Daria Gender Flip From Not So Different JTL Version
59. Stretching Limits
Sonny and Jane turned the corner of a school hallway to find Charles 'Upchuck' Ruttheimer bent over at the waist so that he could peer through the keyhole of the principal's office. Just at that moment he straightened up and turned round to face them.
'That's a provocative pose you were adopting there, Upchuck. Almost as if you were proffering yourself.' Sonny widened his eyes for an instant. 'I notice you changed direction and sprang stiffly to attention when you realized I was here. There's a classic pattern of mixed signals, don't you think, Jane?'
'It's funny I never thought of it before, but you're right. We could be looking at somebody in deep denial of his true self. Somebody who's so confused that even the idea of watching Ms Li change her support hose seems somehow to offer hope of resolving his inner conflict.'
To do him justice, Upchuck smoothly changed the subject without attempting to respond in any way to Sonny and Jane's remarks. 'What I was seeing through that keyhole was a cat-and-dogfight that's about to get strike-o-licious.'
Upchuck's prognostications rapidly attracted a small crowd of excited students, and then the teachers emerged led by their union leader, Mr DeMartino, with his bad eye bulging furiously from its socket. Of course it did that all the time, but his general demeanor was not that of somebody at the successful conclusion of negotiations, and the looks and the postures of the teachers who followed him was clearly that of strikers walking off the job, at which the gathered students cheered. The only teacher who could not be read so easily was Mr Taylor, bringing up the rear of the delegation, the unchanged baleful presence of somebody who had gone into a teaching career not despite a contempt for young people but because of it. He gave Sonny a prison-yard stare for a moment as he walked past.
It was a little odd, now that Sonny thought about it, that a recent arrival at the school like Taylor should already have risen in the ranks of the union. Sonny had heard that he had experience as an assistant principal at another school, which he'd had to leave because it closed down as a result of falling student numbers following demographic change. Li had been thrilled to get hold of him to replace O'Neill, but he was still going out on strike against her with the rest.
Meanwhile, Li's voice was coming over the public address system, deflating the celebrating students with the news that school would continue despite the strike. As she spoke, Jane asked Sonny, 'Is that the voice in my head that tells me to kill and kill again?'
'No', Sonny answered mechanically, 'Satan's voice is lower and he has an English accent.' But he was thinking. What kind of substitutes would Li be able to find to cover for the whole faculty?
The recollection of Mrs Stoller, engaged by Li as a substitute to fill in for Barch after her removal, did not inspire confidence.
The appearance of Stoller in front of one of Sonny's classes, substituting for DeMartino, did not inspire confidence.
The passage of the years had made it impossible for even Stoller still to mistake Sonny for a girl, but he still triggered something in whatever it was she used instead of a functioning memory.
'You're not Sally', she said, peering at Sonny like a bipedal surface-dwelling muzzle-less mole.
Sonny kept his mouth firmly shut.
Kevin Thompson had never had that much sense.
'Hey, Sally's a girl's name! She's mixing you up with a girl!' He turned his goofy grin from Sonny to Stoller. 'He's not a girl, even if he is …'
Stoller cut him off. 'Cubie, you hush! And posture, Cubie, posture!' (She had remembered Kevin and what she called him.) She turned back to Sonny. 'You do look like Sally. Is she your sister?'
'My sister's name is Quinn, and she looks nothing like me', Sonny responded truthfully. 'She has long red hair. And lip gloss. Also some sort of disturbingly bright and cheerful design on her clothes.'
'Oh, she sounds so sweet', said Stoller inaccurately. Sonny flicked his gaze sideways to Jane for a moment. With Stoller's scrutiny fixed on Sonny, she was taking the opportunity to roll her eyes and pretend to gag. 'What's your name, then, dear?' Stoller continued.
Although she gave no sign of conscious recognition, Stoller had the same reaction to 'Sunny' as on the previous occasion: she thought it sounded like a hippie name. This time her chosen 'nicer sounding' substitute designation for Sonny was 'Simon'.
When Quinn started ranting to their mother about the substitute who was taking her Language Arts class, Sonny did not tune out to quite the extent he normally would have. Sonny wasn't sure whether each substitute would take over the existing class schedule of one regular member of the faculty. He figured he might learn something about a teacher he might end up with himself (one who was writing a 'stupid novel', Sonny noted). Their mother, just as used to Quinn's frothy outpourings as Sonny, was listening even less, giving only the occasional grunted 'Mm-hmm' of simulated attention which was more than enough to keep Quinn going. It didn't seem to register with her when Quinn cited the substitute's use of the phrase 'budding child-woman', but Sonny's half-tuned ear picked it out of the torrent. His mind ticked over faster. It wasn't a challenge to the intellect to guess what sort of person might use an expression like that. (Where was Li finding these substitutes?) He lowered his book and focussed more on Quinn's words.
