Grin and Bear It (Ursa Shifters Book 3), page 3
“We’ve just had a little issue with phones being used in class,” I said, trying to keep the frustration from my voice. June was never around when you needed her. But then when you didn’t? Bam. She turned up out of the blue. It was like a superpower. “I’ve got it covered.”
“Why are you bringing your phones to class?” June asked the boys, with a slight frown. “You know they’re supposed to be in your lockers.”
The two of them looked less cocky at that, their smiles fading away, but then one looked at the other, and Knox did something I never would’ve expected. He tapped on his phone to unlock, then turned it around so that June could see the screen.
“We just showed the class this. No biggie.”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I was an anxious person at the best of times, but I knew I wasn’t overreacting when my heart started beating out of my chest. June leaned forward to peer at the photo, but when she saw what it was, her whole manner changed. Her back jerked straight, every muscle locking down, then she turned her head sharply to me.
“Did you—?”
I immediately knew what she was thinking. The education department’s social media rules existed for a very good reason. Some teachers, some bastard teachers, used their positions to make connections with students online to exploit them, grooming kids to get them away from their parents or guardians, all with the aim to sexually abuse them. We’d all done a lot of training about it, and hence were vigilant about ensuring students’ safety. But now, as June stared at me, I could see her expression change from concern to contempt. Judge, jury and executioner, she had immediately replaced her previous mental image of me as a good teacher who couldn’t organise herself out of a wet paper bag, with the worst perception possible.
Child abuser.
“No, no, I didn’t—”
“Go straight to the office, Ms Jennings,” June said in a noticeably cool tone.
“But who will look after—?”
“I’ll take the class until a relief teacher can be supplied. Go straight to my office and wait for me there. Now.”
Students know when there’s no point in arguing and so do staff. I blinked, then nodded, walking past the boys and down the hallway. Their eyes followed me as I went, smirks right back on their faces. As I walked away, I cursed myself.
Part of the problem with being a teacher is you develop a psychologist’s level of awareness of mental health issues without the actual training to deal with those issues.
The boys’ parents had died several months ago while they were overseas on holiday. While their parents had been away, the boys had been staying with their uncles, with no thought in anyone’s mind that it would become a permanent arrangement. The twins had had some time off from school after the funeral and when they’d returned, I’d been heartened to see the school community cluster around them.
But that hadn’t been enough.
Of course, it hadn’t been. We weren’t living in a Hallmark movie where everything could be resolved with the power of love. The boys were grieving in the long, terrible, protracted way that people do when someone special dies.
But with one added complication.
If the two of them had been girls, they’d have had more acceptable outlets for the understandable pain and rage they felt. Everyone would have understood if they wanted to just fall in a heap and weep.
But that luxury was not available to boys.
The only acceptable form of emotional expression, according to them, was anger. The twins had turned from cheeky, well-adjusted and productive members of the school community into resentful, moody and antagonistic trouble makers. And as I walked down the hall, I cursed myself a thousand times over.
I’d wanted to call their uncles not long after the boys started to act up, but was shouted down by my colleagues and the executive. They’re hurting, was the rationale. Let's not get them in trouble.
I hadn’t wanted to get them in trouble, I’d countered. I’d assumed that if it was my nieces or nephews that were struggling, and I was their guardian, I’d want to know. I’d taken down the twins’ new guardians’ contact number and stored it in my phone, telling myself to give them a ring, send a text, something, in all the weeks since the twins had returned to school.
And now I wouldn’t be able to.
The boys were just lashing out wildly, without too much thought as to the consequences of their actions, more intent on making others feel the pain they didn’t dare face than anything. But the implications of what they had done took my breath away. I could be reported to the education department for breaching the social media guidelines at the very least and at worst… A younger female teacher handing out scantily clad photos of herself to male students? My hand went to my mouth, bile rising in my stomach.
I could become a registered sex offender.
Meg watched me walk past and her brows furrowed as she saw my expression. She fobbed off one of her kids as she walked to the door, then hissed at me.
“Hey, what the fuck?” She looked at me intently. “You look terrible. What’s going on?”
Meg was across everything in the school. She’d helped me find my feet when I first arrived and she used her permanent teacher status for good, sticking up for me and the other contract teachers. To my horror, I found myself choking back a sob. Her eyes filled with concern and she stepped closer, wrapping a wiry arm around my shoulders and shielding me from any prying teenage eyes.
“What’s wrong? Did June, the bitch, storm into your class and start throwing her ovaries around again?”
“No.” I croaked that out, then swallowed hard, not willing to break down yet. “The Walker twins—”
“Those little shits?! I get they’re suffering and, damn, I’m willing to fight hard to get them more time with the counsellor, but right now they’re making sure the rest of us suffer too,” Meg said. “So what did they do?”
I sucked in a breath and looked her square in the eye and told her in as few words as possible.
“Fuck…” She went pale, then her jaw squared and I could see her mind ticking over. “Don’t say a thing when June gets to you, not until the union rep gets there. Don’t say or agree to anything, got me?”
