“Yes.” Bill finally joined the conversation while throwing the principal a doubting look, probably having thought the same thing as I had. “Long story short, your English teacher here called Mrs. Miller, who then called me. Personally, I think it’s a great idea.”
“You do? Really?” I asked doubtfully, remembering the rather intimidating Welcoming Speech he gave me two years ago.
“Of course there would be limits as to what we would teach those girls. The styles and techniques you learned by now are probably a little too ... uh ... fierce.” he explained with a side glance at Coach Jenkins. “The plan would be to host a class that lasts half a semester before it starts over and allows a new set of students to join. That way the classes would be relatively small, making it easier to supervise.”
“Oh!” I said with audible relief. Three months would be enough to teach the basics and cover all of the purely defensive moves. As I told Ava and Mia before, the real key was repetition, not a constant stream of fancy new techniques. “Alright. But ... why did you call me here, then?”
Now Bill was looking at Mrs. Jenkins while pointing his hand at her, like he was asking her to explain.
“The thing is, Mr. Brown, the girls who have come forward to ask about the school establishing a class like that, were specifically asking about you teaching them what you taught young Miss Miller and your sister.”
“Oh.” I said, now with audible displeasure.
“Your employer assures us that you would be perfectly suited to teach the girls. So, the questions we have for you are: Would you be willing to take on that responsibility, and would you be able to do it with your injuries?” she continued.
I contemplated her questions for a moment.
“Well, I don’t have that much free time, Mrs. Jenkins...” I started, but the principal interrupted me.
“Oh, we already talked about that with Mr. Carter.” he nodded towards Bill. “If this were to happen, we would brand it as a cooperation between the school and Carter Security. Naturally, the time you spend teaching your peers in our gym would be part of your working hours.”
I had to admit, that would make this quite attractive for me as well. I could spend two extra hours after classes in the gym with the girls, then go home instead of heading for the office and work another two hours remotely. My hours would stay the same, but I’d get home at Five instead of Eight in the evenings. Also, I now knew why the principal was speaking like that. If he was ‘branding’ this, both the school and Bill would use it for PR work, so the principal was trying to suppress his usual distaste for me.
“Alright.” I said, and looked at Bill out of the corner of my eye. “If I say that my leg should be healed up enough for this, would that mean that you’d make me haul the computers through the offices again?”
Bill laughed and shook his head. I could also see slight grins form on the others’ faces.
“In that case, yes, my leg would be fine. In fact, my physical trainer expects me to lose the cane over spring break.”
“That would be perfect!” The principal called out. “With your commitment, Coach Jenkins can write up the usual consent forms for the students to take home and present to their guardians during spring break. We could then start a test run for the remaining half semester once school starts up again.”
“Thank you, Mr. Brown!” Mrs. Jenkins suddenly said with surprising gratitude in her voice.
“No problem. I’ll get paid for it.” I chuckled. “Do you need anything else from me?”
“No, thank you. I think we took enough time out of your lunch break already.” the principal assured me, and I left after giving them a final nod.
As I stepped out of the room, though, I found myself blocked in by a group of girls, with Ava and Mia in the middle.
“So?” Mia asked excitedly. “Are you gonna do it?”
“You kno ... Of course you knew. They called your Mom, after all.” I suddenly realized. “Well, yes. Coach Jenkins will write up the forms for the ... club ... or whatever they’ll call it, and then we can start after spring break.”
As Mia threw her arms around my neck and kissed me in front of all her friends, the other girls started giggling in excitement and assured me how they couldn’t wait for our lessons to start. I wasn’t entirely sure why they would be so eager, but maybe the principal was right about them being affected by Mia’s stalker encounter.
I continued my new school life until spring break arrived, and with the end of the quarter, the school sent out progress reports. To my greatest pleasure, my grades had improved significantly! I had improved by at least a full grade in every subject, except for gym class which I couldn’t participate in since mid-November. When I showed Mom my report card, she was over the moon.
“I’m suddenly a solid-B student!” I exclaimed in wonder.
“Oh, I’m so proud of you, Honey!” Mom smiled, and she actually looked proud as well. “Those last few months were so hard for you, but you still managed to improve!”
