Fat School Confidential by Joe Rourke

and placed them on his knee. “We’ll pay you separately for whatever curriculum you come up with. You won’t have to teach the curriculum, as you’ll simply administer it. We’ll have staff in place to run the overall program and supervise the students, staying with them twenty-four seven. As might be expected, you’ll receive a bump in pay when you’re up for review in a couple months. Plus you’ll have an additional title.”
        “ And that is?” I inquired, trying not to sound too eager.
        “ You’ll be the Academic Director of S.A.P.”
        In four months’ time, I went from being a burned-out Special Ed teacher from L.A. to teaching fat kids at a private school in Central Cali to becoming second-in-command of said school’s academic department. Although the good news came from Bill, in my eyes, he was only a mouthpiece. Daniel Abrams was the one pulling the strings. Bill was at the school too short a time to be making these kinds of decisions. Either way, if the man in the orange pants tasked me with running a program by myself, who was I to say no?
        In between bouts of prepping for the new semester, I worked on curriculum for S.A.P. Borrowing from the Internet—as well as from my own collection of resources, I put together a program that would be perfectly suited to the great outdoors. I customized the material to fit my particular
    student population, making sure to incorporate multiple subject areas into each activity or assignment.
        I took a break from creating curriculum to survey the location of S.A.P. Traversing the back forty of the school grounds, I stopped at the river’s edge to catch my breath and scan the island. On the campus side, the water was shallow and narrow enough to cross it in one short jump. Once on the island, I made my way through a clump of trees to a clearing. On one end stood a shack—no doubt there for staff to sleep in relative comfort while the students roughed it in tents outside. Stepping onto the mini-porch, I peered into the front window. Camping equipment and unmarked boxes lay strewn all over the floor. Turning round, I again faced the clearing. In the middle was a primitive fire pit, bordered with rocks. On the far end of the clearing stood a canopy—covering benches, tables and cooking apparatus. This was where my charges would be doing their homework.
        I liked roughing it as much as the next guy, but I didn’t envy these particular campers.
        Undetected by most of the student body, the handful of S.A.P. students arrived on campus. Lugging duffle bags, these rotund rookies made their way towards the island. Fat camp staffers, Kenny and Kelly, accompanied them. Towheaded and slight of build, Kenny ran S.A.P.’s day-to-day operations when Kelly, his female cohort, wasn’t available. I elected to wait a day or two before meeting up with them and handing the students their first assignments.
        After giving an awkward introduction to the class, I handed my S.A.P. students their assignments, leaving them and their staff to attend to my regular duties back on the “mainland.” For the next several weeks, I settled into a rhythm with both my regulars and with my newbies on the island. With the newbies, the only drama that developed was the sporadic gunfire heard from a neighboring farm—on the other side of the Kings River. But there were no threats, and the campers were left to do what they were assigned to do.
        With the bonus I received from developing S.A.P.’s curriculum, I decided it was high time to buy a larger vehicle for the family. Although our Beetle was just under six years old, it was too small for our needs, and quite unreliable. And, having had my mom co-sign the damned thing, I wanted something in my name for a change.
        Notwithstanding my recent bankruptcy, for the first time in twenty years I was able to purchase a brand new car on my own. The choice: a Honda Element, in “Rally