2. Lend me your ears

The smell of fresh brewing coffee woke Michonne up as it always did in the morning. Her cat Allegory jumped on her bed and began rubbing her head under Michonne's chin.

"Hi there Alley." Michonne greeted scratching her cat on the head. Allegory purred loudly and then hopped off the bed meowing for her breakfast. She followed her cat into the kitchen and plopped a can of Fancy Feast in her bowl. Allegory wound herself around Michonne's ankles in thanks before devouring her food.

She poured herself a cup of coffee and dropped a bagel into her toaster. Already she was dreading today one of her students, Nick Hayden, had plagiarized his essay and the school policy for that was an immediate suspension. Michonne was more than sure that Nick's father was going to contest the suspension. . She had already had a run in with Nick's father for assigning her students to read Not Without Laughter.

"Ms. Mitchell and I heard all about you saving them kids, but I just don't see how reading a book written by a dead colored man is gonna help my son." He'd actually used the word colored. "Maybe you could give him a different book to read."

Michonne had smiled politely. "Your son can read the same book as everyone else or he can take a failing grade for not doing the work." She would not budge or change her coursework to placate a bigoted parent.

"Wish me luck Alley." Michonne said to her cat who was now licking herself clean. After showering she walked into her closet and decided on an outfit to wear. Her work clothes consisted mainly of designer dresses she brought on sell and stylish high heels. Some of the older teachers thought she dressed too flashy. This was expressed in looks rather than words, but as long as her clothes were within the dress code and as long as she was paying for her wardrobe she'd dress how she wanted to. She picked out a white silk-crepe V-neck dress with slit sleeves and a ruffled trim. She threw her hair into a bun. She never wore very much make up she liked a clean fresh natural look. After she checked that she looked OK she made her way to the work.

Michonne parked in her usual space and headed into school. Many of her students greeted her, and she smiled and greeted them back, as she made her way to the principal's office.

Nick was already in the office sitting behind the principal's desk chewing on his nails. He glared daggers at her as she came through the door. Michonne chose to ignore him and took a seat next to Mr. Waters the school principal.

"Nick do you know why you're here?" Mr. Waters questioned.

"No." He said.

"The paper you wrote for Ms. Mitchell's English class was plagiarized, Miss Mitchell printed this copy from the internet. Do you have anything to say in your defense."

"Is it really that big of a deal? I mean can't I write a make up paper?"

"I'm afraid not you know the rules I'm going to have to suspend you."

"You can't suspend me!" Nick yelled his face red as a beet and his eyes bulged in their sockets.

Michonne sighed.

"My dad's lawyer is gonna hear about this he's not going to let this happen."

"It's already happened." Mr. Waters explained calmly.

Nick jumped out of his chair and lunged forward and pounded his fist on the desk. "You'll pay for this you fucking bitch!"

"That's enough!" Mr. Waters shouted he too stood up. "You're looking at an expulsion now. You can't threaten teachers!"

"I don't care! If you expel me I swear I'll fuck her up!"

"Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine." Michonne said. Mr. Waters had called the police after Nick had threatened her, and Michonne was not surprised Sheriff Grimes was the one to respond to the call. She knew better than anyone else how importantly schools took verbal threats.

"We've taken the young Mr. Hayden down to the station and we'll put a patrol car outside of your house for tonight just to be safe." Rick assured her.

Michonne couldn't help but notice how different the Sheriff looked now that he was alert and in his full sheriff's uniform. He looked capable and authoritative not words she would have used to describe him when she had first met him.

"Thank you."

"It's the least we could do." He said. "We're very thankful to have a teacher like you here at Possum Holler and I'm sorry this had to happen to you."

"Are you sure you'll be OK?" Mr. Waters asked. "If you need to take the rest of the day off I'll understand."

"No if you don't mind I'd just like to get back to class."

"I'll walk you there." Rick offered.

Michonne was going to say that wasn't necessary but she got the feeling that Rick wanted to talk to her.

"I just want to thank you. I didn't get to tell you this before, but at the risk of embarrassing my son, you're Carl's favorite teacher. He talks about you all the time."

