Page 113 of The Outsider
“Great,” I answered, and I marked her homestead on the map. “More specifically, Melanie, you livehere. Right near the lake—I’m jealous.”
She giggled, and her father sitting next to her gave a shy smile. We went through everyone’s place on the map, introduced the concept ofgeography, and why it was important to know where things were.
I introduced John as an outrider, and we went over what he did and why before letting the kids ask questions.
“Is it ever boring, riding around all the time?” a little boy called Omar asked, looking skeptical. “I’d be bored.”
John grinned. “Sometimes. I play a lot of I-Spy with myself. Other times, I think about my family, who I’m protecting by doing my job. That usually helps.”
He gave me a warm glance, and a few of the kids, particularly the girls, smiled. Better yet, their parents looked a lot less wary and more engaged. It’s working.
Noon came faster than I could’ve ever predicted, and class ended. I waited by the door as everyone filed out, and to my delight, several of the parents stopped to speak with me, praising the lesson and promising that their kids would return tomorrow. At the end of the line was a dark-haired woman with a young son, who she sent ahead of her, out of the room, before turning to speak to me.
My stomach flipped.
“Excuse me, we haven’t formally met,” she said, extending her hand. Tentatively, I shook it. “I’m Alice Wang.”
Wang.That was one of the families that wouldn’t let Asha and me through their gate and forced us to wait outside. My guard immediately rose.
“I just wanted to apologize,” she said, making a face. “For treating you so coldly when you first arrived. The class you just taught was great; you’re a gifted teacher. I hope you’ll consider staying on, and ifthe council gives you trouble…well, just know I’ll be supporting you. I haven’t seen Jace that engaged in school before.”
“Oh,” I replied, a little taken aback. “Well, I appreciate your support. I hope you’ll tell the other parents about the class, so more will come.”
“I certainly will. Have a good day.”
She left me standing in surprised silence, and John walked over with a proud smile. He’d been just outside, talking to some of the parents.
“Told you,” he said in a low voice. “You’re a superstar.”
I laughed. “I don’t know about that, but at least it seems to have softened my image a bit.”
“You are,” he insisted. “Finally seeing you up there? I get it. You’re sweet, and knowledgeable, and kind. You hold the room, but not in a commanding way; your authority comes from how well you come across. Like you’ve been doing it forever.”
I shrugged. “I mean, before a year ago, this was what I did every day for four years. It’s like muscle memory. I just know what to do.”
He nodded. “Not gonna lie, it was kind of sexy, too.”
I endured another full-blown belly laugh. “Now you’re just being silly.”
“Nothing silly about a woman in charge,” John replied with a flirtatious smile. “Can’t wait to see you do it all again.”
Weeks passed, and every day, more kids showed up for class, even from families who’d been more than a little reluctant to accept me. Their desire for their children to be educated—and realistically, safely out of the house for a few hours every day—overrode their suspicion and dislike in the end, especially because they usually stayed for the first lesson.
More and more, the children opened up and enjoyed learning. Without regular school, they’d been criminally understimulated and ultimately, bored. They ate up the lessons I planned and asked for more, and I was happy to oblige. They were intelligent, and sweet, and unusually well-behaved compared to compound kids, likely becausethey’d been doing disciplined farm work almost since birth. Over a few weeks, I’d grown fond of all of them, and perhaps the most surprising thing of all was that the feeling seemed mutual.
I painted a mural on the back wall of the schoolroom, recreating a more elaborate version of the map of the Valley that I’d drawn on the chalkboard. I kept it cartoonish and fun, with little pictures of the farmhouse at each homestead in its place on the map. I let the kids write their family names beneath each house, adding a personal touch to it, which they loved.
There were a few naysayers who showed up to essentially heckle us, but Jenna insisted on dealing with them. Firecracker that she was, she told them quite plainly where they could stick their complaints. Nevertheless, I knew a reckoning must be coming, and on one morning in early April, the elder Jameson was waiting in front of the schoolroom door when I opened it to invite the class inside. Heedless of the crowd of children and parents behind him, he started talking before I’d even greeted him.
“You’ve been running an unauthorized school program, never approved by the council,” he said firmly. “You are not a qualified teacher, and this is not a real class. You’ve appropriated our schoolroom for illegal purposes. You’ll stop now, or you’ll jeopardize your probationary status in this community.”
I could’ve heard a pin drop with how quiet it got.
“If it’s illegal, where’s Danny?” Jenna asked, crossing her arms. “Have him arrest us. Me, too, since I’ve been just as much a part of this as Claire has.”
“This is not your concern, child,” Jameson spit back. “You are not an outsider.”
“He’s not here,” Jenna continued, growing louder, “because there is nothing illegal about what we’re doing. We’ve never claimed to be an official school program; this is a voluntary program that anyone isfreeto attend or not. And I didn’t realize that things only became illegal when outsiders did them. I can’t say I remember my brother ever telling me that.”