'… started acting out his stupid book for us, stroking Tiffany's hair and telling her about his anguished soul …'
Sonny got up, walked to the cordless phone, and lifted the receiver from its cradle to take it back towards the table.
'Mm-hmm …', his mother said again, and then, with a start, '… what? He was stroking Tiffany's hair?'
Sonny took up position behind her shoulder.
'I know!' Quinn said. 'Like Tiffany would ever date somebody who wore a tweed jacket.'
'Sonny!' their mother exclaimed, and then as she turned her head towards him, 'Get me the …', before she realized he was already proffering the phone receiver.
Mrs Stoller roused from sleep when the principal's voice came over the public address system peremptorily summoning 'Mr Jacob Morgendorffer, Junior' to her office, 'Now!'
When Sonny stood up, Stoller asked, 'Simon? Where are you going?'
'To get Jacob', Sonny said as he left the room.
When he reached the principal's office, he found that his mother's promptitude in ringing a loud alarm in Li's ear had been matched by Li's promptitude in getting rid of Mr 'call-me-Ken' Edwards, Quinn's substitute Language Arts teacher. More to the depressing point, Li had continued with equal promptitude to find another way of filling the resulting vacancy …
'If somebody asked me to teach a class, I'd be honored', she said to Sonny implausibly (wasn't getting promoted to principal a way to avoid having to teach classes?). 'Besides, we wouldn't be in this fix if it weren't for your mother.'
'You mean, because she took swift action to remove the threat of a damaging lawsuit? You … I mean, the school … wouldn't want to run that risk, surely?'
Ms Li muttered something that sounded like 'cost me my very pants'.
'Other people would have noticed the same liabilities eventually. Really you're lucky that my mother is a top-notch lawyer and spotted the problem first and responded at once. She knows a lot about the danger of lawsuits. For example, she knows a lot about civil rights lawsuits for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation', Sonny exaggerated. 'But you wouldn't have to worry about something like that, would you? The fact that you're offering me this chance to replace Mr Edwards confirms the school's policies combine rigorous avoidance of inappropriate touching with guarantees against any sort of discrimination. I mean, that's what it would signify if I accepted your offer. There might be different consequences if you withdrew it, of course, but why would you do that?'
'Why indeed, Mr Morgendorffer?' Li gritted her teeth. 'How few schools would have available a student of your … qualities.'
'I notice that this official school policy has not been set out in writing and promulgated. No doubt you've been too busy because of all the negotiations with the teachers' union. Luckily I'll be able to take over the responsibility of preparing the written version as a voluntary addition to my teaching workload. I'll have it on your desk tomorrow ready for the official announcement. And now I suppose you'll want to take me to be introduced to my class?'
Enjoyable though it was seeing Li squirm, Sonny did feel slight misgivings of his own at becoming a strikebreaker. He quelled them with the reflection that it wouldn't take much experience of his presence in the faculty lounge to make the principal desperate to settle with the union on any terms.
Besides, he had to think about the effect on Quinn.
The next morning, as Sonny came downstairs for breakfast, he could hear from the kitchen the dulcet tones of Quinn's plaint to their mother. He walked into the room, where their father was spouting some random irrelevance, and said, 'Morning, Mom; Dad …', and then, turning to Quinn, '… class.'
Quinn addressed another cry of protest to their mother and then in desperation left the room.
'What's wrong with her?' Helen said.
'Nothing …', Sonny said lingeringly, '… yet.' He thought about this. 'Well', he amended, 'nothing new yet.' Life was too short for a full answer to his mother's question. Besides, she should know what was wrong with Quinn already, and if she didn't, it was far too late to explain.
She tried to take a warning tone with him, but Sonny had no difficulty maintaining a demeanor that gave her no purchase while he asked her in a reasonable manner whether she wanted him to discharge his new 'responsibilities' as anything less than a conscientious educator. The sporadic interruptions of his father's babblings, whatever they were about, prevented her from taking Sonny further to task.
Trent greeted Jane and Sonny and they returned the greetings. Then Jane asked him what he was doing there.
'Wasn't I supposed to pick you up or something?'
'Well, that's why I set your clock ahead four hours … but maybe I overdid it? We've just arrived for the start of the school day.' Jane shrugged. 'Why don't you go back to your car to catch up on your nap deficit, and you'll be nicely refreshed when it's time to take us home?'
