Bobby Blanchard, Lesbian Gym Teacher

by Monica Nolan

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Missing Locket

  “I have a special request to make,” the Headmistress announced at breakfast the next morning. “A valuable gold locket has been lost by one of our students. I’m asking everyone in the Metamora community to keep a vigilant lookout for a heart-shaped locket on a sixteen-inch pearl and platinum chain. If you should happen to find it, please turn it over to any staff member without further ado. Thank you.”

  Miss Craybill sat down and immediately a buzz of chatter started up around the dining hall.

  “So, you haven’t found your necklace yet?” Bobby asked Kayo absentmindedly.

  She was thinking about her encounter with Laura just before breakfast. The Art Mistress had been hanging her corduroy car coat on a hook in the cloakroom when Bobby came up behind her and slipped her arms around the Art Mistress’s sweater-clad waist. “Good morning, Laura,” she murmured into her neck.

  Laura whirled out of her grasp, stumbling backwards over Madame Melville’s fur-lined boots. “Bobby! Not here,” she said hastily. “Ken’s back.”

  Bobby’s whole body sagged in disappointed disbelief. “What about his mound?” she protested.

  “It wasn’t a real mound, just some farmer with a pile of dirt and some fake arrowheads he wanted to sell. I’m sorry, but—”

  “Honeybun.” Ken poked his head through the doorway, interrupting their low-toned conversation. “We’re at the table by the window.”

  “I’m coming,” Laura said brightly. “See you later, Bobby.” She threw an apologetic glance over her shoulder at the forlorn Games Mistress as she hurried after her husband.

  Now Bobby watched Ken and Laura eating their scrambled eggs and sausages with a familiar sense of frustration. This was just like college—eyeing her paramour from across a room, waiting for the next stolen moment. And even worse, Ken wasn’t a date, he was Laura’s husband!

  “What?” asked the gym teacher with a start. Kayo was saying something. She pulled her gaze away from Laura and turned to her team captain, sitting, as usual, at her left.

  “I said, no, I haven’t found it,” said Kayo. Her eyes slid to look at Angle at the far end of the table. Angle was shoveling eggs into her mouth with her usual wolfish appetite.

  “You didn’t happen to notice anything, did you, Lotta?” Bobby asked perfunctorily. As usual, the Savages’ faithful water girl was sitting across from Angle, paying more attention to her idol than her own breakfast. She jerked around, dropping her fork. “I didn’t see anything, Coach!” She gulped.

  Before Bobby had time to wonder at Lotta’s uneasiness, Beryl said, “I just hope that whoever ‘found’ it has the decency to turn it in—which I doubt!”

  “Beryl, that’s a terrible insinu—insinu—suggestion,” Bobby reproved the boisterous right wing. “Metamora’s honor code is sacred to all the girls.”

  Abruptly, Angle pushed her chair back and stalked out of the dining hall. Lotta scrambled after her.

  “Angle, Lotta! You forgot to excuse yourselves,” Bobby called after them. “Seems like everyone’s gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!”

  It was a relief when the sound of scraping chairs across the dining hall signaled a general exodus. Bobby let the room empty around her as she sipped her second cup of coffee.

  Saturday mornings, after room inspection, the students of Metamora spread over the campus like a flock of chattering magpies. The common rooms were always full of girls playing bridge, doing their nails, and gossiping. Even as the days grew more chilly, a group of determined sunbathers continued to stake out the sloping lawn behind Somerset, the library, while inside that building studious girls whispered to each other as they wandered the dim stacks. Artistic girls painted in Jersey, literary girls congregated in the Tower Chimes office in Cumberland. Before lunch Bryce would lead a nature walk for the Green Thumb club, and after the midday meal Mona would drive the blue bus, filled with girls who had town privileges, to Adena in time for the Bijou’s matinee.

  And at 3:30 the Savages would gather for field hockey practice. Bobby propped her chin on her hand, feeling glum. How would she fill the hours until then? The “art lesson” with Laura was clearly canceled. Next to last night’s delights, the daily routine that usually satisfied her seemed unappealing. She didn’t want to study her psych texts. She didn’t want to sit in her office in the gym, refining her strategy for the team. She didn’t even want to exercise!

