Handcuffed

The Deadly Nightshade

"Can you give me a good excuse to skip Sebastian today?" she asked Diana.

"Why do you hate him so much?"

"I loathe him, though I can't fathom why. He is smart, full of life and energy, overcoming a major defect and yet I feel like he hates me as much as I loathe him. All year I despised his class and put up with it, but today I am not sure I can handle him."

"You know he always speaks very highly of you when I do my half hour a week tutoring with him," reproved Diana.

The class was quiet when Professor Moran rode into the computer room.
"Passwords please," he announced.

He passed Shirley's desk and whispered, "Try to concentrate". Before he reached his desk he began to address the class in his usual megaphone voice and egotistic style.

"The wonderful yet irritating world of computers. When they work they are splendid, when they don't they become a time consuming obsession. For this reason I begin daily with ALWAYS BACK UP YOU WORK. If your computer is moody tomorrow, you will at least be able to continue where you left off on another computer."

He paused as he surveyed the class looking to find a guilty face, someone that would have to do a half hour of typing, for not backing up their work.

"Go into your spreadsheet from yesterday and finish creating your car and mortgage loan scenarios, based on yesterdays numbers and today's rates. Everything you need is on the large computer screen to my left."

Shirley was usually first to finish in almost every class, but Professor Moran shouldn't have been surprised to see her not working and staring into the blue sky.

"Come on," he whispered into her ear, "don't dwell on it too much. This is my father's problem not yours. Don't let it hurt your school work."

Shirley shook her head as if coming out of a trance and began to look at her screen. Little did he know what was really bothering her. With a sigh, she concentrated a bit and after Professor Moran was satisfied, she asked to be excused. Once outside she stared into the gardens knowing she had twenty minutes till her next class to brood over her latest thought. It really scared her. She reviewed the letter in her mind once again and tried to picture her first meeting with The Dean and his sons.

Could it be she hated Professor Moran from her subconscious alone? Had she picked up something about him just by the first meeting without him saying a word? If yes, why didn't she feel the same hatred towards The Dean and Mori?

She went back to class for the final three minutes to hear what they had for homework and walked with Diana to the classroom of the young, stern jawed yet pleasant Ms. Violet Barker. "Went off to find some new clues?" she asked.

"No, I just needed to relax in some fresh air, so I walked in the gardens a bit."

"You should have poked me and I would have joined you."

"You hadn't finished yet and I know how much you loooove numbers."

"Yeah, I barely finished in time. You know how many people have to come back later to finish up their work, because he gives us so much. You, Mori, and Godfrey Adler have the record in the school of never having to do any class work out of his class."

"I wonder where that guy is today. He came by a few times in the past years, but I haven't seen him around for a while,"

Shirley mused aloud as she sidestepped a cardboard box near the inside of the classroom doorway.

Shirley sat down in the front of the teachers' desk. She loved this class and its teacher. She wished all the teachers would be as caring and as well versed as her. The fact that one of her favorite subjects was Health and Science was beside the point. Ms. Barker was a tanned young lady, with large green eyes sparkling with caring and sympathy. She stood about Shirley's height, dainty, and always dressed in the most perfect taste, without looking ostentatious.