I heard words like "cocksucker" and "slut" and "stuck-up bitch" being whispered back and forth by my female students. I'd never realized that so many of them didn't like me, or maybe just a few of them were trying to make me believe that. Amy and Heather were especially vulgar and stood close enough to me that I could hear everything they said. My entire class had gathered around us and Mr. Steinway didn't seem to mind that a full period was being wasted this way.

Matt stood still as a statue except for his heavy breathing and the occasional bobbing of his cock just inches from my face. My other three boys were staring intently and I could see them if I happened to turn my head slightly one direction or the other. They'd grown pink with anticipation and rubbed their own swollen crotches, but didn't say anything. The girls did all the talking, all the giggling and whispering, and I couldn't bear to look at any of them. Some of them might have felt sympathy for me, but the only encouragement my burning ears could hear dripped with satisfaction at seeing me humiliated.

"Hurry up, Mrs. Trotter," Amy said. "Suck his cock already!"

"Principal Steinway," Heather pouted. "She's not doing anything except sitting there!"

"I can't," I breathed. "I told you, I've never done it before."

"It's okay, Mrs. Trotter," Matt whispered. "You don't have to. I'm sorry. I'll just, um…Can I go to the bathroom?"

In all fairness, I have to say that Matt didn't want to be the center of attention anymore than I did. He wasn't happy about being naked in school and while the idea of getting a blowjob from his favorite teacher must have been exciting, Matt wasn't the sort of boy to hurt anyone either. I saw real anguish in his eyes when I looked up. He wanted me to do it, but not if it made me unhappy. He loved me the way only a teenage boy can, investing all of his heart in the first crush of his life.

I should have felt relieved at his words, but I only felt worse. Much like the guilt I felt sometimes when I turned my husband down, I felt sorry for Matt. He'd probably told himself that getting a blowjob from me would make up for the embarrassment of being naked. Living a dream would make the reality bearable for him, or so I imagined, and the boy was suffering. His cock must have ached with the need to release all that desire trapped in his heavy balls. If he could turn his back on what he wanted most in the world, a blowjob from me, just to spare me a little humiliation, then how much more did I owe him?

"Oh!" he gasped as I touched my pursed lips to the head of his penis, feeling my tummy somersault with nervous fear.

I extended the tip of my tongue and licked the glans tentatively, as if I'd feel some sort of physical pain. I braced myself, tensing every muscle in my body in preparation for the worst and having no idea what the worst might be. He felt warm and I discovered his precum had little flavor at all as I gathered it on my tongue and pulled it into my mouth. I opened my mouth wider, stretching my bee stung lips around the crown of Matt's penis, and tried to ignore the fact that twenty-some kids were watching me suck a boy's cock for the first time in my life.

"Mrs. Trotter!" Matt breathed as his hands went to my head, his fingers digging into my blonde hair. "That feels great!"

"I knew she was a slut!" Amy said softly, but I heard her and closed my eyes with shame.

"Never sucked a cock before? Ha!" Heather snorted. "Look at her! God!"

The wet noises of my mouth being filled with Matt's cock seemed to echo in my head. I had no idea how to do it. Was I really supposed to suck, or just move my lips up and down the shaft? My tongue kept getting in the way and when my teeth grazed the prominent ridge of his glans, Matt jerked his hips and realized I needed to be careful with the boy. I couldn't breathe and for a second I almost went into a panic, but soon enough I found air though my nose and discovered I could breathe just fine, even with a mouthful of hard cock.

It wasn't so bad, I told myself. It didn't hurt. I tuned everything else out and kept my eyes tightly shut. I ignored Amy and the other girls and concentrated on moving my head back and forth, my whole body really, taking half of Matt's cock inside before pulling back again. So far as blowjobs go, it couldn't have been a very good one. I didn't use my tongue for much more than a pillow beneath the shaft as it slid back and forth. I couldn't use my hands at all. I moved mechanically, trying not to think about what I was doing.

"Ummm…" Matt sighed as he started helping me, pushing with his hips as he held my head firmly in his hands.

I stopped moving and let him use me, fucking my mouth with short, rapid strokes. Precum and saliva filled my mouth to overflowing and when he'd push his cock too deep, I'd gag and cough, spilling the fluid from the corners of my mouth. The wetness ran down my chin and dripped onto my heaving breasts. I didn't have to see it, I could feel everything. I shivered and fought down my gag reflex, swallowing as quickly as I could. When Matt's penis caught me mid-gulp, he seemed to lunge into my throat with a loud gasp. His soft scrotum slapped my chin and my nose pressed into his curling pubic hair.

