Joan Hess - Dear Miss Demeanor

“I shall inquire when I speak to her.” Miss Dort picked up the clipboard and scribbled yet another note.

“Exactly how much money is missing from the journalism account?” Sherwood asked, giving me a conspiratorial wink. “Enough for riotous living in some singles’ condominium for silver-haired swingers?”

“The amount is hardly the issue, Timmons. The funds belong to the students, and the embezzlement is all the more serious because it threatens their trust,” Weiss said through a mouthful of yellow goop. “In any case, I am aware of the gossip this situation has generated, and I want the entire faculty to put a stop to it. It is an administrative concern.”

“I am confident Emily will be found innocent of any wrongdoing,” Mrs. Platchett said. “Then the school can return to its normal routine, and the journalism students can once again have valuable experience in preparation for their careers. Emily quite inspires them, as you well know.”

I sensed an aspersion on the substitute’s ability to inspire said students. “We’re working industriously on the yearbook,” I said, taking a deviled egg with a devil-may-care look. “We hope to complete the sophomore layout next week.” Whatever that was.

“But we have no newspaper over which to chuckle,” Sherwood said. “I was finding the Miss Demeanor column quite compelling, if not exactly Pulitzer material. Just as it was becoming most interesting, it was cut off in its prime. Of course, humanum en errare , but in the Xanadu Motel? One wonders if something might be astir within our little community…”

“The insinuation of a tawdry scandal is inappropriate for a school newspaper,” Miss Dort sniffed. “Mr. Weiss and I both agree that impressionable adolescents should not be exposed to that sort of thing. As faculty advisor, Miss Parchester had an obligation to forbid the publication of such filth. She refused to comply with the numerous memos I sent regarding the situation, citing some nonsense about freedom of the press. This is a school, not a democracy; the students have whatever rights we choose to allow them.”

Weiss gave her an approving smile as he shoveled in the last of the peach compote. The smile died suddenly. He clutched his abdomen and doubled up as the contents of his stomach disgorged on the carpet. His scalp turned red, his face white. “Bernice,” he managed to croak. “My God! Help me!”

“Herbert? What’s-what’s the matter?” she answered, shoving back her chair to run across the room and clasp his arm. She looked wildly at us over his back. “Do something to help him! Get a doctor!”

“I don’t need a doctor,” Weiss said abruptly, his voice weak but more normal than it had been seconds ago. He yanked his arm free and stood up, a handkerchief already in hand to wipe his chin. “I’m fine now. I don’t know what came over me, but I certainly will not permit it to happen again. Have Pius get in here immediately, and call the carpet cleaning service to make- reservations.”

“Reservations?” Miss Don said. She picked up her clipboard and began to write in precise little scratches, although without her usual briskness. “Carpet service-reservations. Why don’t you lie down on the sofa for a few minutes, Mr. Weiss? You look rather pale.”

He nodded and stretched out on the mauve-and-green. Miss Port left the lounge, presumably to fetch the despicable Pitts, and returned within a minute or two. The rest of us toyed with our lunches, our earlier enthusiasm dampened by the increasingly pervasive stench. Even the Furies seemed to find it difficult to pick up the cadence of sound nutritional practices.

“Damn doctors shouldn’t be allowed to teach,” Weiss said suddenly, his finger poking holes in the air. “Think they’re too damn good for the rest of us.”

“I’ll make a note of it,” Miss Dort said, her voice non-committal despite the bizarre words coming from the principal. She stared defiantly at us, daring us to offer an editorial. No one moved.

“Bunch of copycats,” Weiss said. He jerked up and glared at us through wide, glazed eyes. Suddenly they bulged like balloons as he clasped his throat. Burbling wildly, he clawed the air. His hands froze, and he slowly rolled off the sofa to sprawl on the rug.

Miss Dort scrambled to her feet and shrieked something about an ambulance as she ran out of the lounge. Paula grabbed Jerry, while Sherwood and Evelyn went over to touch the unmoving shoulder with timid fingers. Mrs. Platchett clasped her bosom.

“Oh, my goodness,” she announced whitely.

The Fury on her left sighed, but the third stole the show. “Oh, dear,” she whooshed as she toppled out of her chair. The ensuing thud was fainter and more ladylike than the previous one, but it sounded painful and seemed to bring us out of our collective shock and into action, albeit chaotic and ineffectual.

Ambulance attendants dashed in a few minutes later. The fainted Fury was on a sofa, attended by her sisters. Mr. Weiss was still facedown on the stained carpet; there hadn’t been much reason to worry about his comfort. The rest of us were standing about, wringing our hands both literally and figuratively, while muttering inanities about heart attacks and/or strokes. How sudden they were, etc.

Miss Don came in behind the attendants, and behind her was the rabbity little man I’d seen in the main office.

“Oh, this is terrible!” he sputtered. “I just cannot believe- believe that-that this son of tragedy-absolute tragedy- could-”

“Shut up, Chips,” Miss Dort said absently, intent on the body on the floor. “What was it-a heart attack?”

One of the attendants stood up and studied us with a masked expression. “No, it wasn’t a heart attack. You’d better call the police.”

“Why?” Miss Don countered. Her fingers tightened around the clipboard, which was pressed against her chest like a shield.

“The guy was poisoned, lady.”

Miss Don blanched, took a step backward, and slowly collapsed in the doorway. The clipboard clattered down beside her.

The room was beginning to resemble the forest scene after Mount St. Helen’s eruption. I glared at the ambulance attendants. “I will call the police. In the meantime, why don’t you occupy yourselves with the lady on the floor or the one on the sofa? You do have some paramedical training, don’t you?”

Grumbling, they split up to deal with the supine figures. I went upstairs to the office, shoved past the pimply Cerberus, and snatched up the telephone. The number was familiar; seconds later Peter Rosen came on the line.

“So glad you called,” he said with an audible smile. “There’s a wonderfully terrible movie at the drive-in theater, something about a giant asparagus attacking a major metropolitan area. We may end up parked beside your students, but I thought it-”

I interrupted and told him what had happened. He then interrupted and told me that he and his squad would be there shortly. I tried to interrupt with a question or two, but it didn’t work. I was speaking to a dial tone.

A keen-eared secretary came out of her room to goggle at me. I told her to announce on the intercom that all students should go to fourth-period classrooms and remain there until further notice, and told her which teachers would have to wait in the lounge for the CID. She nodded, I shrugged, and we both marched off to our respective duties.

Miss Don and the Fury were still unconscious, but everyone else looked fairly chipper. Evelyn and Sherwood huddled in one corner, watching the attendants wave vials under noses. Jerry and Paula cuddled in a second corner to whisper. The two conscious Furies hovered about, pale but determined, although I wasn’t at all sure what they were determined to do.