Listen to Kelly’s plan and warn Abigail later

You should step in, stop this plot at its birth. But would that help? Stop this plan and Kelly will just come up with another. Maybe a better solution is for her plan to fail.

Caught in two minds you don’t act, as Kelly runs through her plans with her anonymous conspirator. And after that, the two girls sneak out and disappear.

You must do something. Warn Abigail. Her classroom is locked. She’s not in the teachers’ lounge. She’s clearly left for the day. You place a note in her pigeonhole telling her you need to talk to her asap. Then you head home.

Wednesday, you’ve only just got to school when Abigail finds you.

“What’s so urgent?”

You find privacy in your office and run down what you overheard. Abigail listens in silence, before nodding her head.

“That girl is sick,” Abigail curses when you’ve finished. “You didn’t try and stop her?”

“I thought it best to warn you. It might be more effective if she goes through with it and fails. Now you know it’s all fiction; I assume you can be professional enough to handle it.”

“It’s not all fiction,” she begins. She pauses at your confusion before continuing. “My ex-husband is in prison. Best place for him. And he always had a penchant for teenage girls. It’s how we ended up together. Kelly would be his type. But he’s in prison. At least I hope he’s still in prison.”

“You don’t know?”

“We’re divorced. But he didn’t take it well. He fought it the entire way, against his own lawyers’ advice. I mean, he was in prison. He didn’t have any legal standing to fight it. Especially after he threatened me in court when I testified against him. I know from mutual friends he doesn’t accept the divorce. He’s told them in uncertain terms that he still believes we’re married. That’s the main reason I took a job in this school. Hardly anyone from my past knows I’m here, and I don’t believe he’d ever consider looking for me here.”

She has a point. Your hometown is off the beaten track, isolated, and rarely mentioned in the news, not regional and especially not national. No major roads pass near it. It’s served by a spur of an underused railway line. Half your university friends hadn’t even heard of it.

“Are you sure you can handle Kelly? I can deal with her if you want,” you volunteer.

“No, no. I think you’re right. It’s better for Kelly to play her game and fail, than us to scupper it before it happens. Last year one of the girls in the then Upper Sixth found out the barest details about my ex. And I didn’t react well. If Miss Wandering hadn’t been passing, I hate to think what I would have done with that girl. But warned, and knowing it’s fake, I think I’ll keep my cool.”

“It all sounds very elaborate to me.”

“That’s Kelly for you. She’s a clever girl, she’s just decided she doesn’t need schooling, so’s turned all her intelligence into avoiding it. If she’d just put it towards school, she’d do well. Last year she spent a lot of time and effort finding out all about the marking of the exams, and how to subvert that. If she’d spent that time and effort actually learning what she was meant to be learning, she’d have passed. She’d much rather spend her time subverting the system.”

“Destroying the system always sounds more fun to the young.”

“She’s the only child of the richest man in town. She’ll inherit billions. She can’t say the world has been unfair to her.”

“Well, if you need any help dealing with her, you know where I am.”

Abigail gives you a warm smile. “Thanks. And thanks for the heads up.”

By then it’s too late for assembly, and you have lessons coming up.