AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Good morning, Chris, Jerry,” Principal Turner greeted us, her tone serious. “Please sit, Jerry. Now, I wish I didn’t have to say this to you, but both our baseball and soccer teams are facing a funding shortfall in this year’s budget. We need to significantly boost our fundraising efforts or resort to asking parents for more funds.”
When she saidwe, what she really meant was Jerry and me. I noticed Bryan—our football coach—wasn’t in here. I didn’t have to guess that football wasn’t short of funding—the football teamneverfaced these kinds of problems. They always had ample money and volunteers. It was a stark reminder of the challenges lesser-followed sports like baseball and soccer often faced in schools.
None of this surprised me.
I exchanged a knowing glance with Jerry. Budget issues weren’t a new thing, but it was always a challenging situation, and the lack of volunteers for our sports compounded the problem.
Principal Turner waited with something like expectation. “Please tell me you have some ideas on how we can tackle this?”
“How about Bryan gives us some of his budget?” I deadpanned, and she threw me a frosty glance. “Kidding.” I lied.
“I’m asking for serious thought on this,” Evie said with exaggerated patience.
Jerry and I brainstormed on the spot, which was all we could do given this was an early Monday morning shock—typically, we got told bad news last thing on a Friday. “We could write to the parents of the kids on the teams,” he suggested. “Explain the situation, and maybe, set up a support roster for various fundraising activities.”
I nodded, adding: “Sheridan Realty will sponsor the Rockets as usual.” For what it was worth, my family’s company at least bought the jerseys.
“And the Treetops garden center is still sponsoring us,” Jerry added. The soccer season went from fall and overlapped us in spring, and I’d already heard Jerry bemoan how much fuel costs were to get to away games.
“We need more than small companies and their limited sponsorships, gentlemen.”
I bristled at the implication that Sheridan Realty was small, although, to be fair, she wasn’t wrong. Scott ran the company. His siblings, me included, were silent partners, and we’d invested in land, buildings, and construction, but it was a minor concern in the grand scheme of things.
Jerry clicked his fingers, to pull me back into the room. “We could also organize community events, like a charity soccer match or a sponsored run, to involve more people. Get the whole of Collier Springs behind us.” It was very rah-rah of him to suggest, but there was an issue with that. Collier Springs was a football town, and the Collier Cougars school team fundraising stole the thunder in every way, which I didn’t need to remind him of, only when I glanced at him, he was staring at me with wide, hopeful eyes.
Wait. He’s looking atmefor ideas.
Fuck. Okay… what could I suggest? Events turned into auctions, which turned into getting new sponsors, and I had one small idea that I’d been thinking over, that might work.
“How about, this year, we outreach to the smaller towns our kids live in. I know Whisper Ridge, where I live, has the Spring Rains event coming up in April, we could piggyback off of that. I mean, we have a fundraising baseball game every year, and we could see what other small towns do as well?”
Jerry nodded, and even looked surprised at the idea, which was new and probably radical, to take fundraising out of the town of Collier Springs and into the far reaches of the high school’s catchment area. Even Principal Turner seemed impressed with the idea.
“That’s what I like to see—a proactive approach—but remember, we’ll be asking the parents for more money and support if we can’t fill the funding gap.” Yep, way to remind us of the urgency of the matter.
Leaving the office, even despite my bright idea, I couldn’t help but feel dispirited, and Jerry was the same.
“Every year…” he murmured and shook his head as we separated and headed for our respective homerooms.
Yeah. Every freaking year.
And given it was time for homeroom, I hadn’t even gotten my coffee.
It sucked to be me on a Monday morning.
Guiding my chair at an angle into my homeroom classroom, the usual buzz of energy immediately greeted me from my ninth graders. They were always full of life in the mornings, a mix of teenage exuberance and the excitement of new things that had happened during their weekends. As I entered, they quietened, and I took my place at the front of the room, ready to start the day.
“Morning, everyone,” I called.
Everyone sing-songed it back, and I smiled at them. Roll call was a smooth process; I knew all my kids well. We had about twenty-five students in this homeroom, a manageable number that allowed me to connect with each of them. After checking off names and making sure everyone was present, the conversation inevitably turned to the quality of food in the cafeteria—a crucial topic for high schoolers. We were almost through with our discussion on fries, and I was about to send them off to their first class, when there was a knock at the door.
Sally, one of our school administrators, ushered in a new face—Fox Bennett. Noah’s son. My heart skipped a beat at the realization that he was joiningmyhomeroom.
Fox stood there, awkward, but with his chin tilted in a brave front, his nervousness only betrayed by the way he fiddled with the stitching on his worn backpack. It was always tough for a kid to switch schools, especially in the middle of a semester, and Fox might be walking into what I thought was a cool group of teenagers, but they were teenagers, nonetheless. His gaze briefly met mine for the first time, and I saw the tell-tale flicker of fear.
“Everyone, this is Fox Bennett,” I announced, trying to make the introduction as smooth as possible. “Do you want to take a seat, Fox?”
The single available seat was at the back of the room, and he weaved his way through, accepting a couple of fist bumps from the cool kids, and a Vulcan salute from Clarke, which the class laughed at, but which Fox had no trouble returning. I wished Principal Evie Turner had been more focused on classroom dynamics, than on funding issues, like giving me a heads-up about a new student, because I could have met him and brought him in myself.
