Mother's Insight, a Building Faith Side Job
By Ellf
Chapter Three

Disclaimer: Dresden Files is a series by Jim Butcher. I own neither it nor any of the other series mentioned in this fanfiction.

Public school had not been Michael's or my first choice to send our children to, but Faith and Molly were on the waiting list to get into St. Mary's Catholic School. As such, we had to go through the little hoops that the Chicago Public School system had laid out for my daughters. Today was no exception. Faith's First Grade teacher had called a parent-teacher conference to discuss Faith's performance in the classroom. Michael had volunteered to watch Daniel and Matthew, and the twins were talking animatedly with their friends outside, still within view of the classroom entrance. My daughters were put into separate classes for reasons that I still didn't fully understand, but I assumed had something to do with teachers being unable to tell them apart, even with the clothing differential.

Faith's teacher, Ms. Annalise Conway, was a middle-aged brunette whose face seemed permanently set with her lips puckered like she'd sucked on a lemon. Her beady brown eyes were tucked behind thick coke-bottle glasses that perched on her hooked nose. Today she wore a floral-print dress with long sleeves overtop of some sort of stockings for the weather. When I entered the classroom, she gestured for me to take the seat opposite her desk, and I did so without comment.

I gave a quick look back to verify my daughters were still visible outside the classroom, and they were, still talking to one of their classmates. Faith held a small novel in her right hand, but I couldn't see what it was from this angle. Judging from the color of the cover, it might have been one of five that she checked out from the library earlier this week. Molly's books were a little thinner, but both were reading at far above their level which made me very proud of them.

"Thank you for coming, Mrs. Carpenter." Ms. Conway's voice was almost sickeningly sweet. She had one of those high, breathy voices that you always hear coming from models on catwalks and that sort of thing, and it was a little disconcerting hearing it come out of her mouth. Her voice just didn't belong with her body type. The mismatch almost floored me.

"You asked to meet with me, Ms. Conway," I said, glancing back toward the woman, away from my daughters. They'd be fine out there. I just needed to keep an eye and ear out, just in case. "What did you need?"

"Your daughter, Faith," Ms. Conway said, looking into my eyes. "She's a troublemaker."

That… couldn't be right. I taught my daughter to be respectful of her elders. Just because the teacher seemed a little off was no reason for her to be a troublemaker. I glanced over to my daughters. I had no clue what they were giggling about, but they clearly found something funny enough there.

"A troublemaker," I said, turning my head back toward the teacher and trying to keep the disbelief from entering my voice too much. "How so?"

"Your daughter is pretending to read during my teaching time." Ms. Conway tapped the desk, and if I could raise a single eyebrow, I would. That didn't sound like Faith. She never pretended to read anything. Molly might have once in a while, but her reading skills were quickly catching up to her twin's, even if she didn't have the same speed.

"Pretending. Why do you say she's pretending to read?" I asked. Sure, Faith shouldn't have been reading when Ms. Conway was actually teaching, but pretending? My daughter was better than that.

"The books she brings out, they're far too advanced for someone of her age. She's making trouble by pretending to read them. Being disruptive." Faith's teacher crossed her arms, and the scowl on her face grew.

"Too advanced, you say?" I crossed my own arms. "Just what sorts of books are too advanced for my daughter?"

"Today I saw her pretend-reading The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien. During the math practice that we had going on. And then there's this..." Ms. Conway pulled out a drawer and then retrieved another book from it. The book was a hardcover fantasy novel nearly the size of the Bible itself. On the cover clearly was a Chicago Library identifying sticker, and the cover depicted a man in armor on a horse with a full moon in the background. Despite myself, I felt a small prideful smile come to my face. While I didn't exactly approve of my daughters being into fantasy, there was something special about the way each of them handled the Good versus Evil battle that goes on every day. Plus, seeing Faith hold a book that size in her hands always made me smile in general. "She was reading this during Reading practice yesterday rather than doing the actual practice itself. When I confiscated this clearly advanced book, she sat at the desk not doing anything at all."

"Was her work complete in both instances?" I asked, suspecting I already knew the answer. Faith wouldn't have broken out the books if she wasn't already done and bored. My daughter had better sense than that.

"That's not the point," Ms. Conway said. "The point is she's disrupting class by pretending to read things that are far beyond her level. She's only six, for God's sake."

"I'll thank you not to take the Lord's name in vain around me," I said, keeping my voice calm and low. "I know what my daughter reads, Ms. Conway, and I know how fast she does. Was her work done when you confiscated her book? Yes, or no?"

"Yes, but—"

"And was it correct? Did she make mistakes that someone rushing through the work would make? Did she leave anything blank?" I asked. I hadn't tested Faith's reading speed yet, but Michael and I had to be careful when we took the girls to a book store. Quite often, Faith would end up reading through more than half the book, and if we bought the book, she'd end up finishing the book before we got home. It had happened a few times before, and each time, she and Molly cracked up about it.

"Yes, but that's not the point…"

"How is reading when you've finished your work disruptive, Ms. Conway?" I was not going to yell at the woman. She wasn't worth it. Even if she was maligning Faith, it wasn't exactly something I could do a lot about at this point.

"Because she wasn't reading! She was pretending to read and it was disruptive. Seeing her pull out the large books and pretend to read. She wasn't even moving her lips to try and sound out the words. She was just looking at the pages and then flipping them."