"I'm glad, Carl has a very active imagination and a lot of potential as a writer."

"Really and here I was worried he was rotting his brain with all those video games and comics."

"Well had you come to the conference I set up I could have told you what a wonderful student Carl is."

"Touché."

"I'm sorry I shouldn't be trying to make you feel bad, you've enough your dealing with. I just want you to nurture the potential in your son." Michonne stopped outside of her classroom.

"No I deserve it."

"Have you found someone for the two of you to talk to yet?."

"No, I'm still thinking about it."

"Don't think too hard." Michonne said and walked into her class room. "I'll see you later Mr. Grimes I'm sure.

"You'll see me tonight." Rick called.

Michonne spun around and stuck her head out of the door. "Excuse me?"

"I told you I was going to put a patrol car outside of your house, well whose patrol car do you think it's going to be?" Rick flashed her a boyish smile.

Michonne smiled back. "I'll see you tonight."

2

"Hey did you hear?" Carl's best friend Roy Wayne Paul asked.

"Hear what?" He plunked a carton of milk on his lunch tray and moved down the line.

"About your dad?"

"What happened!" Carl felt his stomach drop to his feet had his dad been shot? That was one of his biggest fears, his father dying and making him and Judith orphans.

"Your dad escorted Nick Hayden out of school in cuffs dude! He got expelled for pulling a knife on Ms. Mitchell dude!"

"No he didn't snapped Jessica Styles. Jessica was head cheerleader and the most popular girl in the ninth grade, and normally wouldn't be caught dead talking to Carl, but he guessed rumor spreading allowed for a little wiggle room. "He put out a mob hit on her."

"Wrong! Nick pushed Ms. Mitchell down a flight of stairs." Carl's other friend Kevin Sternberg informed Jessica. Kevin always tried to flirt with Jessica and always made a fool of himself.

"Really?" Jessica said with a roll of her eyes and a flick of her hair. "Then why is there no ambulance? I swear you guys will believe anything."

"Doesn't matter Carl will tell me what really happened when he finds out." Roy Wayne Paul said reaching for a slice of pizza. "Won't you."

Carl shrugged indifferently. He wasn't surprised that Nick had been expelled, in fact he was glad, the kid was a psycho. Nick was the ring leader of the kids who picked on him. Nick had shoved Carl into lockers, shoved his head into toilets. Nick told everyone Carl's mom had killed herself because her son was such a disappointment.

"This probably won't be Nick's first time in jail he's got all the makings of a future serial killer." Kevin said.

"Future? Dude he's probably already killed and we just don't know it. Remember the time he broke my nose in dodge ball?" Roy Wayne Paul added. "I hope your dad puts him in the cell with the really violent offenders dude."

Carl snorted. "What violent offenders? The worst crime that ever happened here was with Mr. Casper and his pig and that wasn't violent just disturbing."

"I'm eating." Roy Wayne Paul moaned and Carl and Kevin dissolved into laughter.

Kevin stopped laughing and looked serious for a moment. "You don't really think Nick hurt Ms. Mitchell do you?"

"We've got English next period so I guess we'll find out." Roy Wayne Paul replied.

English was one of the few classes Carl looked forward to. Ms. Mitchell never gave out too much homework or called on students when she knew they didn't know the answer.

"I'm sure nothing bad happened to her my dad would have told me if there was, plus there would have been some kind of announcement." Carl opened his milk drained the carton and then crushed it flat. Carl made up his mind that he would talk to his dad when he got home from school to warn him what a psycho Nick was. He couldn't tell his father about being bullied by Nick it was just too embarrassing but he'd get his point across. If something happened to Ms. Mitchell it would be as almost as bad as something happening to his dad. She was the only other adult right now in his life that he could trust.

Carl could still clearly remember at the beginning of the semester when his class had done biographies on famous authors. One girl in his class had done a biography on Sylvia Plath and once she'd been called up in front of the class to do her oral presentation Carl had known it was coming.