I’d never been a huge fan of the union, finding their tactics overwhelming and low-key paranoid a lot of the time, but for now I was glad for my colleague’s reassurance. I nodded in agreement and she gave me one last squeeze before pulling away.
“Hang tight. Help is on the way.”
Chapter 4
And so, there I sat in the assistant principal’s office like a naughty girl, with my phone in hand. It was an odd experience, because while I could be a total space cadet, as a student I’d never done anything to warrant being sent to the principal’s office. So being here as a teacher felt doubly weird. The office ladies had all watched me as I’d slunk my way into June’s office, and I’d wondered if they knew. And then a bunch of other questions plagued me.
How long had the twins had that photo? What other social media did they have access to? Shit. I fished my phone out, opening Instagram and scrolling through my friends list, looking for anything untoward. All of the profile pics looked familiar: friends from uni, people I’d known from high school, my family… Nobody who I could imagine passing on photos of me to teenage boys. Then there were the shots themselves.
I could almost feel the heat on my skin, hear the hush of the waves, and my brain latched onto those memories; anything to stop from thinking about what had just happened. I hadn’t even started the day and the boys had… Why would…? What would…? I got lost in a spiral of questions and self-recriminations, feeling like I was dropping down, down, down into a state of panicked frustration at myself, at the job, at the limitations… Then the bell went and my body jerked upright at it, the conditioned burst of adrenaline that came each time I heard that sound, except today my body primed itself for a class I wasn’t going to get to teach.
“Ah, Ellie.”
My real name was Eleanor Jennings, but everyone shortened it to Ellie or El, although my nickname sounded weird in June’s mouth. Particularly when she walked over to her overstuffed office chair and flumped down into its plump depths to stare at me steadily and grimly.
“So let's get this all sorted out, shall we? I had a chat to the boys and—”
“Not including me in this meeting?” We both turned to see Michelle Harrison standing in the doorway. She shot June a cat-like smile. “Tsk tsk, June.”
“I hadn’t even had a chance to ask Ellie if she wants a union rep with her,” June replied tightly, right before her gaze dropped down to me. “Do you want one present?”
It was as if she was offering me her first-born child. Like I could take them if I wanted to, but really, was I that much of a monster? My focus shifted to Michelle who nodded just slightly.
Right, yes it was.
“I’d prefer it,” I replied. “This is a pretty straightforward situation but—”
“Don’t say anything further,” Michelle whispered, taking a seat beside me. “Let’s see what June has to say first.”
“So.” June’s posture was now stiff as well as overly still. “As I was saying, I spoke to the boys—”
“Which boys were they?” Michelle asked, tapping out notes on her phone.
“The Walker twins.”
“The ones whose parents died?” Michelle asked me. “They had that whole weird family life thing, didn’t they?”
“Their parents are poly…” I stopped myself. “Were in a polyamorous relationship. There was Mum and four dads.”
“Right, right…” Michelle tapped that out as well.
“The boys got access to a… well…revealing photo of Ellie,” June continued, with a pinched expression on her face.
“Revealing?” Michelle’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of thing are we talking about here? Is this some kind of revenge porn thing? Because that’s a crime now and—”
“No.” I put a hand on Michelle’s arm and the she halted her offensive. I sighed. “They came across a holiday snap of me in a bikini.” My union rep’s eyes got very hard at that detail, and the full force of her fiery gaze was directed entirely at June.
“A bikini? Really, June?” Michelle settled back in her chair. “That’s what this is all about?”
“Yes, well, when young male students have access to pictures—” June spluttered.
“Have access?!” Michelle’s glare had June losing her air of condescension and authority, as much as her outraged tone cut through the AP’s blethering. She drew herself up in her chair beside me and pinned June with a steely look, one I was familiar with. From when I had first started at the school, Michelle always seemed effortlessly intimidating, towards staff as well as students, and I had learned quickly not to get her ‘dickhead’ look (the one she gave you when she thought you were acting like a fool). But to see it being directed at someone else, and on my behalf? Well, I admit I was nursing a tiny little girl crush on her. She looked down her nose at June and raised an eyebrow before commencing a barrage of questions. “Were the photos found on the school server?”
“Well, no—”
“Were they disseminated in class?”
“No, but—”
“Sent via text, email or any other transmission service that can be traced back to El here?”
“Err… no,” June finally admitted and with that she deflated a little. “When I spoke with them, the boys said they had got access to the photos, and made clear that Ellie didn’t send them to her students, but…” In what seemed like an attempt to gather some of her lost power back under her, she fixed her gaze back on me. “How did they access them in the first place? I know we all like using social media but—”
“For the love of god, you better not be trying to dictate to a contract teacher about what she can and can’t put on social media, beyond the official department guidelines, Juney,” Michelle snapped. “Or so help me—”
“It was all on my private Instagram account,” I said, hurriedly, putting my unlocked phone on the desk to show them. “I have only, like, fifty friends on my profile, all people I went to uni or school with. No students, no staff, no connection to the school whatsoever.” My voice was blessedly firm now. “I have no idea how the boys got access to my private photos. But… can we focus on the real issue here?”
