Haven

Chapter Thirty Three

Alex

After a particularly heavy few days, we had finally gotten through the funeral. It turned out to be quite a big funeral, turns out Beka had a lot of friends, and extended family. And Jaida knew most of them. Which freaked me out.

Once a few days had passed, and I had relented on the whole indefinite grounding thing since she was going through more bullshit, I started to feel more relaxed about Jaida. While she wasn't ready to return to school, and so far had only missed 4 days, she was keeping up with homework assignments.

She had, unbeknownst to me, emailed her teachers to ask if they could forward any homework for her to catch up on and then keep on top of.

I was quite happy with that set up, the teacher in charge of her year group (a complete douchebag), had called to let me know she wouldn't be penalized for missing class under the circumstances, and they were quite impressed she wanted to keep in the loop off her own accord.

And for a pretty smart kid, shrewd even, she led me right to a problem with her attempt to distract me from it. See, she knew they'd reach out to me to ensure she was in a good enough state to be back to school, even if was remote learning. Presumably, she was hoping I'd be so surprised by her new found maturity and responsibility, that I'd miss that fact that they posted grades out online.

Epic. Fail.

The worst part for her was that her grades were fantastic, that wasn't the issue. The issue, was the teachers comments section. And again, most of her teachers described her as pleasant, present, hardworking, etc.

All but one. The biology teacher. He said while she had an excellent work ethic, and usually always completed assignments, she was disinterested, argumentative and difficult to approach.

As I mulled over his words, I zoned in on his name. And it hit me. Mr Peters. I too went to high school there. He had taught me, the schools as old as my grandparents, and so is the biology teacher.

He hated my guts. He had an issue with jocks, and sport was always right up my street so I was on the football team, and the basketball team.

I never really understand the hatred, because I was a great student, my parents wouldn't have had it any other way. I guess I probably took the bait when he constantly was all over my ass in classes, but he had gotten me into so much trouble over the four years he taught me that I hated him as much as he hated me.

My parents never believed me when I said he hated me, and that used to drive me insane. I couldn't treat the situation with Jaida the same way they did, but I also wasn't going to get anywhere by going into the school all guns blazing.

I sat there musing, considering my seemingly well behaved daughter was actually in my office doing work. And I again pondered her plan to throw me off the scent, and wondered was I being cynical, and judging her by my own shitty standards.

While it was hard to get much past my parents, I could usually dupe one of them with something small. Like report cards, granted things got harder for parents in recent years, since things were online.

But I'm not like most parents. Firstly, I'm younger than most people with a 16 year old, secondly I'm not technology repellant. So Jaida didn't have that over me, and she knew it.

I had to be honest with myself that she probably knew her teacher would report back that she's a rude, argumentative student in his class, and could do nothing about it. Other than make sure her grades were good so I couldn't do too much about it.

Without any doubt I'd mention it to her, and let the situation play out from there. It wasn't a fool proof system, but I liked to test her patience. See if she'd ever learn to bite her tongue, or submit to authority.