  Dragging herself out of Dorset, Bobby attacked room inspection with less than her usual zest. “I thought you read this one,” she said wearily as she pulled A History of Sexual Customs, disguised as a science text, from Sandy’s shelf.

  “Are you okay, Coach Bobby?” asked the bookworm with concern.

  She was trudging back to her suite with her haul when a group of third formers stopped her. “Will you play gin rummy with us today, Coach Bobby?”

  “Sorry, girls, I—I just can’t,” said Bobby. The juvenile company of the third formers was not what she wanted.

  “At least tell us again about the five points of perfect posture?” one disappointed girl called after the departing gym teacher.

  Bobby dumped the contraband in her footlocker and headed for the gym. A morning of quiet equipment maintenance in the deserted building, testing the knots on the rope ladder and pumping up deflated balls—that would soothe her spirits, she decided.

  However, when she reached the gymnasium she found she had company.

  “What size are the grid squares, Miss Butler?” Two students were standing beneath the basketball hoop holding the ends of a tape measure. On the other side of the gym, more Metamorians wandered slowly across the floor, bent over, with their eyes on the ground.

  “Twenty by twenty, please, try to remember.” The Math Mistress sounded impatient as she frowned at the clipboard in her hand.

  “What’s all this?” asked Bobby, trying to stay calm. This invasion of her athletic domain by the troublemaking Math Mistress was the last thing she needed this morning.

  “Oh! Good morning, Coach Blanchard.” The other teacher seemed somewhat flustered. “The Problem Solvers and I are applying the grid search method, used by archaeologists and scuba divers, to find Kayo’s lost locket.”

  Bobby noticed now that the gymnasium floor was covered with a network of string, dividing it into a series of squares. She took a deep breath, fighting down her annoyance at the disorder in her otherwise orderly empire. As she groped for the words to tactfully tell the Math Mistress to get lost, Lotta emerged from the locker room. “All clear!” she reported. “Shall I do Coach Bobby’s office?”

  “That won’t be necessary, Lotta,” Enid said quickly.

  “But you said the scientific method required no exceptions,” persisted the precocious youngster.

  “Miss Butler,” interrupted Bobby, fuming inwardly, “a private word with you, in my office?”

  When she’d closed the door after Enid she spun around and snapped, “What are you trying to pull now, Enid? You want those girls to think I’m a jewel thief?”

  “No, no.” Enid was on the defensive. “That’s not it at all. I’m just trying to quell the rumors—”

  “What rumors?”

  “Surely you’ve heard—those DAP girls are spreading the story that Angela took Kayo’s locket. The whole school is repeating it.”

  “Ah.” Bobby sat down. So that’s what was behind Beryl’s comment and Angle’s abrupt departure at breakfast. “But how are these squares of string going to help?”

  “The best way to refute this vicious rumor is with calm, cool logic,” Enid declared. “The Problem Solvers and I are going to divide the whole campus into a grid. We’ll either find the locket or prove that it’s not here. It’s actually quite a nice problem in geometry. I have the girls reading blueprints and looking at topographical—”

  Bobby had listened with mounting disbelief and now she interrupted. “Are you cuckoo? All you’re going to do with
this crazy ‘scientific’ search is stir up unwholesome suspicions! These kids aren’t thinking about topographical maps, they’re getting an unhealthy thrill, wondering which of their friends—or teachers—is a thief. You’re not quelling these rumors, you’re fanning the flames of gossip!”

  “You always underestimate the adolescent’s intellect and overestimate the impact of emotion,” protested Enid hotly.

  “Besides which, your whole scheme is full of holes! Where’s Angle?”

  Enid had convinced Angle to join the Problem Solvers—some whispered that she’d bribed her with excuses from Chapel—but Bobby hadn’t seen her in the gym.

  “Angle went for a bike ride.” Enid lifted her chin.

  “At least she had the common sense to stay out of this. Do you know what the girls are going to say if you don’t find the locket? They’ll say Angle had it hidden on her all the time. You weren’t planning to strip-search the students, were you?”

