I look at the cartoon again, and despite myself, I grin. She probably thinks this is going to make me angry, but it’s almost cute. If she’s trying to provoke me into quitting she’s not doing it very well. Ten years in the army and the SAS means I can take a lot of harassment and bad attitude. I find the bin in the kitchen and throw the cartoon away, resolving to pretend I never saw it.

The clock on the oven reads half-past seven when I turn the coffee maker on. I’m the first downstairs, and once the coffee is brewed I lean against the counter, drinking from a mug and mentally running through the day ahead. Mr. Westley arranged for all the mail to be held at the post office the previous day and the letterbox has been nailed shut. Adrienne has classes from nine until twelve, which means we can pick up the mail together on the way home.

Her open folio is lying on a bench, a sketchbook poking out. She tried to show me something in the library the previous day, calling me “goon” to get my attention. While the cartoon was cute, the insult was not. Pulling out the sketchbook, I flip through it, searching through pastel landscapes and sketches of magical creatures. There’s something sad or grim about most of her pictures. A fairy who’s had her wings shorn off. The grim reaper standing by a news kiosk, absorbed in her father’s paper. A diptych of a girl being hounded by an angry, red-faced crowd, and then ignored as she beseeches them. If these drawings are a glimpse into Adrienne’s head, she’s not a happy young woman.

Finally, I reach the most recent page. The drawing depicts a girl in long robes, a look of ghoulish triumph on her face as she holds aloft a severed head. Its eyes are rolled upward in death. I recognize my own features again and, grimacing, put the sketchbook away.

She doesn’t speak to me when she comes downstairs. I don’t push her; silence is preferable to tantrums and insults. She’s wearing two pairs of ripped stockings, one black and one pastel pink. A black velvet hairband is holding the pink curls back. I catch her staring at me when I look up from the Herald that’s spread open on the kitchen bench, and her features pinch into a scowl and she looks away.

After she’s had coffee and cereal we head out the door in silence. Half a dozen journalists are there, yelling questions and snapping pictures. Providing that there’s no fresh scandal they should dwindle over the next day or two. The hate mail should start to dry up as well, and if no fresh threat crops up in the meantime like vandalism or stalking I could be starting my next job within the fortnight. I consider with pleasure the moment I’ll be able to tell Mr. Westley my services are no longer required.

Throughout the day, Adrienne deflects questions about me from her classmates. I take note of who talks to her and who watches her while she’s not looking, and memorize as many faces as possible so I’ll know them if they crop up where they perhaps shouldn’t later on, like outside her house or on the street. There are two women and one man, all around nineteen or twenty, whom she seems most intimate with. She doesn’t seem to join in on their jokes, though, and gives one-word answers to their questions.

On the drive home in the afternoon I break the silence between us. “Who are your friends?” I ask, hoping to glean some names.

She’s slouched down in her seat, staring out the passenger side window. “What?”

“The people you sat with at lunch. The girl with the blue satchel and the girl in the red dress, and the young man in the check shirt.”

“They’re called Mind Your Own Business, Get Stuffed and What’s It To You.”

There is only one situation in my life in which a pretty young woman would address me with such rudeness, and that’s when my sub is looking for a spanking. I haven’t had a sub in months, but I’m itching to pull the car over and give Adrienne a dressing down. Do you want to rethink what you just said to me, babygirl?

Principal, not sub, I remind myself. Just let it go.

A few blocks from the house I pull up beside the post office. “We need to collect the post. It’s being held here for the time being. Let’s go.”

“Can’t you get it yourself?”

I give her a bland smile and wait. When she doesn’t move, I say, “I can sit here all day, you know.”

Rolling her eyes, she gets out of the car. While I find the right box and dig the key out of my pocket she tails after me, chewing her bubblegum noisily. There are a dozen letters in the box and I take them out without looking at them. Back in the car I put them all in the center console and close the lid. I’ll sort the regular mail from the hate mail in the privacy of my bedroom. Adrienne doesn’t need to see these fresh threats.

But she seems to have other ideas. “Wait, I saw my name. Can I have my letters?”

She reaches to open the console but I lean a heavy elbow on it. “You don’t want to read these.”

“They’re addressed to me. It’s my mail.”

I’m sure her indignation is more about me telling her that she can’t have something than it is about wanting the letters. She needs to know that I’m going to push back on some things, for her sake, and this seems like a good place to start.

Besides, not getting her own way for once might be good for her. Professional or personal instinct? a little voice wonders. I ignore it.

“These aren’t nice letters, Adrienne. They won’t make pleasant reading.”

Her teeth are set and I can see she’s gearing up for a full-on tantrum. “How dare you try and interfere with mail getting to the right person. Isn’t that, like, a criminal offense? You don’t get to censor my contact with the world without my permission.”

I’ve had other clients who have asked to be made aware of every threat, every piece of internet abuse and every nasty letter. It’s their prerogative, but first I explain how mentally wearing it will be for them to read all the hate and violence, and they usually change their mind. Adrienne is beyond listening to explanations. She just wants a thing that I’m denying her, and I know she’s seen enough of the threats already and there’s nothing to be gained by her poring over more. It could actually be quite harmful. I remember all the sad pictures she’s drawn and while I detest what a sullen brat she’s been with me, I feel a flash of pity for her. She’s a talented young woman and probably a fun and imaginative one when she’s happy.

“I said no, Adrienne.”

As she splutters her outrage I start the car and pull away from the curb, an uneasy feeling in my belly. That was a professional decision, wasn’t it? Either way I’ve got a spitting-mad principal on my hands, and angry principals have a habit of acting without thinking.

Nice one, Dieter. Way to make an impossible job even harder.

That evening I can feel tension simmering in the air like the pressure before a summer storm. Mr. Westley seems to be oblivious to it as he talks through his day at the Herald. Adrienne’s not listening as she revolves through the television channels. Her expression is tight and set and her eyes aren’t focused on the screen.

I lurk in an armchair to one side, reading emails and the news on my phone. She’s plotting something, I can feel it, and this time it’s not going to be as innocuous as a cartoon. But what?

Tags: Brianna Hale Erotic
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