A little time, before a disturbance in the hallway

With a good twenty minutes or so to spare you have time on your hand, and after a long hard glance at that desk drawer you close your eyes and shake your head before reaching for the stack of personnel files on your desk. The information on Mason Carter laid out before you on the table reminds you of how you first caught wind of him as a possibility for one of the teaching positions.

After spending the final few weeks of the school year and the first couple weeks of the summer going over the applicants and shortlisting those you found most qualified, writing up your notes on each of them, the board had suddenly introduced Mr. Carter as a likely frontrunner for the position of biology teacher. It had annoyed you that they would suddenly bring someone outside those who had applied for the position, then shocked and angered you as you read up on his profile.

His abilities as a teacher couldn’t be held in question, having all of the credentials and plenty of experience. If not for the other part of his career, where he had seemed to steadily spin out of control and decline into alcoholism over several years, before then having not even been employed as an educator for some time.

What are they thinking? You had questioned the choice, knowing that someone on the board of regents must’ve obviously seen Mr. Carter as a qualified candidate, but not having much confidence on the choice yourself from what you had learned from reading up on him. You always tried to keep an open mind and wanted to be the kind of person to give people a second chance, so you had begrudgingly gone through the file presented to you and pointed out all of the potential red flags for the board prior to their interview with him.

This could prove to be the one hire which caused this whole foolish experiment with male teachers to fail, you considered as a possible positive of Mr. Carter’s many potential issues, but quickly pushed such thoughts from your mind. You had a certain responsibility for getting these girls off on the right path and having Mr. Carter crash and burn in another teaching job would not be an option. You would have him replaced long before that, you think to yourself as you wait to meet him for the first time yourself.

Noise from out in the hallway brings your back to the present, a brief moment of confusion being quickly replaced with determined anger. Being in full headmistress mode as you step through the outer office, ready to tell off whichever girls is making such a row. Stepping into the hallway you freeze for a short while at what you see, a middle-aged man dragging along a brunette screaming bloody ****, a further three girls following along.

“Exactly what is going on here?” you ask as you step towards them.