  “Certainly the method has its limitations, but we can at least categorically prove—”

  “And what about the honor system?” Bobby grew more indignant. “This—this—vigilante investigation is against every idea of individual responsibility and character development that Metamora fosters!”

  “You’re certainly welcome to take your concerns to Miss Craybill,” Enid retorted frostily.

  At that Bobby blew up. “I’m not a backstabber! I’m not the kind to run to the Headmistress and tattle on another teacher, or try to trip her up! That’s your play, not mine!”

  Red spots stained Enid’s cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do.” Bobby got up. “I’m leaving. I can’t stand to even watch your ‘scientific’ witch hunt. Do me a favor and take every strand of string with you when you go!”

  Bobby rushed out of the gymnasium, the startled faces of the Problem Solvers blurring as they jumped out of her way. She stormed away from the campus, across the field, and into the woods. The narrow path and heavy underbrush soon forced her to slow her furious pace and her pounding pulse sank back to its normal rhythm. Gradually, her temper calmed as she wandered in the woods, but her spirits sank lower than ever. For the first time, she dreaded hockey practice. She wished she could wander all the way to Mesquakie Point and forget about the factions and feuds of Metamora, the pettiness of spirit. For the first time in a long time she thought of Elaine and that picnic they’d shared before school began. How halcyon that day seemed in her memory!

  “Would being a golf pro have been so bad?” she muttered.

  “Hello! Is that Coach Bobby?”

  The voice came through the trees. Bobby went around a sugar maple and found herself in Bryce’s garden, behind the old Amundsen homestead. Bryce was wearing a torn straw hat and a brightly flowered shirt as he turned the withering pea vines and tomatoes under the rich brown loam.

  “Gosh, I guess I’ve been walking in circles,” said Bobby.

  “Ole’s just baked up some eplekake and brewed a pot of coffee. Go ahead in, you look like you need some,” Bryce ordered her cheerily.

  “Is it that obvious?” Obediently Bobby climbed the steps and went into the old-fashioned log cabin. It was almost a twin of the replica cabin at the Mesquakie Point tourist concession, which Ole’s sister Freya managed.

  Ole was untying an apron as she entered the kitchen. He smiled at her and poured a mug of coffee. “Here,” he said, slicing a piece of warm, fragrant eplekake and putting it on a china plate.

  Bryce came in, wiping his muddy feet on the braided rug. “Ah, eplekake!” he exclaimed. “Nothing beats fresh eplekake and a cup of coffee on a Saturday afternoon!”

  Bobby realized she’d missed lunch and was ravenous. When the Biology Master heard that, he and Ole fussed around her, feeding her rakfisk, and kjøttkaker with a berry sauce. Bobby felt herself relax in the happy, domestic atmosphere of Bryce and Ole’s little cabin. She found herself telling the pair about her recent quarrel with Enid and her fears that the misguided Math Mistress would only make the rumors about Kayo’s necklace worse.

  Bryce agreed with her. “What was Enid thinking? As if things weren’t bad enough at Metamora with Miss Craybill in the state she is, and the rumors about Miss Froelich haunting the campus!”

  Ole said, “Enid isn’t having it easy.”

  Bobby protested, “What do you mean? Enid’s the girl with all the answers.”

  Ole merely shook his head. Bryce said, “If only Miss Craybill was her old self…Did you notice how she didn’t even touch her eggs this morning? Mona says she refuses to eat anything bird related. She’s losing weight, in addition to her other difficulties.”

  “She still wants to clean our cabin,” reported Ole.

  “If this keeps up, I’m going to be seeing ghosts too!” Bryce’s laugh wasn’t quite natural.

  “It was indigestion,” said Ole. “I think last night’s svinekoteletter were too rich.”

  Bobby wondered what they were talking about. Was it a private reference, just between the two of them? Looking around the room, she caught sight of the old-fashioned grandfather clock. “Is that clock right? Gosh, I’d better run to make practice!”

  She refused another slice of the delicious eplekake and hurried down the path back to Louth Athletic Field. As she strode along, she thought of her strange nocturnal vision, the ghostly cyclist she’d seen as she crept back from Jersey to Cornwall. Of course it must have been an ordinary cyclist, and some trick of the light had given the illusion of glowing levitation. But who? And why was this cyclist prowling around the campus at one in the morning? Could this mystery somehow be connected to the loss of Kayo’s locket?

