Rachel calmly led her students out to the bus the next day. "Come on, everyone. The better behaved you are, the sooner we get to the animals."
"Yes, Miss Roth!" the students chorused, following in a calm line. There was only 15 of them, but that was the whole class. No parent refused one of Miss Roth's field trips.
Getting onto the bus, Rachel smiled at the driver. "Hey, Old Joe. How are things?"
He grinned, showing several missing teeth. "All good to go, Ma'am! We'll get there, come heaven or high water!" Old Joe, as he insisted on being called, was technically to old to still be a bus driver for the district...but no one had had the guts to tell HIM that. He was a kindly old soul, good with children...but it was widely believed that Death had tried to collect him several times, only to find him too hard a nut to crack. He used to swear a lot - not that he meant it, it was just something he did - but Rachel had broke him of that habit.
She smiled. Old Joe was like the kindly old Uncle she had never had...with the quick strikes of a champion fighter to guard his family. "I know we're in good hands with you, Old Joe."
The kids filled into their seats. "Now, laddiebucks!" he snarled aggresively. "I won't have none o' your sass, you'll be on your best behavior, ya hear! Or I'll string ya'all up by your figgins!"
"What's a figgin?" Mary asked, grinning.
"A flakey pastry," Rachel replied drily, and everyone laughed.
Old Joe grinned hugely. "Saddle em up, kiddies! We're off!" Seizing the wheel, he gunned the engine...and surprisingly enough for those who didn't know Old Joe, the bus took off as if that meant something.
Rachel stood next to the driver's seat, giving directions. At a lull in the discussion, Old Joe spoke up. "I hear you spent the night at the new vet's. Professional or personal?"
Rachel stared at him. "Does EVERYONE know about Gar and I?" she asked exasperatedly.
Old Joe grinned. "It's a small town. THere's not much else to talk about 'sides gossip. No worries, though. No one says anything bad bout you wheres I can hear it!"
"I can believe that," Rachel said, rolling her eyes.
Old Joe grinned. "We're mostly concerned, ya know? You're one of us, a part of this town, and ou never showed no interest, ya ken? And now this new doc shows up outta nowhere, and you spend the night at his place? You can see where that might raise some questions, and why we're all keen to know the answers?"
"Who all is we?"
"All the little old fogies who run this town, a'course. Mayor Bob included."
She nodded. She knew Mayor Bob. As far as anyone knew, he'd been Mayor forever. In Rachel's experience, that was a distinct possibility. "Garfield's an old friend. We go back a long ways. I...owe him a lot."
Old Joe grinned. "I get what ya ain't saying. Yer parting wasn't on best of terms, so ya ain't sure where ya stand, but cher eager to find out?"
Rachel sighed. "Something like that. Now you answer me something. What's Old Joe short for?"
Old Joe went quiet. "Promise you won't tell?" he whispered. She nodded. "Father Joshua Ericson McCallister III."
Rachel's eyes went wide, and she tried very hard not to laugh. "I see why you prefer Old Joe."
They shortly reached the park. It was sort of half way between being a zoo and a nature preserve, almost. The animals were in enclosures rather than cages, and some expense had gone to trying to make it difficult for the animals to even tell they were confined...with varying success. In addition to wild animals and those bred in captivity, there were also some animals who had come there from various less than ethical enterprises. These animals were there to be rehabilitated.
Old Joe grinned as he pulled up. "Looks like one of the animals got out of his cage," he said,pointing as he spat to the side.
Looking up, Rachel glowered. Stepping out of the bus, she spoke up. "Eric, don't you have a class to be teaching?"
He smiled disarmingly. "I had a day off in reserve, so I thought I'd use it and come here. Thought i could help you teach the kids about the animals."
"Thanks ever so," she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. "But I'm pretty sure I could teach them far more than you could possibly know."
"Aw, come on, Rachel," he said, taking her arm. "Give me a chance."
A hand the approximate size of a watermelon closed on Eric's wrist. "I suggest you learn to keep your hands to yourself, boy," Old Joe said, his voice a few shades removed from definative threat.
Rachel carefully extricated her arm from Eric's suddenly weak grip. "Thanks, Old Joe. I'll get the kids inside."
"Look Monty," a familiar voice said. "It's your twin brother."
Turning, Rachel smiled. Garfield stood at the enterance now, leading an 800-pound gorilla. It was about the same size, shape, and tempermant as Old Joe...although Old Joe probably weighed less by an appreciable marign...presumably. Old Joe laughed at the joke.
