School Scoundrelle

By Marla Weiss

School Scoundrelle is the sequel to School Scandalle.

Molly Kelman, math teacher extraordinaire, returns to Merritt Country Day School in Palm Beach, Florida at the behest of its astute but equally eccentric Headmaster, Charles Long. Deciding that she belongs in the classroom, Molly forgives Charles for his previous academic betrayal. Professional jealousy from the Math Department Chair, math phobia from the Lower School Dean, and academic amateurism from the Middle School Dean all contribute to a problematic experience for Molly. Yet, when Charles promotes one of the threesome to Assistant Headmaster, bearable machinations transform into intolerable persecutions. Molly survives through personal strength rather than Charles’s support.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 19, 2010
• ISBN: 9781449051563

Marla Weiss

Marla Weiss, a graduate of Barnard College, Harvard University, and Walden University, is a writer, educator, and mathematician. She has one degree in pure mathematics, two in applied mathematics, and one in mathematics education. Although she specialized in math for gifted students, Dr. Weiss has a broad base of teaching and curriculum experience from kindergarten through graduate school. She is the author of eight books to date. School Scandalle is her debut novel; School Scoundrelle is its sequel. Royalties from these novels go to the nonprofit Jack Shapiro Mathematics Education Foundation, Inc. for the improvement of mathematics education. Queries should go to [e-mail]. Dr. Weiss, President of MAVA Books and Education Company, is also the author of unique math textbooks and flashcards. Her Logo computer programming textbook is available through Terrapin Software. Contact her at [e-mail] for additional information.

Book preview

1. Second Stage

Why had I fallen for Charles Long’s charm yet again? Why had I forgotten his disheartening duplicity? Why had I repositioned myself in this wrestle between loving my students who desired to learn and hating the professionals who opted to stagnate? For what rational reason had I agreed to return to Merritt Country Day School in Palm Beach, Florida to teach for him, board-named Headmaster and self-declared Headmonster?

I went—ran—to Charles’s office immediately upon hearing the news from Kate Lynn Frantonio, my closest colleague at the school and fellow math teacher. The door was open. Charles was sitting behind his messy desk.

Is Heinz Keller Assistant Headmaster? I fired.

Molly, sit down, Charles offered.

I deserve a straight response—no double talk, I said, sharp-shooting my eyes at him.

Don’t you feel well? You look frazzled.

Answer me! Then I’ll sit down and tell you how I feel.

Yes, Charles muttered sheepishly.

Moving aside, I shut Charles’s door with one swift kick, sank into a chair across from his desk, and buried my face in my hands.

Now you’ve sat down, and I can guess how you feel, he commented with unbefitting humor.

How could you make that creature Assistant Headmaster? I trembled as I asked Charles this implausible question.

You know the Board members regularly say that I need more help.

So?

So, he was the only bird in the cage, Charles replied feebly.

"What? He was the only bird in the cage? When did you begin speaking in clichés like Kate Lynn?"

You know what I mean, he said.

No, I don’t. You could have done a national search, as you love to brag. Why appoint Heinz with lightning speed? He is not help. You will require extra help to cover his daily damage.

"Are you implying that he is the School Scoundrelle?"

Now is not the occasion for your faux French fetish. And don’t forget that you coined that insulting title, I remarked. I’m innocent this time.

But you’ve often told me that Heinz is a villain.

He may be unprincipled, but I didn’t confer on him one of your disparaging code names.

Give him a chance, Charles responded weakly.

"Give him a chance? One chance? Are you kidding? I’ve given him seven dozen chances in seven months. Something does not add up. Something else is going on."

Charles’s defeated demeanor bewildered me. Powerless rarely described Charles Long, king of cunning. Had Heinz won the battle for controlling Merritt Country Day?

Molly, quit overanalyzing and accept reality, Charles stated.

"I could accept reality if I knew the truth, but you won’t tell me. I know one thing for sure. My life will be a long, grisly nightmare next year—far worse than it has been already—if I stay at this spook house you call a school."

"Don’t talk about resigning again. You have the addendum to your contract that protects you. And the teachers are excited about carrying your consulting project into its second stage. You will have a wonderfelle year," Charles predicted.

One—I had a contract addendum this year, and Herr Keller didn’t recognize a sentence of it. And, two—we’ve eliminated the teachers below third grade—remember?

Molly, don’t call him Herr Keller.

You started it with your silly, nonstop jokes about his German military family portrait.

The two of you can peacefully coexist at this school.

No, we can’t.

Things will be fine, Charles said, trying to calm my nerves, fearful that I would walk out.

Is your decision final? I asked.

