The Protector (Complete)

Chapter 3

Greta stacked the papers that were strewn across her desk. Her night ahead of her had already been decided. Pizza, television on in the back ground, and she would be grading the two hundred or so papers in front of her. She slid the papers into the bag that contained three red pens, her gradebook, and the seven teacher's keys. The teacher's keys weren't necessary. She knew the seven different languages she taught backwards and forwards.

Her parents had been linguistic professors for the top colleges in the world. As a young child, she had traveled from country to country easily picking up the languages of the places she was at. For her languages and accents came easily to her. She seemed to be able to understand the nuances of each language. It wasn't until she had gone to college that she realized people weren't like her. Most students wanted to avoid a foreign language. She thrived on them.

Obviously. Her degree had been a triple major in education, language studies, and English literature. Again she differed from most of the students by completing her three majors in only four years. She had, once she gotten a job, continued her education until she had gotten her doctorate in languages.

Because of her enjoyment of languages, she found the teacher's keys almost pointless during classroom time, and utterly useless when it came to correcting. She knew what the answers should be without confirming it with a teacher's key.

Standing up, Greta looked at her desk. It was till the black hole she was used to. No one would ever be able to find something on her desk without a detailed map from her. To others, her desk may show a distracted mind, but she just didn't have the time to keep her desk stickpin-neat.

She let a very ladylike curse cross her mind as she saw the calendar on her desk. Even though it hadn't even been two weeks into the month, Greta had already scribbled all over her calendar. She used her calendar, not only to keep track of important days, but also to write down notes to herself about her students, homework, or just things she needed to do.

There was one date that was circled in red. She had that post-interview meeting. Tonight.

Her night was starting to look more like drive-thru food and a late, late night of grading.

Leaving her packed bag by her desk, Greta took out a black pen and the small notebook she reserved for staff meetings. She headed down the stairs to the first level. Her classroom was on the third floor with the younger grades on the second level. The first level housed the headmistress's office, conference rooms, the school office, and the staff meeting room.

Greta arrived outside the room with five minutes to spare. She knew it gave the illusion that she was a person of punctuality, but in reality, if the time wasn't around teaching, she hardly remembered the proper day, much less the time. She walked into the room and wasn't sure if she was surprised by the number of people in the room or not. She figured she wasn't. Weston Prep was proving to be a very odd school, and she had been to plenty of different schools to see how they were run. Weston Prep was different. At the moment, she wasn't sure how she felt about the difference, but she would give the school more than two weeks before coming up with a decision.

There was a good fifteen people there, milling around and talking in small groups. Greta recognized only the headmistress Karolynn, who came quickly over to her when she entered the room.

"Greta, I'm glad you're here. The meeting will begin in just a few minutes. Perhaps you would like something to drink or a light snack." She pointed to the table on the far side of the room.

Normally Greta would have preferred to start the meeting and leave as soon as possible, but she was suddenly hungry. At the table covered with food, Greta was once more reminded that Weston Prep did things differently. Taking a glass plate, Greta found that she had expected nothing less than glass at Weston Prep, she took a sandwich, a sprig of grapes and a bottle of water. She took her spot at the table opposite from where all the leather folders were sitting.