'Sure, whatever.'
Sonny and Jane had paused when they saw Trent approaching, but now they started walking towards the school again, although with no great eagerness, until Ms Defoe broke from the picket line to come towards them.
'Jane, thank God. We need your taste and talent.'
Before they could find out what she was talking about, Ms Onepu joined the group.
'Oh! Jane! Sonny! I do hope you understand what we're doing! Of course it's terribly difficult for us to strike, and deprive you and your fellow-students of potential educational opportunities. But we do have to consider the long-term interests not just of yourselves but of the generations of children who will follow you through this school. Without adequate pay and conditions, the school can't hope to attract the best teachers or to encourage them to give to their utmost, so in the end the children suffer more. And Sonny! I hear that you're actually taking over some teaching duties. Well, I say duties, but that's not exactly right, is it? But I know you'll devote yourself to the welfare of whichever class you're assigned to, so really it's a beneficial opportunity that's opened up for them and for you. Still, I do hope that Principal Li will see reason and allow more normal arrangements to be restored as soon as possible. A just settlement of the strike is so important, I'm sure everybody can agree on that much …'
Defoe interposed to hint that it was with precisely that in mind that she had hoped to speak with Jane, and Onepu, slightly chastened, returned to her fellow-picketers. Defoe explained that she thought it might help the strikers if they had more graphically effective picket signs to get their message across, and she hoped Jane might be able to help with that. 'I'll write a note to get you out of class', she said, then gave an uncharacteristic frown. 'Oh, wait, I guess I can't.'
'No', said Jane, 'but the scab can.' She jerked a thumb at Sonny.
'Gee, thanks, Mr Hoffa', Sonny said, rummaging through his backpack. 'This is for Stoller, right?' he continued as he pulled out pen and paper.
Jane confirmed that it was.
Please excuse Jane from class, Sonny wrote. Signed, Mr Simon. Jane would get more education out here working with the strikers than she'd get from Stoller, that was for sure.
'Morgendorffer', Mr Taylor said, taking them all unawares. 'Already abusing your temporary position of influence, I see.' He moved off again before any of them could respond.
Sonny gave the note to Jane and they went into the school building together and then separated. Jane went to hand Sonny's note to Stoller before returning to help Defoe. Sonny headed to his class (and this time it really was his class) to take up his teaching duties, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
The first problem there was establishing what text Mr Taylor had assigned. Sonny's flesh crawled at the idea of actually asking Taylor, but the students had only hazy recollections. Thankfully Stacy raised her hand and told them they had been going over Romeo and Juliet. The bell rang and Sonny had to go to his locker, where he encountered Jane and told her about his experience so far.
'A classroom full of blank faces is a little spooky, until you plant your feet and stare them down.'
'You know, apes interpret that as a gesture of dominance.'
'That's what I just said.'
At that point they were approached by some of the apes from their own grade. They'd seen Jane use the note from Sonny to get out of class, and were hoping he might do the same sort of favor for them. This business of abusing a position of influence wasn't going to be a bowl of cherries unalloyed.
Jane was back constructively encouraging some of the picketers as they painted new signs, advising them that 'nothing says "death to the bosses!" like primaries. Pastels are for appeaseniks.'
'Still avoiding classes, Lane?' That was Taylor, of course, at her shoulder without warning.
'I still have a note.'
'From the strikebreaker? That's not my concern, is it … for the moment?' Taylor flexed his neck muscles, turning his head from side to side, looking towards the school building and then back to Jane. 'The principal can't expect professional maintenance of discipline without taking the proper steps for the employment of professional staff.'
Jane was saved from having to deal with Taylor when Mrs Bennett came out of the building to tell the other teachers about the principal's 'final offer'. It looked as if most of them were ready to accept it, but DeMartino scoffed. Then he pulled some papers out of his pocket and waved them around, shouting, 'This is the contract we wrote, and this is the contract she's going to sign! Cover me, boys. I'm going in!'
As DeMartino marched inside, Jane raised her head elaborately to scan the sky.
'What are you looking for, Lane?'
'Bombers. He'll never make it without air support.'
Sonny had reached the most distasteful part of his teacherly duties: the testing. They'd finished studying Romeo and Juliet, and his orders from above about what came next were clear. He couldn't say whether he or the students liked it less. Personally, he was happy for the students to cheat, but they'd only be able to copy off each other, which seemed unlikely to help. Stacy seemed to be the only one who enjoyed the tragic romance and only a few students could sit next to her.
Now he was trying to get her to help him in a brainstorming session to come up with test questions, but she was only unhelpfully suggesting questions only she could answer, so at least when Quinn burst into the room she wasn't interrupting anything useful.