Final, he replied, lacking enthusiasm.

"I’m telling you again—something else is going on."

And I can sense you’re stressed. You don’t usually repeat yourself.

The pretext for the promotion will reach me—dirt invariably does. I wish for once that you would be the one to come forth.

Detective Kelman, put away your magnifying glass.

Only when you are forthright. I nodded, indicating that the conversation was over, and left. Thankfully, he didn’t dare assert with outrageous audacity that he was perpetually honest with me.

Priscilla, Merritt Country Day’s main gatekeeper and Charles’s sole organizer, was not at her desk as I exited MCD’s front door. She would have easily noticed my depressed state.

With an unstable gait, I trudged down the distinctive, diagonal path from the office, beyond the silver and yellow stone statue of the school’s uncommon mascot—a Florida, protected, edible fish named the snook—to the parking lot. Fortunately, the walkway was empty. Speaking to anyone presently was unthinkable.

Was I steady enough to drive home? My hands shook as I clutched the steering wheel. I disliked driving anyway. Now I faced twelve miles in devastation. Perhaps that trip would soon vanish from my chores—an imperceptible consolation for the heartache. Still, I knew that I must go home without delay because only my sunroom, where I had done so much painful meditation during my previous eight-year stint at MCD, would provide safety. I could not determine my future at the school until I ruminated about the past that had catapulted me to this untenable dilemma. Should I once more terminate my professional association with Merritt Country Day School and its headmaster with his on-again off-again brilliance but always on-again eccentricity? Or should I fight Herr Heinz Keller who hated math, hated academics, and hated me?

Once securely home in the coziness of the room, the comfort of the sofa, and the warmth of the sun, I replayed in my mind the entire, two-year-long, sordid story from the day Charles called beseeching me to return to MCD, to the current, harrowing day.

2. Second Coming

Molly, it’s Charles. Molly, it’s Charles. Molly, it’s Charles. His three words spoken to me—before I reentered the Merritt Country Day entanglement—looped in my head. I had spent a year and a half writing after leaving MCD. Despite my self-imposed charge to create, the months had been satisfying—until that fateful February, 1998 morning when Charles Long phoned me at home, his first home call ever, pleading for any manner of my reinstatement. After all, his two star math teachers, Keith Clark and I, had both resigned simultaneously—Keith because of age, and I because Charles had deviously betrayed me in our shared, idealistic pursuit to make MCD a perfect school.

Charles had replaced us with two promising teachers—Tracy Ralston and Dana Jo Martin. Parents had foreseen that the math department would never be the same. They were right.

Initially, I declined Charles’s desperate, illogical, ill-planned offer. He already had a new teacher in my position. What would ensue if I returned? Even if I disagreed with some of her teaching, based on phone calls from parents to me, everyone said she was an amiable woman who took her job seriously. Charles had advocated making duplicate sections of my class or meeting on Saturday morning. My explicit reply was: What are you talking about? The kids play soccer on Saturday morning.

However, Charles called again. My mistake was not issuing another refusal.

I don’t know, Charles. I cherish my free time. My writing is going well. Plus, I have corporate-spouse obligations to Vernon at G-PET. I can’t say yes and be sorry, I said, reasoning aloud. My husband, Vernon Melrose, was President of the Palm Beach office of Grey Parent Eastern Trust—a solidly established, prestigious bank.

Molly, the students need you, the parents need you, the school needs you, I need you, Charles said passionately. After a pause he added with unnecessary embellishment, Mathematics needs you.

I spontaneously remembered all of the joy and none of the sorrow of teaching at MCD. Forgive him, my dear friend Emma Marisienne, a former French teacher at MCD, had said following his first call. Anger is not a healthy emotion. You and the students belong together.

Foolishly forgive him—Charles Long, headmaster of Merritt Country Day, an independent school in Palm Beach, Florida—is what I did. I acceded to his desire for me to teach math at MCD.

"Wonderfelle, Charles had said. I’ll have Grady Bellows call you to arrange your classes."

Grady, who had succeeded Keith Clark as the Math Department Chair, owed his original MCD job to me. At Grady’s interview, Charles detested his incessant talking at the students as well as his gangster-style hair that stood on end. Charles debated among Greedy Grady, Mellow Bellow, and Scarface as code names even before hiring Grady. I was the one who had argued on Grady’s behalf based on his students’ performance at his previous school in Boca Raton. Thus, ironically, I waited for Grady’s call—and waited and waited.

Days later I was working at my desk when the telephone rang.

Molly, how are you? It’s Keith.

A cloudburst of phone calls, I thought—Charles Long, school headmaster, and Keith Clark, math friend—but not Grady Bellows, phone freak.