"Hey Carl wasn't that your mom's favorite author?" Nick had said loudly. "I'll bet Sylvia's poems really took her breath away hun Carl?"

Carl had felt his cheeks flame as everyone in class had looked at him and a few students even snickered. He wanted to get up and punch Nick in his stupid face, but Nick was both taller and bigger than Carl, so he'd just sat there knowing that Nick was only getting warmed up. He bit at the inside of his lip so that the tears that were welling up in his eyes wouldn't fall. If he cried in front of Nick he might as well change schools because Nick would never let him live it down. Teachers never stopped Nick from picking on people they usually just found a way to put the blame on the student who was on the receiving end of the torment for not being able to take it. Not Ms. Mitchell though.

"Is there a reason why you're talking while another student is trying to give a report Nick?"

Nick had looked nonplussed that a teacher would have the temerity to reprimand him in front of the class. "Please come to the front of the class and tell us all what you find so funny about suicide."

Nick, who had remained in his seat, slumped down. "I don't think it's funny I just think that people who commit suicide are selfish and going to hell."

"Well Nick unless you're a professional who's been trained to know why people do commit suicide then I don't think your opinion is very valid or wanted, and unless I ask you for it I'd very much like you to keep it to yourself. Now the next time you interrupt my class to make a blanket statement about things you know nothing about you'll be serving a weeks worth of detentions."

Up until that point no one in class had ever head Ms. Mitchell's angry voice. She didn't yell her voice came out low, calm and collected and that some how made it all the more intimidating. From that moment Carl knew that he was going to like Ms. Mitchell. He was going to like her a lot.

3

"Dad can I talk to you?"

Rick opened his eyes and sat up on his bed, he was trying to get some much needed rest, but talking to his son who'd been so distance towards him since Lori's death was better more important than rest.

"Yeah?" He tried not to show his surprise, but it had been so long since Carl had come to talk to him voluntarily that he couldn't keep his face blank.

"Is Nick going to jail?"

"What he did was just a misdemeanor since he didn't have a weapon on him, so I'm afraid not."

"Is he gong to be in trouble at all? He's not exactly harmless just ask the kids at school."

"He'll get probation", but I'm not going to let anything happen to Ms. Mitchell I promise. I'm going to make a welfare check on her and watch her house for awhile. Trust me no one is going to try anything stupid with a cop car sitting outside of her house."

"Good."

"Ms. Mitchell told me you're one of her better students said you have a real talent for writing."

"Ms. Mitchell said that?"

"She did. So what kind of stuff to you write about? All kinds of things I'll bet."

"It's kind of private dad."

"Oh right." Every time he made two steps forward with his son it was to only take two steps back. He could still remember when Carl had wanted to be just like him. He had loved going to the police department so he could sit behind his desk and wear his hat and now Carl couldn't even stand to be in the same room with him. 'You hungry I made sloppy Joes."

"No, I already ate"

Since Lori died they didn't even eat dinner together anymore. Lori had been fanatic about them eating dinner together every night and that was something that he missed. The bridge between the two of them seem to be growing wider everyday and soon Carl would be in college and Judith would be dating and neither of them would need him and all he would have is his Harry Chapin cd's and his pension. He wonder what it was about Michonne that made his son want to open up to her? What skill did she have with Carl that he was lacking or was it simply because she wasn't his parent? He could ask her what Carl wrote about though she probably would not tell him, and he did not like feeling like he had to spy on his child to find out about him. He sighed. If only he wasn't such a lousy father. If only he'd taken Lori's depression more seriously. If only he'd been there that day or if the Fed Ex delivery arrived a little sooner. If. If. If. That one word had taken over his whole life. He couldn't go back and change things but he could not accept things as they were.

He looked at his son. Sometimes Carl looked so much like Lori it made him want to weep. What if Carl was depressed would he know, and even if he did know would he know what to do about it? If. If. If. There was that word again. Ms. Mitchell had told him he needed to talk to someone, well she was someone and she knew both him and Carl, and he was going to be on patrol at her place tonight. It made perfectly logical sense to Rick that he should talk to her he hoped she wouldn't mind.