'Sonny, you know the test tomorrow? It's going to be easy, right? Because if you make it really hard, some popular people won't like it and might take it out on another completely innocent popular person, and besides, it's good to help the popular, because if you don't, it might make you even more unpopular, although I don't know if such a thing is possible.'
'Interesting question', Sonny said. 'More unpopular? Nobody's ever made a conscious attempt to murder me, but that doesn't mean they haven't felt like it. They might just be afraid of the law.'
'So you'll do it?'
'Right after I oil up and get into my posing pouch.' Sonny noticed Stacy grinning, but Quinn ignored the joke and protested violently at Sonny's unwillingness to accommodate her. Now Sonny was irked.
'You know, I didn't ask for this stupid teaching job. I don't need the work and I don't need the stigma.' He also didn't need to explain to Quinn why he'd taken it nonetheless. 'I've tried to make the class interesting and focus on the play, not the grades. And if, after all that, the only thing your vapid friends can think about is how to finesse taking the test, then they deserve to fail.'
'Sonny, do you want everybody to hate you?'
'Do you think there'd be a difference?'
Quinn clenched her fists. 'You know my friends don't hate you." She looked over at Stacy. "But you might be about to change the way they feel.'
Sonny faced his sister down. 'So you're just looking out for me, are you? You know I can look out for myself. And as for your friends, why should you go out of your way to protect the stupid?" Sonny flances over at Stacy and mumbles. "You're not one of them.'
'I … I …'. Quinn shifted as if she were about to stamp her foot. 'You don't understand anything!' She stormed out of the room.
When she was gone, Stacy suggested that maybe Sonny should make the test easy.
Sonny gave her an appraising look and said, 'I don't even own a posing pouch.'
'I meant, like, not easy but uh, not hard?" She starts playing with her hair. "I hate that I don't know the right word."
"Word, words, that might just be the idea I needed."
Stacy was confused but Sonny had an idea now and wouldn't let it get away.
Jane was back with the picketers, to see how the new signs were working out, when Onepu noticed that DeMartino still hadn't returned from his confrontation with Li.
'With those two in a negotiations lock-up, anything could have happened', Taylor said. 'It's time somebody reliable took a hand.' He moved towards the building entrance.
'Oh dear!' said Onepu. 'I do think it would be a good idea if we had a neutral witness to whatever we find! Jane, would you mind coming with us?'
This was a sight Jane didn't want to miss. She followed Taylor and Onepu into the school and then into the principal's office, and was rewarded by the dramatic spectacle of Li and DeMartino slumped inert over opposite sides of the desk, in a room where half of every available surface, including the floor, was littered with packaging and half-eaten remains from every kind of take-out food delivery available in the Lawndale area.
'Oh no!' Onepu exclaimed. She turned to Jane protectively, and spoke in a frantic whisper. 'This is terrible! They've killed each other! Jane, you shouldn't have to see this! I shouldn't have brought you here!'
But even as she spoke, although she was trying to block Jane's view, Jane could see Taylor taking a small mirror from a pocket, wiping it, and then holding it in front of DeMartino's mouth, and Jane could even see the mist on it when Taylor raised it to his eyes. He wiped it again and repeated the test with Li, with the same result.
Jane wished Sonny could have been there to watch. She photographed the scene with her mind's eye for a future painting.
'They're not dead', Taylor said contemptuously, with a scornful look at Onepu, and at that instant Li roused and started muttering about her dream. Then she woke fully, and then so did DeMartino. For a moment Li was relieved and DeMartino distraught that they had only dreamed signing the contract, but after another moment Taylor took the signed document from the hand DeMartino was still unconsciously clutching it in.
'We have a contract!' Onepu said. 'The strike is over! We can go back to teaching the children! Anthony, you did it!'
But DeMartino and Li had both collapsed again.
After the strike had been settled, Sonny heard about the results of the test Mrs Stoller had set for his class while he'd been otherwise occupied. Stoller had been impressed by the number of As: she said the class were the smartest and biggest first-graders she'd ever taught. Even Brittany, with only two out of the three colors on the US flag correct, was officially recognized for another C-student performance.
Kevin flunked, but what really gravelled him was not getting a gold star like Brittany's.
But Sonny only heard about this later. In the meantime, he had already tested his own class, graded the papers, and handed them back. He'd decided on a single essay question (minimum word limit—200): 'What is Romeo and Juliet about?'
One of Quinn's most persistent admirers—Joey, Jamie, or Jeffy—the one with the red hair, anyway—was thrilled with his 'B'. He took it as a sign that Sonny agreed with his theory that Mercutio 'had a thing for' Romeo.
