The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.
The Boaz Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School . Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie. Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.
Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.
For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal. In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget. Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.
Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice. And, eternal friendship.
Chapter 8
Tuesday morning, I had just come from the basement when I overheard Sammie talking on the kitchen phone, “she’s downstairs writing but I’ll get her.”
“I’m right here.” Sammie turned from the stove and a large pan of sizzling bacon.
“It’s Darla. Wants to talk to you.”
I set my notebook on the kitchen table and took the old green wall receiver from Sammie. “Hello Darla.”
“Katie, come get me. I can’t stay here another day.”
“Now? I have to be at school in forty-five minutes.” I said, sitting down to a plate of eggs, bacon, and waffles.
“Ryan is here again, going through his father’s things. He’s in Raymond’s study. Justin Adams is with him.” Darla said, barely above a whisper.
“Dumb question. Why don’t you drive yourself? You have a car.” I said, feeling a headache coming on, the type I hadn’t felt since touching Warren’s hand when I palmed him my little two-word note last Sunday.
“I don’t have a car. Ryan took it somewhere a week ago.”
“Why did he do that?”
“Doctor’s orders. I was going to tell you, but you haven’t been by here. Saturday, a week ago Saturday, I passed out at Walmart. I was there with Nella. An ambulance came and carried me to the Emergency Room. The doctor still doesn’t know why I fainted.”
“I’ll send Sammie and we’ll talk about it tonight. I can’t afford to start being late. I have to work, you know.” I said, knowing what Darla was probably thinking. ‘You’ve never forgiven me for having it so easy.’
“Tell her to hurry. I’ve never seen Ryan so upset.”
Cullie and I arrived at school at our regular 6:30 time. At 7:35, as the last of the tenth graders were slogging in for my first period class, Mr. Wilkins shouted at me as he walked in the double doors at the back of the auditorium, “Katie, Miss Sims, you have a phone call. It sounds urgent.”
I walked as fast as I could to the back of the auditorium and across the hall to the School’s main office. Mrs. Overstreet, the office manager, motioned me behind the counter and pointed to her office. “You can take it in there. Press the flashing button.”
“Hello.” I expected it to be an impatient Darla saying that Sammie still hadn’t shown up. I knew Sammie would have to find a temporary sitter for Nanny. There was no way the caretaker would leave her ward unattended, even for the short time it would take to drive across town to Country Club.
“Katie, I can’t find her anywhere. I’m worried.”
“What do you mean? She’s at her house at the end of Lindo Drive.”
“When I got there, I rang the front door bell. Ryan came to the door. When I told him, I was there for Darla he said, ‘she went walking.’ I didn’t want to wait. That big beast gives me the creeps, so I got back in my car and started driving around.”
“What time did you get there and talk to Ryan?” I said trying to determine why Darla would go for a walk when she knew Sammie was coming to pick her up. She wasn’t that impatient.
“It was nearly 7:00. It took Verna almost an hour to show up to sit with Nanny.”
“You drove around the entire subdivision?” I asked a frantic Sammie.
“I did, twice. Then, I went back to Darla and Raymond’s, but Ryan was already gone. I guess, because no one would come to the door even though I rang the bell several times and kept pounding the front door.”
“Just go back home to Nanny. Darla probably saw a neighbor and is there now visiting and drinking coffee.” After I said this I realized how illogical it was. Why would Darla, before 6:00 a.m. this morning, be anxious to leave her and Raymond’s house and then up and go out walking after I told her I would send Sammie to pick her up? Even if she did that she wouldn’t become invisible by going inside a neighbor’s house. She’d just walk the neighborhood to be easily seen. Unless, Darla was like Nanny. Maybe Darla had dementia.
“I do need to get back. Verna has to sit with Basil Epps’ wife starting at 9:00.” Sammie said, the tone of her voice returning to its natural low calmness.
“Call my cell phone and leave a message when you hear from Darla.” I said, remembering I had seventy-five rowdy teenagers unattended in the auditorium.
By lunch I was feeling much better than yesterday. I had delivered my little speech to my first three classes. I had decided around midnight last night that I was going to be brave and bold and lay it all on the line. I was not going to allow the rampant apathy to dominate ninety-plus percent of my students. “Right now, every one of you have an F in my class, and that’s where your grade level will stay unless you give me your best efforts. Don’t think I won’t fail you.” That was the stick I used. Something in me said it wouldn’t do much good. But I had not ended my speech there. My carrot-talk followed. After I had every student stand. I separated them by gender. I had the boys stand along the front of the stage but down on the auditorium floor level. The girls stood single file down the right-side aisle. “Listen and listen good. Every one of you is damned right now.” I had stopped there and let silence and snickering bounce around the room. “That’s what you are, that’s what I am. All of Flannery O’Connor’s readers are damned, just like the characters in her stories. If we, as readers, will acknowledge this we can go on to relish her grotesque and unforgettable art of telling. The gist of that last sentence is taken from my favorite literary critic, Harold Bloom. I encourage you to seek him out.”
