In the small high school in the little town of Lynwood, Ohio, in the mid 1990's, a feeling of pleasant anticipation ran through the halls. Spring break approached and a week off from school seemed like heaven. For a small group of senior honor students, however, there was something more -- a trip for a week in Washington, cause enough for elation. The group, four girls and one boy, anticipated a week of freedom and adventure, limited only by the supervision of a faculty chaperone. In years past, the chaperone, a Mr. Phillips, was reputed to be interested in having a good time, not being a wet blanket, leaving presumably mature seniors a reasonable amount of discretionary activity. Unfortunately, their euphoria was due to be dampened considerably when a different chaperone was announced by a notice on the bulletin board in the school lunch room.
One of the girls involved read the notice and exclaimed, "Damn, wait until Kenny sees
this
!" The response was immediate as Kenny Singleton came in behind her, asking, "What should I see?" Then reading the notice, his face tuned red as he exclaimed, "What in the hell is
this
? How could they pick the Witch to go with us? Good God, she'll ruin everything for all of us, particularly
me
! What happened to Phillips?" It turned out that Mr. Phillips had personal problems, necessitating his being replaced by another highly regarded teacher -- highly regarded by the administration anyway.
The teacher involved, usually referred to in private as "the Witch" (although some times the "W" became a "B"), was Mrs. Linda Kramer. She was universally recognized by her colleagues as one of their nicest colleagues, but she had certain tendencies that made her equally recognized as one of the teachers least liked by many students. A math teacher, she was a disciplinarian, requiring strict adherence to an extensive list of personal rules. She always had been something of a stickler for the rules, but in the last semester she had become noticeably more acerbic, more inclined to pick up on petty violations. Even the students agreed that she was fair in grading, but she was not evenhanded in her classroom activities. In every class she seemed to pick one unlucky person to serve as a foil, a goat. She tended to select athletes, extremely popular students and, of course, anyone who refused to knuckle under to her arbitrary rules.
In fact, if truth be known, much of her prejudice was caused by her fear of the students, themselves. This was not fear of physical violence, of course, but was a fear that if she let down, even for a minute, chaos would result. Actually, while she was 45 years old with a master's degree in mathematics, Mrs. Kramer was relatively new to the teaching profession. She majored in math in college, married shortly after graduation and quickly became pregnant. While her two sons grew up, she stayed home, taking an occasional graduate course in mathematics, the credits adding up until, with the boys old enough to supervise themselves, she completed the work necessary for her M.A. She had no particular career objectives, just interest, but, with a severe shortage of math teachers in the school system, she was pressured to become a teacher herself. So, with minimal student teacher experience, during a summer session, she was emergency certified, and, at the age of 42, began teaching full time at Lynwood High School. Thus, while she had the academic training, far more than math teachers who took education courses as their major, her classroom experience was relatively brief, and, frankly, she just wasn't confident in her ability to handle discipline problems. So, she headed off the problem by staying distant from her students and sticking to rules.
That practice had worked effectively for some time, her genuine expertise in her teaching specialty making her an excellent instructor, particularly for advanced students, but something else had arisen lately to sour her disposition and cause her to be even more tart in the classroom -- she was feeling old. Her youngest son had graduated from college and was considering marriage. Most significantly, however, was the fact that her older son had made her a grandmother at what she considered far too early an age. Grandmothers were sixty-plus, had gray hair and wore housedresses and aprons! Heavens knows, she loved the grandchild, but she
didn't
want to be a
grandmother
! Even worse, she had that not unusual relationship with her husband in which he was wrapped up in his work, and their association, while still affectionate, was more that of close friends rather than lovers. On top of everything else, he was insensitive enough to refer to her occasionally as
"
grandma
,"
rather that Linda. Since she could do nothing about these things, she took them out on her classes. She, of course, would have vehemently denied that such unprofessional motivations led to classroom bias, and would have been mortified if forced to face the truth.
The surprising thing about all of this is that Mrs. Kramer, in "real" life, was a pleasant, considerate woman, easy to get along with and good to be around. In addition, at the age of 45,
not
a grandmotherly age, she had a figure that the girls in her class envied. She was a small woman, 5' 3" and weighing about 120 pounds, with breasts that were outsized and prominent. Those, plus her firm and fit body, led even the teenage boys (and girls) who disliked her to speculate as to what she was like under her clothes.
However, as far as the clothing, itself, was concerned, there would have been few surprises. A devotee of conservative dresses and suits, with skirts longer than style demanded, Linda Kramer wore lingerie that was tasteful and equally conservative. The only somewhat unusual thing was her wearing of garter belts and hose, rather than pantyhose, but her skirts never rose high enough to reveal even that slight variation from the norm. Certainly, none of her students would ever have actual knowledge of the body under those clothes! She was very modest, as well as a conservative and disciplined, woman -- and the
bete noir
of Kenny Singleton. Actually, Kenny was exactly the type of student who was almost certain to be the focus of Mrs. Kramer's attention. He was a successful two-sport (football and wrestling) athlete as well as being the very popular student-body president. In addition, he had a somewhat perverse sense of humor which delighted in puncturing pretensions and violating picayune rules which seemed to have little purpose but to harass others. Unfortunately,