As I glanced between the two women, they fell quiet, waiting for me to continue.
“I was doing a morning share at the start of first lesson, as we’ve all been encouraged to do.” We’d had a professional development day on working to develop stronger relationships with students and that had been put forward as an effective strategy to implement. “But during that, the boys made an… inappropriate comment about me and then showed the photo to the class. I directed them to go outside while I got everyone working on a simple task, and I was trying to find out what the hell had happened when you walked down the hall, June.”
I should have derived some pleasure from seeing June squirm before me, the tables turned, but I didn’t feel it. This was a mess, a big fat hairy mess, and I needed to sort it out, because I had to walk right back into my classroom and fix the damage that had been done.
“Sounds to me like the perfect way to deal with a difficult issue in a low stakes way,” Michelle said, leaning forward and putting her elbows on the edge of the desk. “Wouldn’t you say so, June?”
“Of course.” The AP’s whole upper body was so stiff it appeared to hurt her physically to bend it as she nodded at me. “I apologise for barging in as you were dealing with the issue, but I hope you can understand that I was obviously concerned.”
“Of course,” I replied, smiling even though I didn’t feel like it. “I would be too if some students told me that one of my colleagues was sharing revealing photos with them.”
“Right, well, now that’s sorted out—”
“But it's not, is it?” Michelle said, laying out everything I was thinking and more. “Those boys pulled a shitty prank, making El feel unsafe in the classroom, right El?”
“Um… yeah?” If there was ever a time I felt like a child amongst the adults, it was here when I wasn’t quite sure where Michelle was heading.
“So what do we need to do to move beyond this?” June said, shaking her head with a sigh. “I suppose I’ll have to ask the twins’ guardians to come in for a meeting.”
“Why don’t I just call them?” I suggested, running with the idea I’d had for weeks, then blinked, wondering if I should back-pedal. “I mean to say—”
“Seems like the best course of action,” Michelle said. “The twins are obviously acting out, and for some reason they’re doing so around El. She needs to take back ownership of the situation and reinstate her authority over the class.”
After June had taken it away, was what was implied but unspoken. Despite that being very clear to all of us, the AP’s eyes narrowed as she looked at me.
“You need to remember that you’ll be representing the school during that phone call, and I don’t think I need to point out that the situation is a fragile one.” As she said just that.
“I’m very aware of that,” I replied. “I’ll be professional at all times and report back on how it goes, but…” I looked at my watch. “It’ll have to be after school. I’ve got yard duty right now and then another class.”
“Whenever you have time,” June replied, now all sweetness and light. “I look forward to hearing what they have to say.”
“Your union fees at work,” Michelle muttered with a wink as we walked out of the office building just as the bell went and kids bolted out the doors to try and get to the canteen first.
And that’s the first time they’ve really done anything for me, I thought but I still smiled back at her.
“Thank you so much. I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through that without you there.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She nudged me with her elbow. “And don’t go meeting with June again, without your rep. That woman is a bloody snake…”
Michelle was starting to warm up to the subject, ready to fill me in on gossip and innuendo, as a lot of older staff were. But I couldn’t afford to get involved in that sort of conversation, not while I was still on contract.
“I won’t,” I assured her, giving her arm a squeeze, “but I’ve got to run. I’m supposed to be out on the oval—”
“And June didn’t even offer to cover your duty.” Michelle crossed her arms. “Maybe I should go back in there—”
“I’m fine,” I said, moving away. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. I said that to myself, over and over, hoping that if I could convince myself first, I’d be able to convince others. Sadly, I couldn’t even achieve that.
Chapter 5
I fucking can’t wait to see you, the text read.
Later that day, as the staff meeting dragged on and on, I stared at my phone. I should’ve been scrolling through listings for plumbers and looking for someone to fix the shower. I should’ve been prepping myself for the call I needed to make to the Walker twins’ guardians. There were so many things I should’ve been doing, but one text from Derek derailed all my good sense.
We had a… thing. It resisted definition. I knew that because Coll kept asking me what the situation was, and I kept mumbling something in response. Something vague, formless, because that’s what we were. Except for when he sent me texts like this.
Tell me you’re free tonight, the next text read. I need to taste you.
And that’s why I put up with Derek. I’d had guys who gave oral sex a red hot go, some who wrinkled their noses at the thought of going down on you (all while waving their dicks around like they were about to dickmatise you with it), and some who insisted it wasn’t even a thing. But none had ever told me they were dying to taste me. I looked around guiltily, sure someone would see the conversation I was having during the meeting, but of course they hadn’t. Most people were on their phones as well, because teachers were worse than students when it came down to it. And there wasn’t anything scintillating happening in the current presentation. So as June droned on about the new department directive, I tapped out one word in reply.
