Erin Sommerset did her best to look much like your typical public high school principal. Her hair was always in a tight bun, her glasses had a thick black frame, and her makeup always leaned towards severe rather than cute or sexy. She wore professional clothing-suit pants, plain blouses, and matching blazers-and even if everything she wore fit well, it did nothing to flatter her figure. The one concession she made to her feminine side was her collection of three-inch heels. But then, that was more a matter of wanting that extra three inches, so that she could be at least a little closer to eye level than she was in flats.
And yet, despite her best efforts, Erin didn't look like your typical high school principal. Mostly, it was that she far younger than her actual twenty-five years of age. Her face still had that slight softness of youth that stayed even after all her babyfat had melted away, hiding her cheekbones and plumping out her lips. The strong prescription in her lenses made her green eyes look even larger, and they were already naturally big and round. Her hair was a was a bright, glossy red. Outside of the bun, it fell around her in waves rather than tight curls, and if not for her startlingly green eyes, splash of freckles on her cheeks, and healthy but pale skin, most would have been sure it was straight from a bottle. As it was, the jury was still out on whether the carpet matched the curtains. Worst of all though, she was short. Standing in heels, she could pass for 5'2.
She had given up counting the number of times she'd been mistaken for a student the first week of classes. The raised eyebrows and thinly pressed lips were worse though. When people looked at her, they didn't see a hardworking, gifted young woman with a Bachelors in Secondary Education and a freaking Doctorate in Educational Administration. They didn't see the days and nights spent studying, researching new methods outside of her college courses. They didn't see the stellar job she'd done with her student teaching job in a school best known for its number of gun related incidents.
Instead, they saw a little girl worming her way into their boy's club, her naive head filled with new age, touchy-feely nonsense about how best to run a school that didn't have a lick of application in the real world. It was enough to make her grind her teeth. Which, according to her dentist, was something she should stop doing quite so vigorously.
Today had been especially vexing. First, during the morning duty watching the students enter the building, a parent dropping off her child had pointed out that she wasn't dressed in uniform. Before lunch, the meeting with the School Board had been excruciating, with unanimous votes against funding all of her after-school initiatives. Worst of all, in 6th period there had been a call of a disturbance in the elderly Mrs. Abernathy's classroom. Two boys had gone from shouting increasingly descriptive profanity at one another to thrashing and fighting on the ground by the time she made it to the room.
There was a crowd of students surrounding the two boys, too dense-and tall-for her to see just what was happening, "Back to your seats, now!" She put as much of an edge into her voice as she could, but the students were slow to comply. Only a handful went back to their seats, but they did at least give her the space to make it through.
It took her a few seconds to recognize the two students with their faces twisted up in rage, but she'd memorized the entire student body within her first two weeks and their names floated up within her mind. Marcus and Daniel. Both were on the football team. That was her leverage, "If you two don't stop that this instant, neither of you is going to be playing in another game this season." She said calmly.
They ignored her. Marcus was choking Daniel, Daniel was driving his elbow into Marcus's ribs.
"I said, if you two don't stop fighting right now, you're off the football team!" Louder this time, enough that her voice started to crack.
Still they ignored her. She heard several students behind her giggle and chuckle. She took in a deep breath, prepared to scream at the top of her lungs...
...and then Charles entered, "Shut up and sit down!" His deep baritone came out in a wave over the classroom, pushing down every other sound and freezing everything for a long second before students hurried to their seats in a rush. Satisfied, he turned to the two boys, frozen like deer in the headlights. Both were still on the ground, but had their gaze fixed on him and neither was moving.
"Up. Get up!" They flinched in unison, then slowly rose up from the ground, the look on their faces saying that they'd have rather melted into the floor.
Charles Haydon stood at even height with the taller of the two senior boys, which meant he was head and shoulders taller than Erin. He didn't play football or lift weights every day, but he had the body of a man who was used to working with his hands, which made sense because he'd built houses for twenty solid years before becoming the Industrial Arts teacher a year ago. The work under the hot Texas sun had given him a permanent tan and a casual but stone solid strength. The way he carried himself, the way he spoke...no one in the room had any doubt that if the two hadn't stopped their fight, he would have done it for them.
"You should have listened to the lady." He said. Erin hoped she was the only one who had caught the slight catch in his speech before he'd said 'lady'.
She gave a huff, approached, mouthed a silent 'thank you,' to Charles, then spoke up to the classroom, sending the boy with one rapidly swelling eye-Daniel-to the nurse with two escorts, making sure Marcus was sent to his coach's office, that both of their mothers were called to come in, and that the class could settle down from the excitement. That last she didn't quite manage before the bell rang.
All in all, it had been an exhausting day. Back on evening duty, she was glad to see the last of the buses drive off. The student parking lot empty, she leaned herself against the wall and let out a sigh, trying to work the mental tension out of her system as her eyes slowly closed. She started thinking of tomorrow. A budget meeting, a presentation to the faculty on the importance of maintaining a consistent and stable discipline code...speaking with two angry parents about why their son had been in a fight. Lovely, just...
"Sleepy?"
For a big man, Charles could move very quietly. He'd said it was the years of hunting in the woods, but she wasn't so sure. She kept her eyes close as she relaxed, but she put in as much coldness in her voice as she had used in the classroom today, "You very nearly called me 'little lady' today, didn't you?"
"Guilty." The answer was warm, hiding a laugh he had too much control to let go of.
Erin punched Charles in the shoulder. Playfully. He'd made it clear that when she wasn't so playful she had very bony and sharp fists, "Bad enough you called me 'lady'. It's Ms. Somerset, or better yet...Principal Somerset."