  A figure was approaching her, moving through the dappled shadows. It was Miss Craybill, walking in that peculiarly aimless way she had, head down, hands behind her back, eyes fixed on the ground.

  “Good afternoon,” she greeted Bobby, raising her eyes to the young gym teacher’s face after encountering her sneaker. “How go the young Savages? Swimmingly? Swimmingly?”

  “Yes, Miss Craybill,” said Bobby. “Speaking of swimming, I’ve been thinking about what other sports we might introduce in the spring curriculum. Is there any interest in a swim team, do you think?”

  “We don’t have a swimming pool,” Miss Craybill reminded her.

  “Or what about, oh, bicycling? Any champion cyclists on campus?”

  Miss Craybill’s blue eyes filmed over with sudden tears. “Miss Froelich was an avid cyclist,” she said. Bobby felt goose bumps form on her arms. “She almost never walked when she could ride. How often would I look out my window and catch sight of her sailing like a great black bat across the quad—” Miss Craybill broke off the flow of reminiscence abruptly. “Excuse me, I must visit the utility shed.” She turned around and hurried back toward the campus.

  Bobby decided she would put aside the question of the cyclist for the moment. Any mention of a midnight rider would only feed the insatiable appetite for the occult that had gripped so many students. And wasn’t she as bad as Enid, making a mountain out of a molehill? Kayo had lost her locket somewhere and it would turn up or it wouldn’t.

  The best strategy, she decided, was to ignore the lost locket entirely. She would exhaust the Savages with exercise and leave them with no energy for speculation and suspicion.

  With this resolve, Bobby hurried around the corner of the gymnasium, just in time to see Angle slap Kayo so hard that the field hockey captain staggered and almost fell.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Student-Teacher Conference

  “What is going on here?” Bobby cried in shock, and the tableau broke apart. Angle ran like a wild creature toward the woods, while Kayo, white-faced, walked stiffly to the bleachers and sat down as a pandemonium of voices broke out. The girls flocked around their captain, asking her if she was all right and volunteering to run after Angle and drag her back. Lotta stood on the sidelines, her mouth open, a pile of clean towels in her arms.


  Bobby pushed her way through the cluster of concerned Savages and knelt beside Kayo. “Look at me,” she ordered. She took hold of Kayo’s chin and waggled it gently. “Does that hurt?”

  “No,” whispered the captain. Her sapphire blue eyes were brimming with unshed tears, and she trembled at Bobby’s touch. The coach saw that the usually self-assured teen was fighting to maintain her self-control.

  “Lotta.” Bobby beckoned the faithful water girl. “Take Kayo to my office and get her a glass of water.” She watched as Lotta held the gymnasium door for the shaken girl. When it had closed behind them, she turned to the squad, hands on her hips. “Now, who can tell me what happened?” she demanded.

  There was dead silence as the Savages glanced uneasily at each other. No one wanted to be a tattletale!

  “Annette,” Bobby picked out the French Mistress’s daughter. “You tell me what led up to this unfortunate fracas.” The levelheaded left wing was neither a DAP nor an ally of Angle’s. She was as neutral as Switzerland.

  “Well, Kayo, she have us start the drills, and Angle, she fall down twice during the block and pass play, and then she say, maybe it’s on purpose, and lotsa girls say no, no, no, and Kayo say to keep drilling, and then Angle slap her.” The French girl concluded her account with a Gallic shrug of incomprehension.

  Bobby noticed that Annette’s accent seemed thicker than usual and that this diplomatic account mentioned no names other than Angle and Kayo. “Does anyone have anything to add?” She looked narrowly at Beryl, but the right wing stood mute, eyes downcast. “Practice is over for the day,” said Bobby tersely. “You girls can go.”

  Stymied, she watched the girls trickle back inside. If she forced one of the girls to break the code of silence, she’d only splinter the team further. But she was burning to know why Angle had hit Kayo.

  Lotta emerged from the gymnasium. “Kayo’s in your office drinking water,” she reported.

  “Lotta!” Bobby pounced. “You tell me what happened.”