When rookie teacher Todd Hunter greets his first class of ninth graders, he sees in half of their faces bed-time stories and good-night kisses, piano lessons and 4-H clubs.  In the other half, he sees ducking and dodging, flinching and hiding, last picked and first kicked.  At that moment, Todd determines to make the bruised and beaten half of his class more like the cheerful, confident half.  Somehow, some way, he’s going to make the pelicans soar with the eagles.

But it’s a long and rocky journey that is further complicated when one student commits suicide and another mysteriously disappears and Todd is the prime suspect.  Replete with insights into the art of teaching as well as the art of living a teacher’s life, Todd Hunter’s unique story is a microcosm of all those who wear the mantle of our nation’s most highly criticized, underpaid, underappreciated, and yet absolutely indispensable profession:  Teacher.

EXCERPT

Brubaker remains glued to his cushioned swivel chair when I enter the office, his nose buried in a fan of documents, as if he were playing poker with giant cards. I hand him my keys. He nods. No handshake, no smile. Just his grim, grandpa frown.  For a moment I think he’s on the verge of saying something, so I hesitate, waiting for my red rose moment, but his iron jaw remains locked. I briefly consider throwing the last punch, slinging the final word, but why bother? In another thirty seconds, I’ll be gone and Tom Brubaker will be like the memory of a bad meal at an over-priced restaurant:  annoying, insignificant, nothing to lose sleep over. 

Apparently Brubaker’s the one who can’t resist landing the final blow. My fingers are on the doorknob when he plays his final hand: a royal straight flush. “By the way,” he says, “they’re re-opening the Abernathy case.”

Against my better judgment, I look back. “Abernathy?  That thing’s as cold as Antarctica.”

“I guess they’ve found some new information.” Brubaker smiles meanly. “I just thought I’d give you a heads up—as a professional courtesy.”

“Thanks,” I say, “for the professional courtesy.” 

“You may be hearing from Captain Walters.”

I answer with a shrug. “So what’s new? Déjà vu all over again?”

I twist the knob, saunter through the abandoned foyer, and stride down the hall, smiling as if I’ve just been set free, but it’s all show for an audience of one, hunch-backed Mr. Potter, the other custodian, standing with mop and bucket outside the men’s room.  He waves enthusiastically, and I reciprocate in kind.  Still smiling, strutting, I push through the double-glass doors, raising my forearm to fend off a blast of early summer sun.  I am now officially a stranger, part of the general hoi polloi called The Public or The Community.  If I walk through those doors again, I’ll be required to check in at the office, state my official business, sign the register, and clip to my shirt pocket a plastic badge labeled VISITOR.  

But I’m not really thinking about this so much—not in the wake of Brubaker’s little bombshell.  I try to maintain my confident gait as I stride across the asphalt lot towards my pick-up, parked in “my spot,” just to the right of a tall ponderosa pine that for the past decade has faithfully cloaked my vehicle in afternoon shade. I pull open the door, climb inside, and close the windows. I take a long, deep, Amy-inspired yoga breath, followed by two more, but my heart continues pounding like a drumroll as beads of sweat colonize my forehead and my armpits. The parking lot is empty except for a handful of cars parked in the faculty section near the main building, including Brubaker’s ruby red Buick.  I’m alone. So I close my eyes, and, for the first time in more years than I care to remember, I relive that seemingly innocuous Indian summer morning in mid-October 1974. 

I’d been an energetic young science teacher at Ponderosa Junior High School who the previous weekend had hiked the Grand Canyon from rim-to-rim-to rim, forty-four grueling, switch-backing miles in one day. With five years of experience under my belt, I was confident in my classroom and well-respected by my fellow teachers, young and old. Several had already tagged me as one of the rising young stars in the school district, destined someday for administrative glory. 

It was a beautiful morning:  spotless blue skies, a green and gold tapestry shrouding the peaks, the first rays of sun melting the frost on the grassy playing fields to a magical mist. A half-hour before the first bell, the school was empty except for the custodian—a much younger Bob Garcia--tidying up the commons, and a few early bird teachers and panic-stricken procrastinators frantically copying worksheets on the mimeograph machine in the faculty workroom, inhaling those deliriously dreadful, brain-buzzing fumes. 

As I placed study guides and plastic beakers on the rectangular Formica-coated tables that checkered my classroom, my solitude was interrupted by a voice, soft, apologetic, a whisper: "Mr. Hunter?"

When I turned, my eyes met those of a tall, skinny, wraith-like girl with straight, dishwater blond hair hanging just below her shoulders, the bangs cut straight above shiny brown eyes. A plain cotton dress spotted with delicate little red and blue blossoms drooped to the middle of her broomstick thighs.  Hands cupped nervously in front of her, she looked timid and fragile, like a dry flower that would crumble on contact.

I smiled, trying to set her at ease.  "Hello, Jennifer."

She stared at her shoes--scuffed up white sneakers with tiny holes like eyes peering through the canvas.  She had a kind of waifish charm, like an orphan in a fairy tale, the Little Match Girl. 

"Mr. Hunter, I need to tell you something,” she said, then paused. "You have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?"

Until that moment, I’d known her only as a shy, quiet girl who never spoke in class unless called upon, and then her answers had been short, telegraphic: yes, no, maybe.  She rarely talked to the other kids, at best smiling uncomfortably at their adolescent jokes about sex, drugs, and other forbidden fruits.  But her test scores were above average, and her assignments were completed diligently and submitted promptly, so I’d assumed she was paying attention in class.  

I knew I had to be careful: if I said no, she might clam up and go elsewhere, nowhere, or do who knows what?   If I said yes, I might end up later breaking my promise or going to jail and in my mind the former is worse than the latter.

She waited, her big brown eyes filled with a pathetic mixture of disbelief and dread.  I’d seen those eyes before, on a big cow elk on Anderson Mesa, nibbling on the frosted grass at sunrise, chewing it like broken glass.  Sensing danger, she had twisted her head, staring at me for what had seemed a timeless instant before I finally released the fatal arrow.  No kid, no child her age, should have eyes like that. Not that young.  

"Well, Jennifer, I don't know if I can do that. It might be something I have to tell."

She looked down.  "Then I won't tell you."  She turned to go, but I caught her gently by the arm.

"Wait. Let's compromise, can we do that? You tell me what it is, and then I'll talk about whether or not I have to tell and what we can do about it. Can we do that? Is that fair?"

She nodded slowly, tentatively, a wooden head suspended by a string. And then she began walking.

I followed her down the aisle and back into the privacy of the storage area, where we were surrounded by shelves of Erlenmeyer flasks, obsolete microscopes, and the noxious smell of formaldehyde.  She turned her back to me and, before I could stop her, reached behind her neck, unbuttoned her dress, and let it drop to her waist.