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It had to happen eventually. Bobby stared at his class rosters with dismay. In a small school, you got to know kids by reputation, if nothing else, so if you taught juniors and seniors, there were very few strangers walking into your class the first week of school.
This year’s junior class was, supposedly, a very good one. Out of fifty-three students, there were only three that he’d heard of getting in trouble for anything more than typical teenage distractions – cell phones out during class, talking while the teacher was talking, passing notes, being a little too excited about having a new boyfriend or girlfriend and engaging in PDA, being too excited about the warm weather and forgetting that the dress code still applied, sleeping in class, the usual. The typical mix of overachievers, underachievers, people who weren’t the best students but worked so hard you’d never know it, and people who were just doing what they had to do if they wanted to play football or participate in FFA.
Then there were these three.
Bela had moved here from Britain back around sixth grade and never lost the accent. She used it to her advantage, charming the boys out of whatever it was she wanted and the girls out of getting mad at her for flirting with their boyfriends. Freshman year, two hundred dollars had gone missing from a concession stand. No one could prove it was Bela, no one had seen her taking the money, but she’d been working and everyone just “knew” she’d taken it. The same thing had happened sophomore year. Junior year, with basketball concession stands, the plan was to keep a close eye on her. Much easier with only four or five kids around than with twelve to fifteen.
Like Bela, Ruby was a charmer. She was more targeted, though. She’d pick one kid, usually an older boy with other issues, and get him to do all kinds of things. At school, she was perfectly behaved, but outside of school, she was suspected of being a drug addict. The boys she “dated” would buy her alcohol, give her money that she could use to get other drugs, and get sucked in until they were either bled dry or didn’t need her bad influence anymore because they were hooked on drugs themselves.
Meg didn’t bother with the charm. Not that she couldn’t, she was just much more straightforward. She preferred to sass. She was much more straightforward in her hoodlumry, staying out late, sleeping through class, getting into fights and instigating fights between others. She’d been arrested a couple times for vandalism, everyone knew but couldn’t prove that she was the one who spray-painted the football field the night before homecoming to read TIGERS SUCK – their team, of course, being the Tigers; their opponents were the Whirlwinds.
Of course, Bobby was the only junior history teacher, so there was no way to avoid having them in class. In a better world, they’d be split between sections. In this one… no such luck. 3rd period, he had all three of the girls. As bad as they could be individually, the three of them together were a nightmare.
Talking. Giggling. Doing each other’s hair and makeup and the like. That was typical teenage girl stuff, fine. Making out in class was hardly necessary, and they would. To make it worse, if you called them on it, they’d call you homophobic and throw a giant fit. Bobby wasn’t too worried about the homophobic charge. One of his adopted sons had a boyfriend, and his stepdaughter had a girlfriend. He wasn’t even sure if the three girls were actually dating each other, or just making out for the attention and the disruption it caused. They fed off of each other and could disrupt a class in 30 seconds if they were determined to.
Administration didn’t help much. Lilith, the principal, was Ruby’s mother. She refused to see her daughter as anything but a perfect little angel, even when other students and other parents complained. Bela and Meg were covered, too. If any other student had dared to behave the way those three did, the vice principal Alastair would put a stop to it quickly, but they could probably get away with anything short of murder.
Maybe it was for the best that they were all in one class. It meant two more drama-free classes than he’d hoped for. Getting through one class a day… he could do that, probably. He could try.