Rancher's Deadly Risk. Rachel Lee

to have their attendance recorded and hear morning announcements, something she hadn’t seen since her own school days long ago. Then fifteen minutes later they moved on to their first classes.

      In her last few schools, homeroom had been combined with the first class of the day. It might have cut down on movement, but inevitably it cut into the instructional hour one way or another.

      Since it was Friday, her students were a little more restless and less focused than usual, their minds on the many things they had planned for the weekend. Or perhaps they were just thinking of escape into absolutely gorgeous weather.

      Either way, she felt some fatigue by the time she was able to close her classroom for lunch. She didn’t have cafeteria or study hall duty that day, so the teachers’ lounge beckoned.

      Bag lunch in hand, she entered the corridor flow as some students headed for the cafeteria and others to study hall.

      The wing emptied swiftly and before she reached the end of the corridor she was alone. Or thought she was. As she turned a corner and passed the men’s bathroom, she heard a shout that made her pause.

      “Stop it! Just leave me alone!”

      Without even hesitating, afraid that waiting for a male teacher to arrive could allow something bad to happen, she elbowed the door open.

      The five students inside didn’t even hear the door. The sight instantly disturbed her. She knew every school had its underside, but what she was seeing now horrified her.

      One of her best math students, James Carney, was huddled in a corner on the floor, his arms protectively over his face. He was small for his years, and string-bean thin, and she’d already noticed he didn’t seem to have many friends, if any.

      Four boys stood around him, taunting him with names like nerd, jerk, girlie, sissy … part of her was waiting to hear “fag,” but that epithet didn’t appear while she stood there taking in the scene.

      She didn’t need a mental map to know what was going on. Before she could react, two of the boys spat on James and she could tell that wasn’t the first time.

      Before the scene could get any uglier, she clapped her hands as loudly as she could and shouted, “Stop this now!”

      Four startled faces turned her way. It took a little longer for James to lower his arms from his head.

      “Just what do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “You shouldn’t treat anyone like this, not anyone. Ever. But this is a violation of school policy. You know what the penalty is. James, are you all right?”

      The youth jumped to his feet and hurried for the door. “I’m fine,” he muttered as he rushed past her. “You’re making it worse.”

      “Go to the nurse,” she called after him before turning to face the four others. As the full impact of what she had just seen began to hit, she could feel herself roiling with anger. For long seconds she simply stared at the four young men who had been taunting James. Keep it cool, she reminded herself. It was important to stay calm and reasonable.

      “Bullying,” she said quietly, “is despicable. It shows you to be small men, not big ones. It isn’t tolerated by school policy and you know it. You’re coming to the principal with me.”

      “Make us,” snarled one of them, then they all brushed past her, bumping her shoulder as they went, leaving her both livid and helpless. She couldn’t run out into the hall after them, nor could she physically stop them.

      But there was something she could do. She picked up her bagged lunch, tossed it in the trash—she didn’t want to eat it after it had fallen to the bathroom floor—and headed for the principal’s office herself. None of this was going to be tolerated.

      My God, James had looked as if he expected to be beaten … or as if he had been. She just wished she had recognized the other four boys by name. Apparently they were in Teasdale’s math classes. Gloria Teasdale was semire-tired, teaching only three classes a day. An elderly woman who wore too much perfume, she was sometimes the object of derogatory remarks from her students, but Cassie ignored the comments. Kids would talk about teachers outside the classroom, and she could see no point in stepping down on it. She was no martinet and she was equally certain some of her students had derogatory things to say about her. The nature of the beast, she thought with grim amusement.

      But bullying was a whole different matter, damaging to the bullied student emotionally, if not physically, and most definitely against the school’s conduct policies.

      She reached the office and asked Marian, the front desk receptionist and secretary, to call the nurse’s office and find out if James was okay. Then she joined the principal in his small office. He always ate lunch at his desk, eschewing both the teachers’ lounge and the cafeteria.

      Sometimes she thought of him as barricaded away from all the possible disturbances in a high school. At other times she thought he just felt like a fish out of water, not sure of his welcome even in the faculty lounge. Or maybe he just thought people would be more comfortable if he wasn’t around. She didn’t have a good read on him yet.

      His round face smiled as he greeted her. He was about fifty pounds overweight, and his lunch consisted of a few slices of lean chicken over a bed of fresh vegetables. He had confided that he was dieting without much success. She looked at that lunch and felt a pang of sympathy.

      “Still starving?” she asked him.

      “Unfortunately. The doc says I’ve lost two pounds, though, so I guess it’s working. Some days I’m not sure it’s worth it.”

      “I can imagine.”

      He leaned back, ignoring the dry salad and chicken in front of him, a meal that cried out for a little salad dressing or mayonnaise to help it go down. “Is something wrong? You look … disturbed.” He waved her to the seat in front of his desk.

      She sat, trying to gather her thoughts, trying to maintain a calm she was far from feeling. “I am upset,” she admitted. “I saw an instance of bullying in the boys’ room. I stopped it, but when I tried to bring the bullies to you, they told me I couldn’t make them and they brushed past me. Les, you know bullying is a violation of the conduct code.”

      “How bad was it?”

      “They were spitting on him and calling him names. He was cowering on the floor in a corner as if he expected to be hit or kicked.”

      He frowned. “That’s bad. That’s very bad. All of it. Who were they after?”

      “James Carney.”

      He shook his head. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Some people just seem to draw that kind of attention.”

      “All it takes is being a little different.”

      “And James is certainly that. Smarter than most, small. Did you know he skipped a grade last year? I don’t think that’s helped him any but his parents and a committee of teachers felt we couldn’t hold him back. Maybe we should have.”

      “We shouldn’t have to,” she argued, getting a little hot. “That boy should be free to move ahead if he’s capable without four other boys attacking him for it.”

      Les nodded slowly. “Can you identify the bullies?”

      “By face, not by name. They must be in Mrs. Teasdale’s math classes.”

      “If they’re still in math at all.” He sighed. “How would you prefer to handle it?”

      “The rules call for suspension,” she reminded him. When he didn’t answer immediately, she started to feel both annoyed and nervous. Surely he wasn’t going to propose they simply ignore this?

      Marian stuck her head in the door. “James Carney never went to the nurse.” Then she popped out again.

      “So he must be all right,” Les remarked.

      “That doesn’t