"She did it!" Heather announced loudly. "Mrs. Trotter's deep throating him!"

"She's probably sucked a million dicks," Amy said. "What a liar!"

"Mmph!" I protested with a low, guttural groan. I couldn't breathe at all as my delicate throat stretched around the cock buried inside it.

I finally did panic, pulling my mouth off Matt's cock despite his efforts to hold me in place. My eyes were wet, but I wasn't crying, and a thin wash of spit and precum followed his penis to run down my neck and drip onto my tits. The boy couldn't relax though, he kept moving his hips and his cock slid across my cheek. He pulled back and pushed it upward, along my nose and across my left eye. His slippery shaft felt hot and heavy against my face and his balls found my mouth. His fingers found a better, tighter grip and he held me close so that I had no choice but to lick his scrotum.

"Mrs. Trotter!" Matt's ragged voice filled my ears. "Kiss my balls too!"

Where he'd gotten that idea from, I'd hate to guess, but probably the internet's to blame. He had some strange porn fantasy and imagined every girl everywhere loved sucking cock and washing a man's balls with her hungry mouth. It should have sickened me and I should have refused, but I didn't. I pulled Matt's wrinkled sack between my lips, trapping one of his testes and sucking on it while I used my tongue to caress and roll it around in my wet mouth.

I wanted to do it and I didn't understand why. I didn't want to do it! And yet I couldn't stop myself. I suckled his scrotum like a baby, moaning around the boy's flesh even as his swollen cock continued to ride my upturned face. Everyone could see what we were doing and I'd opened my sky blue eyes, burning with shame as I saw them smiling and whispering. My clitoris had grown stiff with excitement, thrumming eagerly for attention. My nipples had grown fat as well and I felt them straining with desire. I wanted to be touched. Kissed and pinched and stroked.

My mind reeled with the same confusion I'd felt earlier, as if I couldn't distinguish one emotion from another. I wriggled my hips, squirming around the emptiness inside my quivering sex. I had visions of Henry pushing his cock inside me as I knelt in front of Matt, fucking me while I nursed on the boy's cock and balls. I could cum, I thought, if someone would only touch me. The slightest pressure on my clitoris would set me off exactly as that tiny flick of Petra's finger had done less than an hour before.

"Put it back in her mouth," Heather suggested with a giggle.

"Yeah!" Amy agreed. "Don't waste it! Cum in her mouth!"

And somehow the girls started chanting, "Cum! Cum! Cum!" Getting louder as Matt pushed his penis once more between my lips, fucking my face with quick thrusts of his hips. The head of his cock found the back of my mouth repeatedly and I could only gag and spew our juices from my bruised lips.

"Cum! Cum! Cum!" they shouted as if we were holding some sort of obscene pep rally in the middle of school.

The discomfort made my eyes water and I blinked rapidly, gasping through my nose and shaking like a leaf. My body ached with humiliation, trembled with excitement, and burned with lust from the inside out. I wanted him to cum, but not so that horrible experience would end; I needed Matt to orgasm because I couldn't. No matter how much I tried to find something for my pussy to rub itself again, the release was denied me. One of us had to loose the tension building between us, that's what I remember thinking. If I could only share Matt's climax, that would be enough.

"Cum! Cum! Cum!" my students cheered with shining eyes and clapping hands, bouncing on their heels as they moved closer.

I felt their presence fill the world entirely. Their bodies hid everything else. I couldn't see the walls or the desks or any of the trappings of reality, only teenage girls standing hip to hip as they clustered around us.

"Yeah! I'm…Oh! Ohhh…" Matt gasped and the cheering stopped as his cock pulsed with a sudden rush of semen.

He held my head even tighter, hunched over me in a desperate, awkward embrace. I tasted Matt's orgasm strong and bitter-sweet, salty and thicker than I expected. Like hot buttermilk, the texture surprised me as well. His cum seemed to slide down my throat as I swallowed instinctively, but some of it escaped from around the shaft and leaked from my lips. I didn't know what I felt just then, physically or emotionally. I can't explain why I didn't spit Matt's semen out. I could have gotten away from him near the end, as he began to relax and let me go with a deep, breathless sigh of satisfaction.

