You serious?”
“Yes. If you don’t write it down, you won’t remember it.”
Danny pulled out a pack of Marlboros and tapped it on the desk. “Mind if I smoke?”
“No,” Eleanor said flatly. “No smoking in school.”
Victor raised his hand like he was in class. “What if we ask real nice?”
She looked him straight in the eye. It wasn’t a request. It was a test.
“No,” she said again.
He shrugged. “All right then. Tell us about chlorophyll.”
She started teaching. Calm, clear, the way she always did. They listened, but wrote nothing down.
Mostly they just watched her. Every so often they traded glances and smirked. After forty minutes she closed the grade book.
“That’s enough for today. We’ll continue tomorrow.”
Victor stood last, walked up to her desk, and leaned in a little too close.
“Ms. Smith, you’re really something. We got lucky.”
She gave him a polite smile. “Head on home, boys. It’s getting late.”
They left, and the door slammed behind them. Eleanor sat there a moment, looking at the empty desks. Then she packed up the charts, locked the room, and headed out.
On the front steps her mother stood holding Maggie.
“How’d the first day with the new boys go?”
Eleanor took her daughter in her arms. “Fine. They’re just boys.”
Her mother looked at her carefully. “You sure about that?”
Eleanor didn’t answer. She just walked home, holding Maggie a little tighter.
At that same moment, the three boys sat on their motorcycles outside the town rec hall. Victor lit a cigarette and let the smoke drift out slow.
“So,” he said, “we doing this?”
Sean nodded. “Yeah. Just smart. Quiet.”
Danny spit into the dirt. “When?”
“Fourth session,” Victor said with a grin. “By then she’ll be used to us.
“We signed up. Now we wait.”
They kicked their bikes to life and rode off toward the highway, leaving dust and gasoline behind.
The second tutoring session went much like the first. Eleanor explained cell structure and showed them an onion slide under the microscope. The boys sat quietly, only glancing at one another now and then.
Victor even asked a question. “If a cell gets damaged, can it heal?”
“If the damage is minor, yes,” she said.
“What if the nucleus gets hit?”
“Then that’s the end of it.”
Sean smirked. “So without the nucleus, it’s not really what it was anymore?”
Eleanor looked at him carefully. “In a sense, no.”
They left without incident. Danny even said, “Thanks,” at the door.
The third session was on Friday. The lesson was plant reproduction. Eleanor brought in dried sunflower seeds and spread them across the desks.
“Take three each,” she said. “Look closely. They’re all a little different in size.”
Victor picked one up and rolled it between his fingers. “What if I eat it right now?”
“Wouldn’t recommend it. It still won’t sprout inside you.”
The boys laughed louder than usual.
Eleanor felt her shoulders tighten, but she kept teaching. When the bell rang, they didn’t stand right away. Victor walked to the board and erased the flower diagram she had drawn in chalk.
“Tomorrow’s the fourth session, right?”
“Yes. 4:05, same as always.”
“Good,” he said. “We’ll be there.”
That evening Eleanor sat at the table with Maggie. The little girl was carefully drawing a flower in pencil.
“Mom, why do your eyes look sad?”
“Just tired, sweetheart.”
Maggie laid her small hand over Eleanor’s. “Then go to bed early.”
Eleanor kissed the top of her head. Inside, something was tightening hard with a feeling she couldn’t explain.
The fourth session started like any other. Eleanor opened the classroom, switched on the lights, and laid out the charts. At exactly 4:05, they walked in. The door shut behind them, and the lock clicked.
Eleanor turned quickly. “Please don’t lock the door. Someone may need to come in.”
Victor gave her a crooked smile. “No one’s coming in. The custodian already left.”
“The principal’s at a meeting in town,” Sean added.
He walked to the window and pulled the blinds. “Cuts the glare,” he said evenly.
Eleanor stepped back toward her desk. “What are you doing?”
Danny pulled a folding knife from his pocket and flipped it open, not exactly threatening her with it, just toying with it.
“We want you to understand us a little better, Ms. Smith.”
She tried to move toward the door. Victor blocked her.
“Sit down. We’re going to talk.”
“I’m not sitting down. Open the door. Now.”
Sean stepped closer. “And if we don’t?”
Eleanor felt her knees start to shake. She forced her voice to stay level.
“You understand this is a felony. You’re sixteen. You can still be charged.”
Victor laughed softly. “Charged? Really? My father works at the state level.
“Sean’s father runs the sheriff’s office. Danny’s father runs the ag college. Who exactly is going to charge us? You?”
She looked at the door. The key was turned from the outside. “I’ll scream.”
Danny came up behind her and grabbed her shoulders hard. “Go ahead.”
Eleanor jerked away. Sean slapped her across the face. It wasn’t the force of it so much as the shock.
“Quiet,” he said. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
They shoved her toward the teacher’s desk. Victor swept the microscope off with one arm. It hit the floor with a dull crack, glass breaking.
“On your knees,” he said.
“No.”
Sean grabbed her by the hair and dragged her down.
Eleanor fell, crying now. Danny was already unbuckling his belt.
“Please,” she said. “I have a little girl.”
Victor bent close to her face. “We know. Maggie’s four. Cute kid.”
“Would be a shame if something happened to her on the way to preschool.”
Eleanor froze. “You wouldn’t.”
“Yes, we would,” Sean said coldly. “And we’ll send your husband a nice letter overseas. Maybe with pictures.”
“We’ve got a camera,” Danny said with a grin. “We’ll make you look real good.”
“By the time he gets home, this whole town will know what kind of woman his wife is. The teacher who came on to her students.”
Eleanor tried to get up. Victor punched her hard in the stomach.
The air left her lungs. She folded over in pain.
“Enough talking,” he said.
“Put her on the desk.”
They lifted her by the arms and threw her onto the hard desktop. They tore her dress open at the chest. Eleanor fought, scratched, twisted. Sean clamped a hand over her mouth.
His palm smelled like tobacco and sweat. Victor went first. Fast. Silent.
Then Sean. Danny took pictures, the camera clicking again and again.
“Smile, Ms. Smith,” he said. “Family album.”
She stopped screaming because she couldn’t anymore. She could only make small sounds into someone else’s hand. Tears ran into her hair and mixed with chalk dust on the desk.
When it was over, they let her drop.
Eleanor slid to the floor. Her dress hung in torn strips. Blood ran down her legs.
Victor crouched beside her, zipping his pants. “Listen carefully. You keep your mouth shut.
“Not to your husband, not to your mother, not to the police. If you say one word, the letter goes out in three days, the photos go around town in a week.”
“And Maggie?”
“You already understand that part.”
Sean added, “And don’t quit your job.
“You keep teaching like nothing happened.”
Danny picked up a broken test tube and turned it in his fingers. “Too bad about the microscope.”
They walked out, shut the door, and turned the key from the outside. They left her locked in.
Eleanor lay on the cold floor…