I wanted to tell you myself that I’m returning to MCD—for two courses, Keith explained.

Really? Why?

I’m bored. I’ve rested plenty.

Will you be teaching both the seventh grade advanced and the eighth grade problem solving? I questioned Keith, though already assuming the answer.

Yes, and Catherine West promised me back-to-back times or at most one period between, Keith replied. Catherine West was the Dean of the Middle School, a position she had held for years.

Charles had three capricious obsessions: using fake French to enliven situations, assigning code names to relieve tension, and creating resourceful deanships to embolden individuals. Indeed, Charles Long had betrayed me to my deepest core by anointing me Merritt Country Day School’s maiden Academic Dean and within days surreptitiously dousing the offer.

I hope MCD keeps its promises to you better than it kept its promises to me, I considered. I worried on Keith’s behalf, doubting he would have worried in reverse for me. Keith, who personified kindness, neither suspected nor detected deceit in anyone’s behavior.

How did your new work come about? I asked.

I called Catherine. She checked with Grady Bellows before confirming. He became the Math Department Chair when I left.

I know, but what is happening to your replacement?

You mean Dana Jo Martin. I’m told that she never liked those two courses—too much pressure to win competitions. With the growth at the school, she has a full load without them.

I see, I stated, or maybe I didn’t. Well, we’re going to be a team again. Charles called and pressed me to return. I’m expecting to hear from Grady with my roster.

Keith reacted with a noise—not a laugh, not a chuckle, not a grunt. What is the label of a sound that is pure awkwardness?

What’s wrong? I asked.

Grady said that he fully staffed the math classes, and he didn’t mention your name. He would have told me if the three of us would be reunited.

A surge of nausea flooded me—the same sickness that engulfed me as my eight years at MCD evolved into a tidal wave of trickery. What cruel whitecap had Charles contrived now?

Keith, I go by what Charles tells me. He, and only he, issues contracts.

Will you be at the back-to-school faculty meetings? Keith asked.

I swallowed more of the billow as prior images of teachers at these gatherings discussing everything, except what was important, undulated in my memory.

I don’t know, I said.

Will you be at the faculty luncheon?

A vision of the high school college counselor annoyingly scrunching his face with each morsel bitten and sentence spoken at the opening meal trickled over me.

I’ll see you soon, I said vaguely. Take care.

You, too, Keith said, ending the call.

Thus, according to Charles, Grady was supposed to submit math classes to me. But, according to Keith, Grady had totally staffed the math department offerings. Although I was stumped, my only option was waiting for Grady’s second coming.

The torrent of phone calls gave way to a parched spell. Then, one evening two weeks later, Grady did call. Sitting in the matching, plum-colored leather armchairs in our study, Vernon and I were both reading when the telephone rang.

Hello, I said.

Molly Kelman, ah, ah, ah, how super to hear your voice.

Who’s calling, please? I asked, pretending not to recognize Grady’s pre-lying stammer that he developed a few years after joining MCD as he partook in the deceit du jour.

Why, it’s Grady Bellows.

Grady, what’s the occasion?

Ah, ah, ah, to be quite honest, Molly, MCD’s computer courses are in shambles. The whole math-computer connection disappeared when you left.

Oh? I asked, taken aback, but now aware of Grady’s upfront maneuver.

Yeah. We have all those machines taking up rooms with not much happening. And the Mu Alpha Theta state competition started a separate programming exam. It would help MCD’s overall score if you taught the students, Grady said.

He wants me for winning trophies and raising his team’s profile. I should have realized.

"I was told that Catherine cancelled many of my courses. So, you should be speaking with her. Regardless, I’ve given up teaching computer science. The field takes constant continuing education. I would rather devote my time and energy elsewhere."

Ah, ah, ah, in point of fact, what you already know is more than the current teachers know, Grady retorted. What can I do to convince you?

Nothing. I have no interest, I restated. "Getting into the kids’ heads to find their bugs is too exhausting. But I’m puzzled. Charles asked me to teach math again. I consented. We never discussed computer science."

Persistently for years, I had tried to get MCD’s personnel to distinguish correctly between the name of the physical hardware, computer, and the name of the academic subject, computer science. My efforts were plainly wasted on Grady.

Ah, ah, ah, to tell you the truth, I’m embarrassed. Charles said to invite you back for computers. The math department has no openings.

Really? Then I suggest you speak with Charles once more. He unmistakably asked me to teach math.

Ah, ah, ah, I’ll do that. But think about how extraordinary your computer classes were, Grady stated, still striving to coerce me.

