Tina took the left corridor and Helena the right. The blonde one went straight to her janitor’s closet-size office and dropped her head on her desk. She had been lying to Helena. She knew that Bette Porter had gym on Tuesdays third hour, she knew they would play basketball outside because Tim had told her about his plans for that day.

What was going on with her? Why did she feel this desperate need to go and see a student she had never even taught? She didn’t know the girl at all. Of course, Tim told her how good of a runner she was and how excellent she was at basketball and Helena had told her how intelligent and motivated she was, how it was a pleasure teaching her, how hard she worked. Tim had also told her that he had tried really hard to talk her into doing tryouts for the basketball team, but she had refused, thinking she wasn’t good enough. Helena had told her how she didn’t seem to be able to take a compliment, how she always reasoned it away. She really had a low self-esteem and Tina was determined to find out why. She needed to talk to William Barney – Bette’s history teacher – first and then do that trick with Jodi.

#

“Why do you want to switch classes?” William asked, his brows furrowed.

Tina sighed deeply. “I just can’t handle those guys anymore. Josh Breckner, Taylor Martin, Eric Anderson – I don’t feel comfortable teaching them. They are making sexual remarks all the time in an unrespectful way and everybody goes along with it. There’s no sense in talk to them, punishing them, being firm. They just laugh at me more and also tell me that it is really hot when I get angry… and what follows, you don’t want to know.”

“Have you talked to Jodi about this?”

“No, but William… can you please do me this favour? It’s not like I didn’t try… and I don’t want to appear weak to them either, or give them the feeling they won. I’m just tired of it, really. They don’t take me seriously and you do have a reputation of being a badass teacher.”

“So I would take that class… what about their hours? You’re going to work less than your contract tells you to?”