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The two teenagers exchanged wary looks again. Todd shifted. Katie plucked at a pin on her book bag.
“Uh, so, we’re sorry,” Todd mumbled. “I mean, like, I’m sorry. For lying about your class or whatever.”
Though Grace experienced a tug of pity over his evident discomfort, she couldn’t bring herself to forgive him or even to say that it was okay.
Because it wasn’t.
“I appreciate your apology,” she said instead.
Katie nudged Todd’s elbow. He scratched his arm.
“Is there anything else?” Grace asked.
“Yeah, well, we…uh, I heard some bad shi…stuff about what might happen to you from my parents, and…I don’t know. I felt kind of bad.” He shifted his gaze past her. “It was, like, nothing personal, you know? I didn’t think you were a bad teacher or anything, even if you did give a lot of homework.”
“I’m glad to know that.”
“It was really stupid, what we did.” Katie’s eyes filled with tears, and she wiped them with the back of her hand. “We didn’t mean to, like, get you fired.”
Grace let out her breath slowly. “I haven’t been fired.”
Yet.
“Yeah, but you’re in trouble, right?” Another tear slipped down Katie’s cheek.
Grace took a box of tissues from her desk and handed it to the girl. “There are some administrative issues I’m dealing with, but I’m not at liberty to talk about them. No one is. It’s meant to be confidential.”
“Trey was talking about it on the bus Friday.” Todd twisted a strap of his backpack around his finger. “Like, that you were in trouble because of Mr. Atwood’s donation and some budget stuff that I didn’t really get, but it sounded bad.”
“It is,” Grace admitted. “And I wish neither one of you had done what you did, but my situation isn’t your fault.”
“I didn’t tell my parents you and Atwood told me to quit football,” Todd said. “I mean, I said I’d talked to him, but he was…I don’t know. Cool about it, I guess. But my dad couldn’t believe I really don’t want to play football next year, so he blamed you. I totally didn’t expect him to do that. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Todd. But what’s done can’t be undone.”
A half-smile appeared on his face. “Lady Macbeth, right?”
Grace experienced an odd urge to laugh. “Correct. Nice work.”
“Miss Berry, Todd needs to tell you something.” Katie nudged Todd’s arm again and mouthed the wordsTell her.
“So, like, I don’t even know what this is about, but when I heard about you, I remembered it.” He shifted his weight. “I was in the locker room a while ago and I overheard Coach Roberts talking to Principal Spruce. They were talking about you.”
Grace’s heart thumped. “It’s really not appropriate to gossip.”
“Yeah, but this is what Iheard. They were talking about how you were blocking the athletic funds and they’d need to come up with a new plan.” Todd rubbed his finger over a mark on the desk. “And Spruce said he was going to cut you off at the source, whatever that means, and reallocate the money that had been earmarked for you. Then they started talking about a coaches’ trip they were planning to Miami this summer. Like, the whole works. Hotel by the beach, NFL perks and season tickets, even girls. It was weird.”
“I think Mr. Spruce was talking about the fact that he’s been cutting my budget and allocating more money to athletics.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know.”
Against her better judgement, Grace asked, “What don’t you know?”
“The coaches and Spruce have gone to, like, half a dozen football clinics in the three years I’ve been here. Like, big trips that lasted a week or more. They went to an NFL game in Chicago and another in Houston. And the guys were saying they hadn’t paid for any of it.”
Grace recalled what Brooke had told her about the “retired” bookkeeper. “If they used school money, they’d have needed authorization.”
“Whatever.” Todd shrugged. “I just thought it was weird that they were talking about taking money from you, specifically, and then planning some super fancy trip when there isn’t even a clinic in Miami this summer.”
