The Safer Road

To put it kindly, she is a leader from the moment she enters the classroom. ("She's a poison," one teacher says, and the others agree.) She sets the tone for the rest of the group, especially the girls. Even those who haven't been particularly disrespectful before follow her.

She singles out the assistant teacher for special torment, cussing him out and branding him with a name so ludicrous and yet oddly fitting that he bursts out laughing even as he sends her back to her unit. Neither he nor his co-workers will forget it, and some of them wonder if it's why he shaves his beard, because without it it's true he doesn't look as much like the name suits him.

The day she leaves she asks the unit staff to call Mr. Leprechaun so she can say goodbye. She hugs him and cries and he is surprised because all she's ever done since the first time she came to class was call him f-ing this and f-ing that.

Sometimes it feels safer to make someone hate you from the start than to wait for their inevitable disappointment in you.