I grit my teeth. The woman was infuriating in her assumptions, and I needed to stay calm so that I wouldn't just yell at her. "She wasn't talking to any other students, was she? Or perhaps she was making some sort of noise to attract attention to herself?"

"She was pretending to read something that is clearly way too advanced for her," Ms. Conway said, and I suppressed the urge to visit violence upon her clearly deranged self. "It is my goal to make sure that the students are reading what they should be able to handle and not something far beyond their level. It's distracting to others and demeaning to the other students to see her pretend to read that."

"So, my daughter, who had completed her work, pulls out a book and reads," I said holding up my hand to cut off Ms. Conway's impending interruption. "She reads, not talking to anyone, not making any noises to draw attention to herself. She just sits there reading with her book, and then, what? You come over and make a big deal about her reading?"

"She is obviously faking when she does it." Was this teacher a broken record? Was she so inept that she wasn't even able to fathom a child being able to read above her grade level?

"And you confirmed this, how?" I asked, raising my eyebrow. "By taking the book away? Did you ask her about the book she's reading? Quiz her on it?"

"No, but she's faking. She would fail anyway, and it would be disruptive."

"More disruptive than calling her out for 'faking' reading a book in class?" I asked. "Oh wait, that's what you'd be doing anyway. Because you don't believe she can. Oh, I know."

I turned my head toward the entrance. "Faith, Molly, could the two of you please come inside?"

"Coming, Mama," my twins said in unison. While I'd sent the two of them to school with different hairstyles, they'd both let their hair down, and it was really obvious that they were identical when they entered. However, Faith and Molly were still wearing different colored outfits, and even without that, I could tell who they were. I wasn't sure that Ms. Conway was that observant. When the two made it into the classroom, Faith's eyes went to the book on her teacher's desk, and she frowned. Molly placed a hand in her sister's and gave a squeeze, causing her frown to quirk upward a little. I wished I had a camera for that moment.

"What's going on, Mama?" Faith asked, looking at the book again and then to her teacher. The teacher was looking at the book in Faith's hands, and her face seemed to get a little more strained and taut. "I was just reading in class, Mama."

"You were faking your reading, Faith," Ms. Conway said. "The books were too advanced for you. That book is too advanced for you."

Faith looked to the book in her hands, and I clearly saw the title: The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett. "This is too advanced? I mean, octarine's not a real color or anything, and the luggage eats everything, but it's funny."

"That's not the—Quit making things up. You're not really reading that." Ms. Conway sounded peeved.

"And Rincewind is always getting in trouble and—" Faith stopped talking when I placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly.

"Have you read The Light Fantastic, Ms. Conway?" I asked, looking at the book my daughter held. "Or The Two Towers, or Eye of the World?"

"No, but she's obviously faking. Lying to—"

"Faith. Open your book. Read a few paragraphs, and then explain in your own words what's happening," I said, cutting off the teacher in front of me. Whether she believed or not didn't matter, but I was tired of her accusing my daughter of lying and faking.

Faith nodded and opened her book. I noted that she seemed to open to the first page. She read through the opening, speaking about the rising of the sun, and when she got to the point about four giant elephants and a giant turtle, I couldn't help but picture the mental image. I hadn't really read the books myself, but I'd heard good things about Pratchett. It seemed they were appropriate, after all, even if he did talk about magic. Honestly, the contents of what she read didn't matter so much as the fact that she was reading it out loud in front of her teacher, and Ms. Conway's face seemed to get more and more pulled in on itself as Faith read.

"Okay, that's enough reading. So, what's going on there, Faith?" I asked.

"Well, it goes into a lot about the giant turtle and where he's going, but he knows where he's going. You don't find out where he's going until later in the book, but it's still a fun thing to read. From there, the story follows Rincewind and Twoflower, a one spell wizard and the Disc's only tourist. And it's really funny and they do a lot of silly things. I want to read the next one in the series. I finished this one today." Faith closed her book, and then she looked to the desk. "We need to return that book to the library too. Ms. Conway, can we please have it back?"

"Yes, I suppose…" Ms. Conway didn't look all too shaken, just annoyed. Maybe she was annoyed that I caught her in a lie to try and make my child look bad.

I took the book off her desk and stood up. "Ms. Conway, I will be speaking with the Principal about this meeting. I think we're done here. Come on, girls."

The three of us turned and walked out of the classroom, ignoring anything more from the teacher in question. I mentioned to my daughters that we were going shopping before we went home, and they cheered.

I was going to take my daughters out of this school as soon as I could. They needed teachers that actually cared about their needs as students. I didn't think that they'd get that here, not anymore anyway.

"Oh, Mama, Teddy told me today about a new game that his older brother was trying that sounded really fun. It's a card game that's all about good fighting evil and maybe winning." Faith swung her hand around, dragging my own hand with her. "We want to get it and play with each other."

"Uh huh," Molly said. "It sounds really fun! And it has a lot of strategy to it. It could be very fun."

"Oh? What's this game's name?" I asked.

"Magic: The Gathering," my daughters said. Oh, well, that was a thing. While I doubted that it had anything to do with real magic, it was still an unfortunate name. Still, after deciding on the upcoming upheaval, I couldn't just tell them no to the game without looking into it first.

"We'll see, girls. I'm not going to promise anything yet." I smiled at my twins. Honestly, I couldn't really see the harm in them playing a card game. Maybe I'd get it for them as a gift for when they got to their new school. It couldn't really be all that bad. They'd be fine playing it in their new school, assuming that they got in soon.

After all, the card game was just a fad that they'd eventually get over, right?