"I think about my computer science courses with tremendous fondness and satisfaction, but that does not mean I will teach the subject again," I answered, annoyed that Grady could not discern my second-word emphasis.

When Grady and I disconnected the call, the disconnectedness between Grady and Charles rang clear: Charles wanted me in the math department and Grady did not. A conflict between Charles and Grady was evident. My goal was to avoid the ambush in the middle. Who was lying—Grady, Charles, or both? Where was my Gut Voice that made me leave MCD years ago? Why did my Gut Voice not halt this precarious relationship with Merritt Country Day immediately?

Vernon broke my introspection by asking, Was that Grady Bellows?

Sure was.

Based on your end of the conversation, did he propose your return to MCD to teach computer science?

Sure did.

Hadn’t Charles asked him to call you about teaching math?

Sure had.

What’s up?

I don’t know. I do know that Grady was stammering more than usual. That implies he’s scheming.

Be careful, Vernon said simply and went back to his reading.

3. Second Round

A sane life without MCD needed to proceed. Vernon wanted to entertain some bank clients at our home for dinner on the coming Saturday evening. After sitting down at the kitchen table, devising the menu, and writing the shopping list, I departed for Publix, our local supermarket. Striding up and down the aisles, I efficiently crossed off items from my paper with firm strokes as I deposited them in the basket. I imagined striking through Charles, Grady, and Catherine instead of eggs, milk, and butter. This party would be fun and a pleasing diversion from waiting for the phone to ring, I mused.

Molly, is that you? I abruptly heard someone behind me say.

I turned to see Mrs. Ward, the mother of Arielle, one of my past talented students.

Am I that recognizable from the rear? I teased.

Mrs. Ward left her basket to give me an endearing hug. Then she asked, What is going on?

"Going on with what?" Anticipating her to ask about MCD and me, I coyly returned the question.

I saw Charles Long and Grady Bellows screaming at each other in the MCD parking lot. I happened to be at school that day.

When was that? I was thoroughly surprised and deeply curious. Perhaps they were fighting over my teaching math again.

Yesterday—and what a scene they made! Charles was so hot that he didn’t have the presence of mind to escort Grady into the office.

Were others there?

Fortunately for them, only a few—but enough to get MCD’s feisty gossip machine going already, she explained.

Why were they arguing? I queried, feigning naiveté.

No one knows. That’s why I asked you now. The speculation is huge.

I don’t know either. I’m not at the school, I stated easily.

Of course. Anyway, Molly, you look smashing. How’s retirement?

Actually, I’m not retired—I’m writing, I said, weary of people who think that anyone who is writing is not working when nothing is published.

I had heard that. The kids do miss you. They often say that you explained math better than their college professors. And they’re still using white plastic erasers!

Unfailingly, I had required my students to buy a rectangular, white plastic eraser, not a pink rubber one. Plastic erasers neither smudge nor rip. Their use encourages students to explore different solution techniques and discourages students to write one number on top of another.

You’re very sweet. I’ll forever remember my remarkable, all-girls algebra team. Please give my regards to Arielle, I commented before pushing my cart down the aisle to finish shopping.

I drove home and unpacked my groceries, reflecting unabatedly on this incredible disclosure. What was happening? What should I do? Wait patiently was the logical answer. The information would find me. The question was: Would Charles’s fight with Grady go into a second round?

4. Second Chance

I started each of the subsequent mornings with a brisk walk on the beach. I would ignore MCD until Charles called or more intrigue came to me. I only waited a week. Indeed, on the following Saturday morning, the telephone rang yielding further revelations.

Hi, Molly, it’s Kim.

Kim Kanter, my former computer science colleague, was a trustworthy, young woman and impressive, solid teacher whom I had hired for Merritt Country Day. When I resigned from MCD, I felt bad about leaving her and Richard Sanders, our other associate who had been with us for only one year.

Hi, Kim. It’s nice to hear from you, I said.

For days I’ve been meaning to call you. Each day I waited, I had more to say. Then today, I knew I could wait no longer, Kim explained. Are you cooking?

No, why?

I wouldn’t want a knife to slip in your hand when I tell you this news, Kim said soberly.

What are you talking about? I asked.

Sit down, Molly, please.

Holding a portable phone, I settled into my plum leather chair in the study.

Okay, I’m comfortable, I stated. Now what is happening?

A rumor is circulating at school that you’re coming back. Is it true?

Yes, Charles called me and begged. But, I haven’t called you because I’m uncertain about the status of my employment. There’s some confusion.

"As always, but confusion is too mild a term. Insanity fits the place better," Kim remarked.

Still? I asked.

Worse, Kim answered.