I kept sucking though. I kept swallowing and not out of pure reflex. I held the boy's penis in my mouth and used my tongue to wash away the remains of his orgasm. I ate his living sperm as if famished for it, jerking against the chains as I felt the overwhelming desire to reach between my thighs and rub my steaming pussy. I wanted to cum too and the frustration I felt only fueled my shame. It must have been obvious, I realized, how desperate I'd become for sex. Everyone could see my arousal and smell the wetness leaking from my sex onto the floor beneath me. My body glistened with semen stained drool, from my chin down to my flat tummy and I resembled nothing so much as a horny slut begging for more.

"Feeling better, Mr. Collins?" the principal asked, but he wasn't looking for an answer. "Alright, let's get this classroom straightened up. The bells about to ring."

Nobody moved for a long moment, not until Matt pulled his still hard penis from my mouth with a loud, wet plop.

"Now!" Mr. Steinway clapped his hands. "Chop-chop! Fix those desks, get them straight!"

"Thanks, Mrs. Trotter," Matt whispered, smiling down at me with his eyes shining. "That was amazing!"

"Um…Good," I managed to say, turning my face downward and staring at my breasts. "You're welcome, Matt."

I felt his cum in my tummy and I burped, which only made me blush all the more. I didn't move. I didn't stand up, but stayed on my knees. I was afraid to move. The idea of facing my students, of seeing their faces after what they'd just witnessed terrified me, but it didn't chase away the desire still burning between my legs. I felt resentful that Matt had cum and I hadn't. It didn't seem fair and my trapped hands were clenched into fists. I knew my emotions were juvenile, irrational even, and I shouldn't have been feeling anything except embarrassed…But I did feel other things and I had no idea how to deal with them.

What was happening to me?

"Are you alright, June?" Mr. Steinway asked. "Let's get you on your feet…"

He held me under my raised arms and I had no choice but to stand.

"…There we go. That's better," he said with a smile. "Here. I thought you might be thirsty."

He held a plastic water bottle to my mouth and I drank greedily, swallowing nearly half the bottle in five or six big gulps and that made me feel better.

"Let's save some for later," the principal suggested, capping the bottle and setting it aside. "Do you have any homework for the class?"

"W-What?" I blinked at him, licking my lips and still tasting semen. I needed mouthwash, not just water.

"Your students," he reminded me with a small nod of his head. "Do you have assignments for them?"

I followed his gesture, turning slowly to see my class sitting at their desks like perfect angels. Matt was naked and Valerie missing, but otherwise everything seemed ridiculously normal. The desks had been arranged into neat rows, the clock ticked silently, and a trickle of pussy juice ran down the inside of my left leg. My labia were heavy with arousal and they hung between my thighs like flashy butterfly wings. My clitoris stood erect from her pink sheath, no larger than a child's fingernail and throbbing the way a toe will after it's been stubbed in the dark. My sex had a heartbeat all its own and I bent my knees, pressing my thighs together with a sudden, violent shiver.

"What's wrong, Mrs. Trotter?" Amy asked sweetly. "Do you feel okay?"

"Or better than okay?" Heather added with a giggle and most of her classmates joined in, adding to my acute discomfort.

"Maybe she needs relief too!" someone suggested, Penny Mailer, I thought. I couldn't tell because I couldn't look at them.

"Mrs. Trotter will be fine," the principal said and just then the bell rang, ending the second period.

I had five minutes before the next class started and I could barely remember what it would be. Sophomores. Health class for those students who didn't get it in ninth grade. More sex education because the curriculum was exactly the same, the schedules identical. We'd be talking about the female reproductive system…My reproductive system, I thought, remembering all too well what had happened earlier.

The tenth graders would be even worse, being just a little older and a little more experienced then the freshman had been. They'd have heard about what had happened, how Petra had made me cum. How I'd locked myself in the bathroom. How I'd given Matt a blowjob in front of his classmates. Each class would be worse as the day progressed and I still had the rest of the week to look forward to. I couldn't do this! I couldn't take anymore, could I?

"Where are you going?" I blinked at Principal Steinway as he followed my students out of the classroom.

"I have a school to run," he said. "I can't spend all day babysitting my teachers. Can I?"

"B-But…" I wiggled my fingers helplessly.

"You'll be fine," Mr. Steinway said airily, ignoring my distress. "Oh! I'll tell Valerie to find you later…You still want to give her detention, right?"

"What? Oh! Yeah, I guess…But…" I could barely think straight.

"Just don't let her off too easily," he said with a chuckle, walking out the open door and into the crowded hallway.

I'd never felt so alone in my life.

 

        Chapter 4