I’d Know You Anywhere

23

THE PRINCIPAL IS YOUR PAL. The old mnemonic device sounded in Eliza’s head as she walked down the halls of North Bethesda Middle, her footsteps echoing in the classes-in-session hush. She had always struggled with homonyms, and the dominance of spell-check had not been a boon to her. She had Peter run his eyes over the rare things she wrote, and he almost always found one hear for here, or a too for two. There were also certain names she found it hard not to flip. Thomas and Thompson, Murray and Murphy, Eileen and Elaine. The principal is your pal. Maybe once, but not these days, where principals were like federal judges, saddled with mandates that allowed them little discretion.

The principal here was Roxa

Today, she wore a pea green suit and plum suede heels, making Eliza feel at once short and dowdy. But she was also warm, carrying her authority lightly.

“Iso,” she said to the angelic figure who was masquerading as Eliza’s daughter, “I’d like to speak to your mother in private. Is that okay?” It was clear Iso had no say in this.

“Of course, Mrs. Stoddard.” Iso caught Eliza’s eye as she left the office, her face all i

“How is your family settling in?” Another round of polite preamble, only much more appropriate than Walter’s. “It must be a big change.”

“More a large assortment of small changes, if that makes sense. But, yes, I think we’re settled now. Children adjust so quickly.”

Please tell me that Iso is well adjusted. Please let this be an a

“Iso is doing well here. She is popular with her classmates and, to my chagrin, a little advanced in some classes, although she has a lot of territory to cover in American history. But her math and English-it makes me wonder at the difference in educational standards. And, of course, she’s an amazing athlete.”

Eliza beamed, even as she anticipated the huge “but” that she knew was about to drop on her head, like a cartoon anvil.

“I do wonder, back in England -was there much emphasis on bullying?”

For a bewildered moment, Eliza thought the principal was asking if the UK encouraged bullying.

“Oh! I think there were the same general concerns. Mean girls and the like.”

“And the problem of subtle bullying?”

“Subtle…bullying? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

Roxa

“Has Iso-?”

“It’s unclear at this point. For now, we’re willing to chalk it up to cultural differences between her old school and North Bethesda Middle.” She had a way of pronouncing the school’s name as if it should be written in gold and heralded by angels with little trumpets. North. Bethesda. Middle! It was the only pretentious note in her otherwise down-to-earth demeanor.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I have some materials for you, the same ones our faculty use.” The principal passed Eliza a thick manila envelope. “As I said, we’re not certain what happened. The girl involved-she swears it’s a misunderstanding. But one of the conundrums of this type of bullying is that the victim mistakes it for hazing. The child-and they are children here, no matter how worldly they think they are-believes if she endures it with good grace, she’ll be invited into the i

“The girl-does she have some sort of disability?” Eliza was trying to remember Iso’s story, about the girl in her class who was to receive an iTunes gift certificate for her birthday.

“What?”

“Never mind. Just thinking about a classmate that Iso described to me.”

“This girl is not disabled. She’s not as bright and athletically gifted as Iso, but that’s the point. Not everyone is going to be. The strange thing is that Iso, at heart, seems unsure of her own place within the circle of popular girls, seems more threatened, possibly because she’s a newcomer. I think that’s why she might have told the girl she wasn’t allowed to sit with them.”

“That’s…all? She told a classmate that she couldn’t sit with them?”

“That’s more than enough,” Roxa

“Obviously, I haven’t read the material yet.” Eliza gave the envelope a friendly pat, as if it were a novel she couldn’t wait to be alone with. “But, surely, cafeteria cliques are as old as time, and not something likely to change.”

“Mrs. Benedict, we have a zero-tolerance policy on bullying. Because there is some ambiguity here, we”-a royal we? a committee? a tribunal?-“have decided not to invoke the minimum punishment. If Iso had been determined to be in violation, she would have been given after-school detention and prohibited from school activities for a month. That’s the minimum penalty. The maximum is suspension.”

Eliza was torn. She understood that the policy was humane. She knew firsthand that her daughter was capable of an imperious indifference toward others. She was appalled that Iso was one of those popular girls who derived power by excluding others. But, still-was this grounds for suspension? Children needed a little grit in their lives, environments that fell somewhere between velvet-lined egg crates and Lord of the Flies.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Stoddard. Iso’s father and I will make sure she understands the policy, and the consequences of violating it. It is subtle, as you say.”

The principal smiled, her pal again. “She is, at heart, a sweet child. And, however quickly children adjust, she has been through a big change. I wouldn’t wonder if she’s a little homesick for London, her old school. That would go a long way, I think, toward explaining her moods.”

“Her moods?” Eliza had thought that cranky Iso was a family phenomenon. She was su

“She seems a little distracted at times. But, as I said, I’m sure it’s just the dislocation. She’s doing really well in her classes.” The principal looked at her watch. “Speaking of which-there are only forty-five minutes left in the day. Why don’t you take her home? If I send her back to class, it will disrupt the teacher’s lesson.”

Eliza left the principal’s office, her homework tucked under her arm. She had to stop herself from reaching for her daughter’s hand, stroking her hair, fashioned in a perfect ponytail today. “Let’s go,” she said. And then, once out of the building: “We have time to get ice cream, if you like, before we pick up Albie.”

Iso regarded her mother suspiciously. “Ice cream?”

“Sure.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

Iso thought about this. “It wouldn’t be fair to Albie.”

“Not everyone has to get the same things all the time in order for life to be fair.”

Eliza had undermined her own sales pitch, referenced too directly to what was happening at school.

“I have a lot of homework. If we go home now, I could get started and you and Reba could walk up to Albie’s school as usual.”