“In our story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, the grandmother’s mouth had gotten her killed. I want us to go on a journey, one filled with adventure. Literature can change your life for the good. The stories we will read offer gold nuggets.” For Ben Gilbert’s tenth grade class I had said, “If you prefer, these gold nuggets are mouth size pieces of filet mignon.” I had ended each of my three speeches with the trite but true statement, “food never tastes good unless you are hungry.”
There were two other things I had done after each of my three speeches. I told them they were going to have homework every night and that unless they invested quality time and attention into the completion of their assignments their final semester grade would never even be a D. “You will never learn to think without thinking, this takes time and attention. You have to invest to earn a decent return.” Also, I had described my teaching assistant positions, and assured everyone they would all help teach the class. I gave them a handout stating who were the initial thirty-seven teaching assistants and who were the students. These initial pairings would also serve as co-authors for the semester’s major writing assignment.
I gave the same talk and made the same assignments during the two afternoon classes, AP American Literature and Creative Writing. At 2:45, after the last student left my classroom, Cullie arrived and was hungry as a bear, as usual. She had just grabbed a Sprite from my refrigerator and pulled a bag of chips from my desk drawer when Mr. Wilkins came rushing into my room. “Katie, the police are here to see you. They are waiting in the main office.”
I instructed Cullie to stay put as I followed Patrick down the long hallway. He opened the outer door for me and said the two officers were in his office. He directed me around the counter and closed the door behind me as I walked into his large office with two tall and beefy young officers standing with their backs to the outside window.
“Miss Sims, I’m Officer Dixon and this is Officer Brown. I’m sorry to tell you that your mother, Darla Radford, has been found. She’s dead.” He just stood there looking at me for a few seconds and then lowered his eyes. Officer Brown never said a word.
“What happened? Where did you find her?” I said, not surprised that I wasn’t collapsing into a ball of tears. But I was troubled, even feeling guilty for not going to pick up Darla as she had asked me to this morning a little before 6:00.
“She was found at the edge of a pond off Pleasant Hill Cut-off Road. That’s about a half-mile from where her and Raymond lived. Right now, we are not exactly sure how she died.” Officer Dixon said turning a chair around for me to sit down.
“She had walked there?”
“We can’t say for sure. All we know is Ralph Williams found her. That’s his land. There was no car found and Mr. Williams said he didn’t see anything.”
“Where is she? Now?” I said not sure if she might be at the hospital just to make sure she was dead. My mind was retreating to a safe zone.
“Her body has been taken to Birmingham to the State Forensics Lab. It’s state law when this type thing happens. Autopsy required.”
“How did she look? Was she bleeding? Had she been hit? By a car or something?” I said, frantic to know anything.
For the first time, Officer Brown spoke. “There was no visible sign she had been traumatized. To be frank, she looked like she had simply gone to sleep. I was the first on the scene. Officer Dixon didn’t see her.”
I could have asked a dozen other questions but decided against it. “Thank you for coming and telling me. I need to see Cullie, my daughter, she’s in my classroom.”
“I understand. Here is my card if you have any other questions. I am very sorry for your loss.” Officer Dixon said as he walked by. Officer Brown tipped his hat at me and mouthed, ‘I’m sorry.’
When I came out of Wilkin’s office, he could tell something was wrong. I didn’t stop to explain but kept going. Halfway down the hall he caught up with me and took my arm as though I was going to faint. He led me all the way back to the door of my classroom and said, “Katie, if there is anything I can do please call me. Anytime is okay.” He handed me the School’s standard business card with his name and cell phone number written on the back. As he was giving me his card and offering his sympathy and support he had moved his left hand up on my shoulder. It had lingered too long, just long enough to give me that same eerie feeling I had yesterday when he was standing behind me at my desk and peering down my blouse.
When I walked into my classroom I could hear Cullie crying. Cindy came out when she heard me come in. Someway, someone had already shared the news. I shouldn’t have been, but was once again, surprised at how rapidly news traveled in a small town. Cullie was unsurprisingly strong. She wasn’t close to Darla even though to me it had always seemed she had cared more for her only granddaughter than she ever had me.
We left school and drove home, discussing nothing but how to share the bad news with Nanny.
The Pencil Driven Life 