005

I squared up with her and said, "Hey, I get it. Really, I do. And I'm not saying we let her off easy. Hell, let's put the onus on her. We'll give her a choice. She can work with me after school every day until the end of the school year and get caught up on all the stuff she missed, cheated on, and all that. I'll also talk with her other teachers and get assignments from them. Let her actually do the work and earn real passing grades. Or, if she says no, well..."

Louisa mulled it over. I liked that she was the kind of woman who wasn't thinking about the perks of avoiding the paperwork mess of expelling a student or the pitfalls of an entitled brat and her parents suing the school when Taylor decided to twist her version of our altercation. No, it was plain in her eyes that she was considering what was the right thing to do for Taylor and for the principles she held dear. She was a good woman, and Ms. Salata was lucky to have her.

"All right. Talk to her, see what she says, and let me know."

"Right. She's in my sixth period, so I'll be in touch right after that."

"As soon as you can, all right? I can't delay this any longer than that. If I take four days to turn in a report on an assault, even a minor one--"

"Understood. As soon as possible. You got it, Louisa."

After sixth period, the discussion with Taylor went about as I expected. She got her lip balm back and, smirking and self-satisfied with her conquest, she magnanimously agreed to let me show her mercy. I'm not sure she believed we'd really expel her, and she probably thought she could make our detentions (as she insisted on calling them) so miserable that I'd call it quits after the first day or two. Ordinarily, she might have been right.

But I had been busy, and I was done with ordinary.

She didn't notice the taste. That was good. It was a bit of a gamble administering it in that way, but subtle was better. And nothing in the whole world could have been more predictable than the way she smeared the Serenex-coated lip balm on right in front of me, as if her glossy lips were a manifesto of her refusal to be subdued by some petty school teacher. It was only a faint dose I'd coated the outer layer of the lip balm with, so it would take longer to set in. (I'd tested that myself several times the day before and was still fighting off the headache my mild overdose had given me.) But it would work. By the time she showed up after school, it would be working. No more fight in her.

And then, we'd... rewrite her essay. Or something.

No, not "or something." I'd sit her down in front of one of the school's cheap laptops and make her write it. That was it. Nothing else. I ought to be ashamed -- was ashamed -- that other thoughts even entered my mind. No matter how terribly she'd mistreated me, I wasn't about to take advantage of a teenage girl. I probably couldn't get away with it anyway, probably. No, I was only doing a good deed. The Serenex was merely an extreme measure to address the extreme situation she had created.

I had done my research during Saturday class, with my eyes flitting repeatedly to the half-asleep unfortunates as if worried they would see what I was reading. For once, I let them sleep. I was envious, honestly, still exhausted myself after the most restless, dream-filled night of my life.

Serenex was banned in most of Europe for doing exactly what it advertised being able to do. It introduced a neuroactive agent percutaneously that suppressed the chemical process behind the brain's "fight or flight" response. In essence, it kept someone from resisting. The manufacturer's website boasted a successful test in which they had offered volunteers $500 to resist being detained, and in the end, had not wound up having to pay them a cent. The larger web was full of articles decrying its use by autocratic governments and wealthy persons of less than honorable intent. A proposal was already before the UN to declare its deployment a war crime, but it had so far not passed as the Chinese government was among Serenex's most prominent clients.

In my own trials, once I had given the dose time to set in, I headed out to the backyard where I had seen my next-door neighbor Cassie doing yard work. She had been in my class two years back when I had still been teaching English 10, and we got along well. Recently, however, I had been avoiding her as she was selling those absurd $30 coupon books as a fundraiser for the volleyball team, and I had already made a donation.

On Sunday, I agreed to buy another one without a second thought. It was surreal remembering our encounter now, how she had suggested, even jokingly, that I buy a second one. Another $30 is gone. When she laughed and said maybe a third would come in handy, I had already fished the money out of my wallet and held it over the fence before she declined to take it awkwardly. Even in hindsight later that night as I flipped through one of my two coupon books, there had been a lingering sense that a third one might have been useful. As someone who had never used a coupon in his life, it was proof enough for me. After that, I secluded myself in my office and picked up a book, worried that advertisements on the TV and internet might deprive me of the rest of my life savings.

Getting my hands on Serenex, and on such short notice had been the real obstacle. Luckily for me, my old pot dealer from before the state went legal had referred me to a connection, and for only a little bit more than those test subjects had paid, I had made the purchase. The single canister I had purchased, however, had cost me an order of magnitude beyond that. As I walked away from the exceedingly sketchy fellow who had sold it to me, I felt mostly pretty glad the kindly black market chemical suppressant salesman hadn't simply murdered me and taken everything I had. After that, the $60 donation to Cassie and the volleyball team was just gravy.

All in all, making such a sacrifice for the betterment of one exceptionally wayward student... I felt very noble.