Jealousy at TAC

  Edward Sanders arrived at school the following morning infuriated.

  ‘I can’t believe it!’ he grumbled to himself as he parked his car in the staff car park. ‘She doesn’t even care. No guilt whatsoever. I can’t believe she even hid all our family pictures, including our wedding portrait.’

  He climbed out of the car with his briefcase and locked it. He peered around the school grounds. They were still almost empty. That boy, Rex Cassidy has a lot to answer for. The devil has put that boy in this school, I know it. Just to cause me grief. Because I am a faithful man of God, that’s why! Well Ed isn’t about to let the devil win this one, no way.

  Mr Harris.

  That’s who he had to see now. He made his way to the office block intending on visiting the Phys Ed teacher right away. I should have listened to my mother. Always get involved with nice Christian girls. Don’t be unequally yoked, the bible says. But Katy was just so beautiful and so sweet.

  He was 37 at the time he met her. She was nineteen and they married a year later. That was four years ago. He had never been lucky in love before that. She had seemed to be attracted to his piety. She had always told him how much she admired him for his morals and religious zeal. She said she felt secure and safe with him, unlike other guys she’d been involved with in the past. She even seemed happy to go to church with him and be the good submissive Christian wife.

  After only six months, she started to have affairs, but she had always been so sorry for them, even telling him of the first one voluntarily. The other two he found out about by chance. The last one he knew about had been a year ago. After four years of marriage he thought at last their relationship was in a happy solid state. But he had been wrong.

  Mr Harris was in his office and glanced up when Sanders entered, then lowered his head back down to write on some papers in front of him. ‘Hey Flanders.’

  ‘Sanders is the name.’

  ‘Ok, Ned.’

  ‘It’s Ed! Edward Sanders. Please at least try to get it right.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  Sanders sat down with a sigh. ‘I want to talk about Rex Cassidy.’

  Mr Harris placed his pen down on the table and raised his eyes to focus on him. ‘Don’t tell me, you’re another one of those deadbeat teachers who don’t know how to handle the guy?’

  ‘No, I...’

  ‘All you need to do is treat your students with a bit of respect and don’t look down your noses at them just because they don’t know as much as you or because you think they’re somehow beneath you.’

  Sanders attempted to remain calm, knowing that if he lost his cool with this particular teacher, things would escalate out of control as Harris was a very aggressive individual. One offhand word and the devil would manifest itself within him. ‘The boy intimidates me. And he knows he intimidates me.’

  ‘Is that his fault or yours?’

  ‘He deliberately goes out of his way to make sure I’m uncomfortable. I never know what to say around him, I’m afraid at any moment he’s going to lash out at me. He’s a nasty piece of work.’

  Mr Harris eyes narrowed. ‘What right have you to put down one of our top students in that manner?’

  Sanders jerked back in his seat and stared at the wild-eyed PE teacher. He hadn’t expected such a hostile reply, after all he had spoken calmly, or at least thought he had. Perhaps the devil within Harris felt threatened at the holiness within Sanders own heart. ‘But Mr Harris! You know his reputation. You’re the one that’s been put in charge of keeping him in line.’

  ‘I will not have you come in here and talk about Rex like that. He’s a fine lad... one of the best in this school. If this school was full of boys like him, we’d be blessed.’

  ‘Blessed?’ Sanders couldn’t just sit there and accept that opinion. The Holy Spirit within him urged him to honour the truth and speak up against such unfounded claims. ‘I hardly call the way he acts a blessing to any of us. He’s nothing but trouble. Do you realise that he threatened me with abuse? He threatened to smash my head down on a bench.’

  ‘Really? And you never thought to report this at all?’

  ‘I...I...’

  Harris leant forward and delivered him a piercing glare. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what all that was about. Rex told me.’

  Sander’s heart skipped a beat at the thought that another staff member might know about his improprieties, but there was no way he was going to let on that he was guilty. ‘Oh, and I suppose he gave you some cock n bull story about me harassing Vanessa Dante?’

  ‘He told me exactly what happened, about your inappropriate behaviour towards her and how you switched her assignment papers with someone else so that you could fail her for resisting your advances.’

  Sander’s heart beat faster and his body tensed up. So he did know! Somehow Sanders had to turn this around. He couldn’t have his fellow staff members knowing what he had done, not if he wanted to keep his job. ‘It’s a lie! A dirty lie.’

  ‘Please, don’t try to feed me a pile of shit, insisting its chocolate mud cake, Flanders. If I had my way, I’d report you to Luxton for what you did. Vanessa is a wonderful young woman and doesn’t deserve to have every perverted, lecherous old bastard drooling over her and trying to lure her into their classrooms alone. In fact, it took me all my willpower not to come marching into your damn biology lab and punch the living daylights out of you! It was only because Rex requested me not to take action that I did nothing. He tells me you learnt your lesson and won’t pull another one like that again. Frankly, I’m beginning to wonder whether I shouldn’t have agreed to do nothing.’

  Sander’s body quivered and he could barely maintain his composure as the expression on Mr Harris’s face was one of pure malice. ‘I... I...’

  ‘From what I can see every threat he issued to you, you damn well deserved. He was a lot more gentle than I would have been. Gordon Bennett, you better realise, Flanders, that when it comes to Vanessa’s wellbeing, Rex has done a lot worse than make a few threats and for far lesser offences too.’

