1.
The land between the rivers, in Southern Illinois, it's called Little Egypt. There are coal mines, corn fields and enumerable small towns, that you don't know about unless you're from there.
A little bit north of there is the land between the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, it's called the Kingdom.
Trenton was right on the Illinois River, with the river on one side and the bluffs, or small hills on the other.
The high school in Trenton was back away from the water and was situated right below one of the bluffs, in case one of the floods that happened periodically would occur.
It was a small high school, and one of the math teachers, a Mr. Steinkuler got sick with a serious kidney ailment in late July 1984, right before the semester started.
He had ten year, so they couldn't replace him, and then the school board in August started looking around for a permanent substitute who could be there the whole fall semester and then maybe the spring semester as well.
They interviewed people for a couple of weeks and finally settled on a Ms Grandquist, a twenty seven year old part time teacher who had been subbing mostly around the St Louis area.
She had a connection to the area, which was probably why in the end she was hired, her uncle had owned a house right on the river, that she and her sister had inherited. They came there once in while in the summer.
The semester was starting in late August and Ms Grandquist was taking over all of the classes Steinkuler was scheduled to teach.
2.
Ms Grandquist arrived early for her first day, and sat in the teacher's lounge preparing her notes.
She was brainy enough and knew her onions about algebra. She was wearing glasses she really didn't need to make herself look older. Nevertheless, she still looked like she came right off the cheer leading squad. Fair skinned, a natural blond, medium height and leggy with a cute butt and nice chest without being stacked, she had a cute pouty mouth.
Ms Grandquist felt self conscious about not seeming old enough for these kids.
The kids were all lined up in front of their lockers, taking on the first day of school.
Terry Kells didn't want to be there, he didn't like school, he was older than many of the other kids but he didn't look it. He had pneumonia twice in the third grade and they had made him repeat it, so he had turned eighteen May 29, three months before school had started.
He had on jeans and a blue button down shirt. He was a baby faced kid with a good complexion, nice nose and a pretty mouth.
His first class was college algebra with a substitute teacher that nobody knew anything about, he got the textbook out, grabbed a notebook, checked his pencils and forced himself to head for the classroom.
The room had eighteen people in it besides him, he sat down in the far left side in the front.
In a little bit there was a blond headed girl who came in and began fiddling around with the teacher's desk, what was she doing that for?
Terry almost said something to her, and then it hit him, could that be the teacher?
He looked at her again more closely, yes she seem older than high school, but not really teacher like.
Terry stared at her and started to get an erection, when she turned around and he got a better look at her, she was gorgeous.
Wow! He thought to himself, little Miss Hotstuff.
In a little bit he noticed her checking her watch, then she said, "I'd like to introduce myself, I'm Ms Grandquist, I'm going to be teaching this class I think for most of the school year."
Then she went on to take roll.
Teery listened to her speak, she had a very clear and high voice, almost like a bell.
Ms Grandquist got up and stood in front of the desk and then walked around in front of it, explaining how the grades would be computed and quizzes and such.
Terry took notes, he also noticed she wasn't looking at anybody, and wondered if she was nervous.
While she had been walking back and forth, Miss Thing had dropped a pen on the floor, she hadn't noticed it and Terry picked it up.
After class was over Terry walked up to the teacher's desk with the pen.
Terry walked up to Ms Grandquist's desk, he would have rather been anywhere else, in the gym, at home, in the Arena watching the Blues, but nevertheless, he forced himself to approach Miss Hotstuff. Miss Thing made him nervous.
"I think you dropped this on your way to the blackboard," Terry said.
Terry held the pen out.
She stuck her hand out to take it without really looking at him, focusing on the pen.
She wasn't sure she wanted to deal with a kid, the first day, so she began to give a brusque thank you.
She hadn't really looked at the class that much, as she was nervous and wanted to be aloof and professional and all.
So she glanced at the kid standing in front of her.
She did a double take that he didn't notice, her mouth fell open until she remembered to shut it.
The kid had a very nice looking face, in fact he was one of the best looking kids Sally had ever seen. He was five eleven and wiry, skinny but strong looking, with blond wavy hair.
She smiled at the kid and said, "I'm Sally Grandquist, and you are..."
"Terry Kells," the kid said.
"Well hi Terry, do you like math?" she asked.
"Yeah, here and there," he replied.
Sally almost giggled at him, like when she was fourteen and in the presence of a cute guy.
"I'm very glad to meet you Ms Grandquist," Terry said.
"Hey it's nice to meet you," she said.
The kid didn't say anything for a few seconds, then he said, "You're not from around here are you?" he asked.
"Well, I've been living in Fenton Missouri," Sally replied, "my sister and I own a house here, and we come in the summer sometimes."
Terry said, "Welcome to The Kingdom."
Sally giggled at him, "The Kingdom of what?"