Rachel spoke up. "Old Joe, this is Dr. Logan. He's kindly volunteered his day to help me teach the kids about the animals here. Garfield, this is Old Joe, the bus driver."
Garfield grinned. "Just how Old are you, Joe?"
Old Joe smirked. "My ears are still ringin from the Big Bang!" He laughed.
"Well, come on!" Garfield said to the kids. "Let's go look at the animals, and I'll answer any questions you have...and probably quite a few you don't!" He held his hand out to Rachel.
She took it, ignoring the chorus of "Ooh!"s from her students.
Eric glowered, and started to take a step forward...only to be stopped as Monty stood in front of him and snorted. Something about 800 pound gorillas that the little kids talked about all the time percolated through Eric's mind, and he backed off.
Inside the park, Garfield was explaining about several of the animals they were seeing, to the entertainment of the children. He had even gotten some of the animals to behave themselves and be carried - gently - by the students. None of the kids would ever forget this trip.
Stepping back as they watche dthe kids run around in a surprisingly organized fashion, Garfield turned to Rachel. "So that's your class, huh?"
"Yeah. They're great kids, but they need someone to watch out for them."
"And that's your job now, right?"
"Yeah." Rachel was quiet for a while. "So...how are Melvin, Timmy, and Teether doing?" she asked, somewhat dreading the answer.
Garfield smiled. "I'll ask Kori and Richard next time I talk to them. They adopted them, after all."
"They did?" Rachel was shocked. "Why would they do that?"
"It was Kori's idea. She thought that, wherever you were, you would be glad to know they were taken care of. And you know how much she adores kids."
"Yeah..." Rachel was quiet for a while, thinking about her kids. Then she looked out at her class, which was also he kids. "There are a lot of kids out there with no one to look out for them, you know." She looked over at Tommy. "See him? His father was a drunkard, and used to beat him."
"Used to?" Garfield asked, torn between rage and fear of what she might have done.
"Yeah. He stopped when visions of a four eyed, horned demon telling him of the fate of his soul filled his head every time his hand touched the boy in an aggressive manner." Rachel smiled. "It's amazing how effective knowing what awaits you on the other side can be in changing certain...unpleasant behaviors."
Garfield stared at her. "Dude!"
She smiled. "According to Tommy, he hasn't laid a hand on him in weeks, although he still screams out at night sometimes, which means he hasn't learned his lesson quite yet."
He shook his head. "Rae, someday you're going to make a GREAT Mom."
She smiled shyly. "You really think so?" she asked nervously.
"I know so," he said simply. "Just look at these kids. Think how much better they are simply for knowing you. Imagine wha a child you raised would be like."
She glanced over at the students. "Yeah...but any child I had would need a good father, too. Someone good with kids and a sense of responsibility, you know? I wonder where I could find that?"
"You could ask Dr. Logan," Mary said from behind them. "I think he'd do a good job."
"Mary!" Rachel said, her eyes wie and her face bright red. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Studying the courtship behavior of the adult specimen of the animal homo sapien. Aren't I supposed to be learing animal behavior here?"
Garfield laughed as Rachel sputtered. "See what I mean, Rae?"
Giggling, Mary ran off before Rachel could get her head back in shape. She sighed. "It's the precocious ones you gotta watch out for," she said, rubbing her forehead.
"Yeah," Garfield said, sitting down next to her. "But you gotta love em."
"Yeah," she said, smiling. "You do."
Meanwhile, back at the school...
"What do you mean, I'm fired?"
"Just what I said, Eric." Principal Sheradan glowered at him. "You took a day off without arranging for a substitute, you have been harrasing a well respected member of the faculty, and overall making yourself a dreadful nuisance. I wanted to give you a chance, since everyone deserves one, but I see now I was mistaken. I have already sent word of your termination of employment - and the reasons for it - to your probation officer. Until a new third grade teacher can be found, I shall be handling the class. Now get out of my school!"
Eric walked back to his house, cursing and fuming. "Dammit! It's all that Dr. Logan's fault! Everything was going fine before he got here. I was wearing her down, she'd have warmed up to me." At his house, he rummaged through his belongings, and pulled out a strange device. "Well, I'm not going back to prison. And no one here," he said, attatching the device to his chest and activating it, "is strong enough to make me. Especially not that wimpy doctor!" As the device expanded, it covered Eric in a metallic body suit that expanded to immense proportions. "After all...no one denies Adonis!"