Chapter 8
Amelia’s composure only broke for maybe a minute or two at most. Then, as if some invisible person was telling her to straighten up, she wiped her eyes, pressed her shoulders back, and took two deep breaths. Bryn watched this with some remaining concern.
“The news you might get fired over things you don’t have any direct impact on is legitimately stressful, and crying about it for longer than a minute and a half seems reasonable,” Bryn suggested.
But Amelia clearly didn’t wish to stay in her emotions. “Sorry,” she said. “Sorry, this is not on you. I’m just … I don’t even know what I am.”
“Pretty logically upset?”
Amelia offered a weak smile. “I take your point, but I shouldn’t be crying on you, and I don’t see how it’ll help.”
Feeling a little daring, Bryn gently steered Amelia towards her chair. “Another cup of tea?”
Amelia took out her phone, looked at the time, then set it aside. “Oh, I shouldn’t. Too late for caffeine, too early for alcohol.” She then covered her mouth as if scandalized. “I can’t believe I just said that out loud.”
“You’re a grown-up.”
“Yes, but would I want any of our students to think that way? To count down the minutes until they can numb their work woes with booze?”
Bryn laughed. “Okay, this is getting a little dramatic now. You’re allowed to have a glass of wine on a stressful day, without it, you know, being anything more than that.”
“What do you do on a stressful day?” Amelia asked, raising an eyebrow.
Bryn blinked. “I’m not sure. Work harder?”
“Oh, very healthy,” Amelia said.
“Thank you very much,” Bryn replied primly.
“But for real? I’m not sure I have healthy coping mechanisms. When I was here, I did work harder, like if I got good enough grades I could believe I deserved to be at this school.
And after … Well, I worked on my book while doing some pretty mind-numbing day jobs.
That was a lot. And the book deal made me enough money to at least quit the day job, after which I guess I’d work on the book during the day and then work on the book at night as well.
” She’d taken long walks, and spent a lot of time at coffee shops and breweries and in parks.
“I take a lot of walks. Not in a healthy ‘getting my steps’ way, so much as a ‘if I walk far enough maybe I can outrun my thoughts’ way. But drinking and vaping don’t seem to work with my body, so I guess it’s not a bad alternative. ”
“Maybe we should take a walk together,” Amelia said. “Around the grounds.”
Don’t act like a lovesick baby. “Oh, um, that would be nice.” Okay, maybe there’s a middle ground between lovesick baby and “my mom is making me say this”.
“I mean really, I’d like that.” Before she could embarrass herself further, she continued, “The governors can’t seriously hold you responsible for grades on an exam taking place less than a year after you were hired? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Amelia shrugged. “And it’s totally contributing to my intense paranoia they’ve been trying to get rid of me the whole time.”
Which might actually be justified (Bryn couldn’t get the image of the retreating and somehow aggressive back of Madame Schneider out of her mind), but there was no obvious way to address it regardless. “Okay, let’s set that aside for the moment. What do you want me to do about the cheating?”
Amelia sat back with a sigh. “You’re right. I think we tell the students that we have new spells to prevent it, and then we enact those spells.” She glanced up. “I’m sorry that I momentarily considered just cheating on the MSEs. You know, I would not normally want anyone to cheat on tests.”
“Standardized testing is a terrible metric for how well people have absorbed knowledge, and we’ve known that for a hundred years, but we keep doing it.
I guess it’s better than nothing, but I don’t really take it that seriously.
I mean, outside of the current situation, in which case your job is dependent on it. ” Stop talking, she told herself.
“That is not a system I’m prepared to overhaul quite yet,” Amelia said. “Not that I disagree.” She grimaced. “Do you think it’s worth us running more practice tests in every class to see where the students are? I’m afraid to find out, but also I feel like I need to know.”
“Maybe that’s where we start.” What if the students were bunk at all levels, in all subjects?
The MSEs were a little more than three months away.
Was that enough time to bring an entire class up to snuff?
“Do you want an excuse for it?” She stopped to think.
“We could say that you’re considering a new curriculum, and in order to best select one, you want to know the standing of all current students. ”
“The professors would love that,” Amelia mumbled.
“I don’t think we have to lie to the professors, do we?” Realizing she’d said we way too many times, she added, “I mean you, obviously, I’m not really involved, since I’m only here for a few months, but I wonder if you can tell the truth to the professors?”
Amelia nodded reluctantly. “I agree. Mr Wicks is gonna be so smug. Students are using their phones to cheat. Am I foolish for not having thought about that? It didn’t occur to me.”
“Well, you and I never really needed to cheat. At least, I didn’t really need to. School was something I was good at.”
“That’s true, yet I still feel dumb for not considering it.”
“Well, let me take care of some of that. I can at least handle the professors. I’ll just tell them I uncovered something and give them the spell for it, and only offer more information if people ask.
And then once we have the test results, that’s when we should strategize. ” That pesky we had crept in again.
“Yes, let’s not reason ahead of our data.” Amelia paused. “I can’t remember if that’s Sherlock Holmes or every prime-time crime show.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s Sherlock Holmes.” Honesty compelled Bryn to add, “I think it’s actually theorize, but same idea.”
Amelia blew out a long breath and met her eyes. “How bad were the results, really, in your pre-tests?”
Bryn momentarily pressed her lips together, as if trying to find a way not to answer. Then she said, “Not great. I mean, really not great. But I don’t think this can only have started this year, can it? You’re sure they didn’t have their phones before?”
“They weren’t allowed to have their phones before, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have them.
I guess that’s probably true in a lot of places.
I’ll look into it. I wish Professor Herringbone were here.
I just want to talk to her. Not only about this …
I want to know if I’m screwing everything up. ”
Struck by this, Bryn said, “So, basically, you need Professor Herringbone to be to you what you are to me?”
Amelia, looking shocked, blinked. “No! I mean, not exactly what I am to you, I hope. I mean …” She bit her lip. Then she unbit and said, “This is me trying not to dig the hole any deeper.” And she bit her lip again, looking repressed.
Did this mean …? What did this mean? It meant something, surely. “Ummm,” Bryn said. And then, “If it’s any consolation, I definitely don’t think of you the way I did the professor.”
Amelia’s lips slid up into a smile. “Oh good, that actually does help. I mean, not that I was really worried, but yeah. I don’t want to be your, um, professional mentor.”
Bryn fluttered her eyelashes. “What if I had a thing for mentors?”
Amelia laughed out loud. “Stop it. We’re strategizing, remember?”
“Right, strategy.” But Bryn didn’t feel at all like her tentative flirting had gone badly. “I’ll refine my spell tonight and give it to the other teachers tomorrow.”
“Good, thank you. And I will explain the situation, and make the testing announcement at lunch.”
Both of them nodded. Having a plan felt so much better than not having one. Bryn thought about it, then said, “Is there anything I can do to help? Aside from, you know, delivering bad news, freaking you out, and giving you a sleepless night?”
“Well, you’re saving me from the students all trying to cheat on their MSEs, and the humiliation of being the only school where that happens, so I think you’ve already done a lot.
” Amelia’s clear gaze locked on hers, eyes narrowing slightly in a way that made Bryn’s insides fizz like a predictable and controlled chemical reaction.
“But there is one thing you can do for me. If you’re offering. ”
Bryn had a moment to think I would low-key do anything, but preferably sexy things. In fact, there were contexts in which it would be very hot indeed to say the words: I’d do anything for you and then wait to see what Amelia did with that. Sexy mentor, indeed.
Obviously, that was not what Amelia was thinking in the moment. Still, in the spirit of discovery, Bryn said lightly, “I’ll do anything.”
Amelia’s smile widened.