Chapter 9: Respect and Rumors

"Mr. Grant, you’re too polite. You’re the pro—we’re just here to cheer from the bleachers."

Another parent chimed in: "Mr. Grant just got here, he must be super busy. Let’s not bug him."

"Yeah, we just got a little too excited."

"Mr. Grant, do your thing!"

Maybe it’s because it’s a private school and competition’s fierce, but the students here are super self-motivated. I settled in fast.

Meanwhile, back at Lincoln High, the new homeroom teacher for Room 6 wasn’t having an easy time either.

Barely a month in, and she got reported by the parents—just like me.

The reason? She didn’t answer a parent’s phone call.

Ms. Carter filled me in, so mad she was shaking:

"Because she didn’t answer, a parent marched up to school and slapped Ms. Monroe."

I was floored.

She actually hit her?

"Ms. Monroe was in the middle of class—how was she supposed to answer? And get this: the parent called just to ask her to top up his son’s lunch account. The kid’s old enough—can’t he handle it himself?"

I was silent.

That’s exactly the kind of thing those parents would do.

When I was there, Messenger had to be on 24/7, and I couldn’t ignore calls, even at 2 a.m.

If a student didn’t eat enough, drank too little water, or even had a dirty collar, it was my problem.

Some boarding parents even asked me to help wash their kid’s clothes, because their child never did laundry at home.

Looking back, maybe it was because I refused so many crazy requests that the parents were always mad at me.

And the parent who hit her? Mrs. Parker, of course.

Right in front of the whole class, she slapped the teacher, didn’t apologize, and then played the victim—she reported the teacher herself.

Nobody could believe it.

Young Ms. Monroe quit on the spot.

I quickly texted, "So how did the school respond?"

Word got around before lunch was even over—everyone from the janitor to the lunch ladies was talking about it. My mind raced with the absurdity—this wasn’t just a bad episode at some school across the ocean; it was a full-blown small-town American scandal, the kind that winds up on the evening news with teachers quietly packing their things and the community gossip mill working overtime. I stared at the phone, waiting for Ms. Carter’s reply, bracing myself for whatever fresh hell Lincoln High had cooked up next.