'No', Sonny said, 'but you argued your point well, and I thought your ideas for keeping him out of the locker room were original, if a little closed-minded.'
This last point had been crucial. Sonny would have had no time for a student who was trying to curry favor with a gay 'teacher' by seeing gay angles everywhere (or, still worse, trying to win 'favors' from that same 'teacher'—if Jeffy, Joey, or Jamie wanted help coming out, he'd have to get it from somebody else). But the reflexive prejudice in the second part of the essay suggested that a degree of flakiness was the more likely explanation: too much flakiness to get an 'A', but plenty enough for a 'B'. Unless it was a deviously manipulative double-bluff, in which case a 'B' was still the right grade.
Sandi, and Tiffany, on the other hand, had adopted the exact 'copy off each other' strategy that Sonny had foreseen leading to disaster. When they saw their 'D-minus' results, Sandi protested.
Stacy at least had the grace to acknowledge that the choice had been an error. Sonny didn't want to mention the mistake was not copying off of Stacy or Quinn.
They'd only escaped flunking because Sonny had given them extra credit for realizing the connection between the movie and the play. He'd still marked them down for failing to recognize that in Shakespeare's version, Romeo never went by the name 'Leonardo' and never took a swim in his clothes.
Sandi's vexation at Quinn and Stacy over the test was increased when she saw that Both had received a 'B-plus'. She started dropping heavy hints about Quinn's 'relationship' with the teacher and about everything being 'relative'.
Quinn, in response, did not let the growing attention of the whole class deter her from defending the way Sonny had tried to make the best of a bad situation, nor was she deterred by Sandi's intensified hinting about the almost sisterly way she was taking sides with him. Instead, much to Sonny's interest, she responded by proving herself his true sister with a subtler and deadlier veiled threat. Indeed, she'd got hold of a piece of kryptonite. Although with tactical precision Quinn did not name any of the players, anybody who knew the little monster Griffins would recognize them in the story, and it would have been just like them to pass on pictures of fifth-grade Sandi wearing huge braces 'to a friend, who hasn't shown them to anybody out of the goodness of her heart … yet.'
Sandi had the wit to be cowed, but Quinn wasn't finished. 'Besides, why shouldn't I act sisterly towards him?' She turned to look at Sonny. 'After all … I'm his sister.'
At what seemed to be the sight of a new opening, Sandi revived. She leaned forward to Stacy and Tiffany and said, 'Did you hear that? Oh my gosh! Quinn just admitted that weirdo is her brother!'
Stacy leaned comfortably over the back of her chair and gave Sandi an eyebrow flash. 'Well, um, of course he is, Sandi. We knew that.'
Tiffany chimed in with support. 'We were just being polite about it.'
My work here is done, Sonny thought. My little sister is all grown up, and the Fashion Club, know it or not, is doomed. He allowed both corners of his mouth to turn slightly upward.
Sandi, not liking Stacy standing up to her, turned in her chair. "And of course your Gay BFF gives you a good grade."
Stacy, not to be intimidated, responded. "Of course he did because I wrote a well thought out response. I'm actually a little upset I only got a B+. I'll have to ask him why and see what it would take to get an even better grade."
It was at that dramatically appropriate moment that Ms Li's dazed voice came over the public address system to make a disjointed announcement in which the one thing clear was that the teachers would return to work the next day.
The redheaded boy raised his hand to tell Sonny that he thought he'd been a pretty good teacher. He had nothing to curry favor for any more. Maybe in his confused way he wasn't really homophobic.
'Thanks, Jamie, Jeffy, or Joey', Sonny said. 'For the record, some of you aren't half-bad students. You know who you are.'
He could see Quinn and Stacy were smiling. Well, he could live with that. It wasn't the sort of day that came round very often.
He got confirmation of that in the evening, when Quinn came into his room, feeling uncomfortable again because Sandi had repeated, and made direct, her accusation about how Quinn had got her B-plus from Sonny. Sonny asked her to consider how he could live with himself if he displayed generosity to her by giving her an unearned grade. Immediately grasping his logic buoyed up Quinn's spirits, and she reciprocated by telling him that she could no more be nice to him. He confirmed his full understanding of this remark.
'God only knows what this little foray of yours into teacher geekland cost me in social status', said Quinn.
'I feel your pain', Sonny lied.
'Well. Good night then.'
'Good night', Sonny said, and then, as Quinn turned and started to leave the room, '… sis.'
Some dialogue from 'Lucky Strike' by Peter Elwell
