Winning Arguments

“You lying bitch. I found her in my office going through my personal possessions. And when I confront her about it, she lies and then attacks me.”

“Nonsense, he calls me up here on the pretence of talking about his contract, and when I get here, he’s tries to **** me. I was defending myself.”

Abigail’s caught between the two of you. Her gaze crosses back and forth. Finally, she lets out a big sigh, that coincidentally makes her bosom heave erotically. No, stop thinking about Abigail’s bosom. You’ve bigger things to worry about now.

“I was told if there’s any problems with you to take you to Mrs Oversight. So come on.”

“What, I haven’t done anything.”

“Come on, both of you.”

Mrs Oversight is in her office. She looks half asleep when the three of you bundle in, but she shakes her head, sips a glass of clear liquid before assessing the three of you. Abigail goes first, recounting what she found. Next it’s Layla’s turn. She carries on her ridiculous story, of you summoning her, of you trying to **** her.

Finally, it’s your turn. You start with Ellie’s accident, and you and Nurse Karlee taking her to the clinic. This is news to Layla. Then you move on to what you found in your office when you returned.

“And Nurse Karlee will back this up.”

“I would assume so, phone her and see.”

Mrs Oversight doesn’t phone her. Instead, she turns her gaze to Layla.

“Miss Coventry, this is worrying behaviour. You can’t behave this way. Dr Stricture and I have listened to your arguments, and we’ve told you Mr Smith is a professional. We expect you to behave professionally and respect our judgement. Understand?”

Layla starts to object, stalls, and finally nods. This appears to be enough for Mrs Oversight to dismiss her. Only after she’s gone does the old woman turn her attention to you.

“Mr Smith. You know we’ve taken a risk hiring you. We told you we need you to behave impeccably, and you assured me that you would. This is not impeccable. I’m disappointed.”

“I found her in my office, going through my stuff.”

“And was there anything in your stuff you didn’t want her to see?”

“I doubt it. It’s just work things.”

“Then why did you try and grab her? If you’ve nothing to hide, then you shouldn’t have objected so vigorously.”

“It’s the principle.”

“The principle of this school is that the parents expect us to hold the highest decorum at all times. Your behaviour was not high decorum. I expect better.”

You can’t believe it. You find someone going through your personal stuff and you’re expected to just swallow it and behave as if it wasn’t important? That’s ridiculous. You want to explode with indignation.

“And what’s this?” Mrs Oversight is holding the statuette. Layla had obviously carried it into the room but then left it on the desk when she left.

“That’s one of the ornaments I’d put up. Layla hit me with it.”

Mrs Oversight grunts. “And do you know what it is?”

“It’s a Celtic Fertility icon. From my personal collection.”

Another grunt. “This is not appropriate in this school. The last thing we want are fertility icons. I expect you to return it to your personal collection.”

She expects that, fine. But ridiculous. It’s harmless. You’d understand if it actually looked like a naked woman, rather than just suggesting it might, but even then, it’s harmless. The look she gives you, though, brooks no argument.

She hands the statue back to you and then dismisses you. As you leave, you hear her telling Abigail to go fetch Nurse Karlee. She still wants corroboration of your story. She doesn’t trust you on that. The idea of such mistrust angers you.

It takes several minutes back in your office to calm down. You did nothing wrong. Layla was given a telling off for riffling through your stuff. You had a similar telling off for stopping her. Mrs Oversight doesn’t trust you. Then why did she hire you? Why are you here?

You’ll never be comfortable under Mrs Oversight. She’ll never trust you. You’ll always be one look away from a bad report, from possibly worse. Mrs Oversight needs to go. The rumours are that she was close to retiring in the summer. That all the nonsense with Miss Wandering nearly **** her into retirement. Maybe there’s a way you could **** the issue now. Yes, anyone else as your boss would be better.

You’re still considering that when Abigail returns.