"I know, the Kingdom of Jones," she said facetiously.
"No, the Kingdom of Calhoun, I believe," Terry replied.
"Oh," she said with mock seriousness.
"The Kingdom of Jones," she said laughing again.
Why was she laughing so much? He only half understood, if that, that women laugh when they're interested.
She was laughing at him!
Well, she was, but not in the way he thought.
"I need to go," he said, "I'm really glad you're going to be our teacher."
"It's nice to meet you too," Sally said, smiling at the fresh faced kid.
Terry walked out the door and went down the hallway to his locker, he was completely jazzed, as only an eighteen year old boy can be. Ms Grandquist didn't seem like a teacher at all, but rather a pretty, sexy, reasonably intelligent college girl. He felt like somebody had shot a lightning bolt into his head, he could hardly think. How in the hell was he going to concentrate on college algebra like this?
Is it hot in here? Sally asked herself as she got ready for her next class. I need to go out and get some fresh air or something.
She walked down the steps and stood on the sidewalk for a few minutes.
3.
"I'm having trouble with this x³ + 27," Terry said.
Sally replied, "Remember to keep factoring, you can take an x + 3 out of it, always try to factor if you can.
The night before Terry had gone to the movies in Alton with Sandy Black, a girl from the school, and had seen Ms Grandquist there with Mr. Matson, another teacher from Trenton High.
The movie had been Body Double, an erotic thriller.
"Did you like the movie," Terry asked Ms Grandquist after class.
"No, not really."
"You didn't, I thought it was great, it was one of the best movies I've ever seen," Terry said.
Sally said, "No, I didn't really like it, it was way too weird, the only part I liked was the part with Jake and Gloria at the beach, and the music, the music was great."
"Uh huh," Terry replied.
"Harry wanted to go, he's a big fan of Brian De Palma," Sally said.
"Yes, me too," Terry replied.
Terry paused a minute and then asked, "Do you have a favorite movie Ms Grandquist?" Terry asked.
"Yes, Where The Boys Are," she said.
"What, you mean the beach movie?" he asked somewhat surprised.
"Yes."
He started to laugh and didn't, realizing that she was serious.
"Well, that's nice," he replied.
Yes," she said, smiling faintly.
"I'm going to take off now, I'll see you later," he said.
"Bye Terry."
Terry tried to look for reasons to talk to Ms Grandquist, he found her fascinating, she was older and hot. Still, he was intimidated by the situation too.
Sally for her part, had tried various times to get him to see that she liked him, and that he should hit on her, and should not be bashful about it.
It went on like this for much of the fall semester.
Once, just after Halloween, he had been having trouble with cube root fractions, and Ms Grandquist had helped him, then suggestively said, she had a private tutoring lesson for him if he wanted it.
This blew his mind too, but he hadn't known what to say to that.
4.
Terry had hit on the idea that he would make a homemade Christmas card for Ms Grandquist in the hope that it would please her.
The last day of class before the Christmas break he waited until the other kids had left the classroom and came in with it.
Sally looked at the piece of paper, it was a well drawn inked picture of Santa up in the sky with two people down below looking up and waving.
"Well, this is just great Terry, I didn't know you drew," Sally said.
"Yeah, it's a hobby," he replied nervously.
"I can't draw, you did very well," she said.
"It's a Christmas card," Terry said.
"Well, thank you very much," she said.
She had a flirty face and she put it on in a half of a second.
Sally smiled her best smile, she was totally charged up that he had spent so much time making her a present.
"This is excellent!" she cooed at him.
Sally sighed.
Then she noticed, something was wrong, she could see it, he was staring at the floor.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"Nothing, I just got to go do some shopping in Alton, I'm late," Terry said quickly.
"Well this is really nice," she said touching his arm, "it's just beautiful."
What in the world was wrong?
What the hell was wrong? Sally asked herself.
He expected something in return! That was it!
It hit her hard, like she had been shoved.
"Well, I'm very grateful," she said, "you took so much time and all."
"Yeah, well sure, I gotta go now," Terry said.
"You have a nice Christmas," he said heading for the door.
"You too, have a great Christmas."
He shut the door and then she hit her forehead softly with the back of her palm, "Goddammit," she said.
Terry walked down the fairly empty hallways and stared at the closed lockers, sometimes all the crap in the world shows up in one spot all at once.
They had been friendly enough that he had dared to hope that she might at least give him a card or more, and now he was crushed. It was stupid, he knew it was stupid, teachers have more to think about than one student. Just because he had a crush on an attractive older woman didn't mean that she was going to spend a lot of time worrying about him.
He felt dumb and disappointed at the same time.
There were cute older male teachers around there she could date, ones she had, like Mr. Matson, and other guys in town, hell they always find somebody!
He shouldn't have done the drawing or planned at all on getting anything. He had to get to the car before he broke down.