  Sanders quivered some more. ‘Please, Mr Harris, I know I screwed up, but what he’s done recently is inexcusable.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘My...my... my niece...’

  ‘What about your niece?’

  ‘He deflowered her. In my own home too!

  ‘How old is your niece.’

  ‘Err... thirteen years old.’

  ‘What?’ Harris stared at him.

  ‘I... yes. I came in and I caught him with her.’

  Harris’s left eyebrow rose. ‘I’m finding this very hard to believe.’ He’s face darkened. ‘You’re feeding me more of that chocolate mud cake, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, I... alright, alright, she wasn’t that young, but she was a good Christian girl and he spoiled her.’

  Harris rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. ‘Spoiled her? Gordon Bennett, kids are having sex at this age, there’s not a lot you can do about it. It’s been going on for many years now and the human race is doing fine. They’re just giving into their natural urges. There’s nothing evil or immoral about that.’

  ‘I beg to differ.’

  ‘You can grovel and differ all you like, but what you think means jack shit. Unless the girl was under-aged, I don’t see what the problem is.’

  Sanders could feel the Holy Spirit stirring within him again. ‘God expects certain standards.’

  ‘Well God can damn well come down here and make an issue of it if he wants to, but from the school’s position there’s nothing we can do, unless it happened inside the school grounds, during school hours. Did it?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then tough shit.’

  ‘But it’s my... my niece!’

  ‘Well I’m assuming your niece was a willing participant in this. In fact, I’ll bet a million bucks she was, because girls tend to throw themselves at the guy...’

  ‘Not my niece. She’s a good Chr
istian.’

  ‘Really? So being a Christian makes her less likely to give into her natural instincts does it? Do you want to bring her in here and I’ll ask her myself?’

  Sanders flinched and shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, Neddy boy, it seems we have nothing to talk about. I say if Rex and your niece got it together, good on them. Love’s gotta be better than hate, right?’

  Sanders felt the righteous indignation well up inside of him now and he could no longer hold it in. When the Holy Spirit demanded one to speak, one spoke. ‘You can’t be serious! You’re encouraging that type of behaviour?’

  ‘Whatever works to promote goodwill between the sexes, I say go for it.’

  Sanders squinted through his eyes. ‘You are no better than Rex himself! No morals whatsoever!’

  ‘I’d watch what you say, Sanders. I’m just looking for an excuse to throw you out of my damn office. Just give me one!’

  Sanders backed right down. Just looking at the crazed PE teacher in his green camo pants and shirt was enough to scare anyone. His UZI 9mm paintball gun also rested at the edge of his desk and Sanders didn’t feel much like the sting of dye pellets against his body. He rose to his feet shakily. Saying no more, he left the office.

  Feeling shaken and frustrated, Sanders made his way to the staff room. It was infuriating to not be taken seriously. Nevertheless, part of the problem was that he couldn’t reveal the full truth of anything to anyone. Certainly not about the threats made to him by Rex over Vanessa and he certainly couldn’t risk exposing his wife.

  He came to a halt.

  Exposing his wife.

  She’d lose her job for sure, but what would happen to Rex? Would it be enough to get him into serious trouble too?

  He arrived at the staffroom and cast his eye around the room in search of Ms Cann. Seeing that she wasn’t there, he headed to her classroom. Sure enough, she was there, marking some papers.

  ‘Ms Cann.’ He entered the room and smiled.

  ‘Ah, Mr Sanders. What can I do for you on this fine morning?’

  ‘I need to talk to you about something.’

  ‘Have you thought of a way we can get rid of our problems?’

  ‘I think I have.’

  ‘Very good. Take a seat.’

  Sanders took one of the student’s chairs and sat down at the elderly English teacher’s desk. ‘Tell me, Ms Cann. If a student was exposed as having had consensual sexual relations with a teacher, what would happen to that student?’

  ‘Mmmmm,’ Ms Cann said, rubbing her chin with her index finger. ‘I would say it would be grounds for expulsion.’

  ‘Really? Do you think it would be guaranteed, even in this day and age?’

  ‘I should think so. The teacher would lose his or her job of course. At the very least, both of them would suffer terrible humiliation and their reputations would be shot. The student may have that stigma for a long time to come.’

  ‘Yes.’ Then an even greater idea came to his mind. ‘But imagine what might happen if it were revealed that the student actually forced himself onto the teacher.’

  ‘Well of course that would be rape. He’d be up on charges.’

  Sanders leaned back in the chair and stared out the window of the classroom thoughtfully. The whole idea brought with it huge possibilities. It seemed like a way to allow his wife to keep her job while at the same time ridding the school of Rex Cassidy for good. Would his wife agree to lie for him? Surely she would. After all, he was the head of the household and she certainly wouldn’t want to lose her career. Not only that, but she would be lying for God too. God wanted Rex dealt with, so if God wanted it, certain sacrifices had to be made for the good of everyone.

  ‘Why are you asking this?’ Ms Cann asked.

  ‘It seems we have a way to rid us of the cancer that is Rex Cassidy.’

  ‘And Vanessa Dante?’

  ‘Well no, we still need to work on her, but Rex, yes.’

  ‘What? Are you saying he raped someone? A teacher?’

  ‘Ms Cann, this is very traumatic for me and I’d like you to keep this quiet until such time as is appropriate, but yes, Rex has committed such an act. He forced himself onto my wife, Katy Grainger.’

  CHAPTER 19:

  Mixed Fortunes