The girl crossed her arms. “Well, it’s true. I don’t care if her mom did justdie.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Denise looked at the vice-principal and pointed at the woman. “Who the fuck isshe?”
“Ms. Reynolds, please watch yourlanguage.”
“Answer the question.” She wasn’t going to dignify his request with a response. If she didn’t start getting answers soon, she was going to drop f-bombs like she was carpet-bombing a Taliban stronghold in the HinduKush.
Mr. Silverman sighed. “This is Miss Neville, one of our elementaryteachers.”
“You let her teachchildren?”
“I’m a very good teacher,” shesaid.
“Really?” Denise asked. “You think calling a student a brat makes you a good teacher? Call my niece names again, little girl, and I will end you. I will make it my personal mission to make your life a living hell. Are weclear?”
Sprocket whined and mouthed herankle.
“Ms. Reynolds,” the vice-principal said. “Please.”
Denise looked back at him. “What.Happened?”
“Kimber was disrespectful to Ms. Neville during class,” hesaid.
“In what way?” That didn’t sound like Kimber atall.
“She argued with her inclass.”
“Aboutwhat?”
“A mathproblem.”
“A math problem?” She pursed her lips, tired of the politically correct game these people were trying to play. “Right. Get Kimber inhere.”
“Ms.Reynolds—”
“Get her in here. Now. I’m not playing this game. Since you refuse to give me a straight answer and explain the situation fully, I’ll get it fromher.”
Looking extremely put out, he picked up his phone and asked the secretary to send inKimber.
She had absolutely zero fucks to give. All her effort was going toward not unleashing unholy hell-fury on these assholes. She turned in the chair and watched Kimber hesitate in the doorway, looking between the adults in theroom.
Denise held out her hand. “Come here,Kimber.”
Kimber entered the office and stood beside her chair. Denise lifted her feet so Sprocket would move and pulled Kimber in front of her. “Tell me what happened in classtoday.”
Kimber turned her head toward the teacher, her eyesdowncast.
Swear to all that is holy, if that teacher threatened her, I’m taking a baseball bat to hercar.
She grasped Kimber’s chin and made her look at her. “Hey. Just you and me, okay? Tellme.”
“We were doing math worksheets and I finished mine really fast, so Miss Neville started writing problems on the board and I kept getting them right. She kept putting harder and harder ones up and I was doing them. Then she put a really hard one on the board and she said, ‘let’s see you get this one, SmartyPants.’”
The woman scoffed and Denise cut her eyes toward her, daring her to open her mouth. She rolled her eyes and looked out thewindow.
Bitch.
“What happened then?” Deniseasked.
