My fingers were picking at the run in my tights. I clasped my hands together to control them. “Unsuitable, how?”
“This book…The main character of the book is gay.”
“Charlie—the narrator’s—best friend is gay,” I said carefully, channeling my inner Sarah. “Not that it matters. Not that it should be allowed to matter.”
“There’s other problematic content as well. Alcohol, sex, violence…”
I snorted. “The Odysseyis full of alcohol, sex, and violence. So is the Bible. And Shakespeare’s plays! Are you going to ban those, too?”
“Those works are classics,” Jim Curtis explained patiently. As if I were a particularly dim ninth grader.
“Well,The Perks of Being a Wallfloweris a modern classic, a beautiful coming-of-age novel.”
Mr.Curtis sighed. “Anne, I appreciate your enthusiasm. But you’re young. Inexperienced. At your age, it’s easy to identify a little too closely with your students.”
My ears rang. I felt a wave of vertigo, as if I stood on the edge of a cliff, staring into the abyss.
“Parents who send their children to Ravenscrest expect us to adhere to certain standards,” Jim Curtis was saying. “We need to respect their rights as parents to have a say in the kinds of materials their children are exposed to.”
“What about the students’ rights?”
“The students don’t pay your salary.” A pause, as heavy as a threat. “I want you to apologize to Mr.and Mrs.Quinn.”
“Apologize for what? Doing my job?”
“Your job is to teach English. Not to make parents uncomfortable.”
My heart pounded, huge and hot in my chest. I twisted my fingers together. “Stories that make you uncomfortable are the stories that make you think. Isn’t that what schools are supposed to do?”
“All I’m asking is that you stick to the approved curriculum. And assure the Quinns that this…lapse of judgment won’t happen again.”
“I can’t promise that. Kids want books. They need books to understand the world. To understandthemselves. I’m simply making those books available.”
“Not at this school.”
The cliff edge crumbled. “Are you…firing me?”
“According to Sarah Thompson, you’ve had excellent assessments,” Curtis said. “It would be a shame if you couldn’t finish out what remains of the school year.”
It was a lifeline, of sorts. I grasped it. “So I still have a job.”
“Miss Gallagher. Anne. I like to think of the Ravens—parents, teachers, administrators—as a team. As long as you agree to play by the rules…”
I stared at him, my mind buzzing.
He met my gaze, his eyes implacable. “I suggest that over the summer you give some serious thought as to whether Ravenscrest is the right fit for you.”
—
“He basically saidthat if a book isn’t on the end-of-year exam, it doesn’t belong in my classroom,” I told Chris.
We were sitting at his massive marble island, eating a Giordano’s pizza. The overhead lights illuminated the kitchen like an operating theater. His mother—or her decorator—had coordinated everything in clean whites and cool grays: white walls and cabinets, gray floors and furniture, a massive steel hood over an unused stovetop. There was very little sign of Chris in his apartment—some medical texts, his bicycle on the wall, a framed photo of the two of us I’d given him for Valentine’s Day.
Chris helped himself to a second slice of pizza. “At least he didn’t fire you.”
Acid swirled in my stomach. “He threatened to.”
“Did you talk about it with your adviser? Susan?”
