couldn’t help noticing what a relief it was to be out of the house, going somewhere — anywhere — in the dark on a weekend. He just wished his destination could have been a little more exciting.
When Ethan fi rst got hired at the Daniel Webster Middle School, teachers weren’t expected to babysit the kids at social functions. But that was back in a more innocent time, before the notorious Jamaican Beach Party of 2009, a high school dance that degenerated into a drunken brawl/gropefest and scandalized the entire community. Six kids were arrested for fi ghting, three for misdemeanor sexual assault, and two for pot; eight more were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. Cell-phone videos of some shockingly dirty dancing made their way onto the Internet, causing severe embarrassment for several senior girls-gone-wild who had stripped down to bikinis during the festivities and become the focus of unwanted attention from a rowdy group of varsity lacrosse and hockey players. Dances were canceled for an entire year, then reinstated under a host of strict new rules, including one that required the presence of faculty chaperones, who would presumably impose the kind of professional discipline that had been lacking in the past.
Ethan thought the new rules made sense for high school, where the kids were old enough and resourceful enough to get into real trouble, but it felt like overkill to extend it to the middle school, one more burden added to a job that already didn’t pay nearly enough, though he knew better than to complain to anyone who wasn’t a teacher. He was sick and tired of people reminding him that he got summers o ff and should therefore consider himself lucky.
Yeah, he didn’t have to teach in July and August, but so what? It wasn’t like he got to while away eight weeks at the beach or lounge in a hammock by the lake. He didn’t even get to sit home reading fat biographies of the founding fathers or take his kid to the playground. He was a thirty-two-year-old man with a master’s degree in history, and he still spent his summer vacations the same way he had when he was sixteen — standing behind the counter of his father’s auto parts store, ringing up wiper blades and air fi lters to make a little extra cash.
•••
FOR THE second time in less than twelve hours, he parked in the faculty lot and made the familiar trudge around the side of the building to the main entrance, where a crowd of boisterous seventh- and eighth-graders had already begun to gather; there was no such thing as being fashionably late to a dance that went from seven to nine-thirty. Ethan was popular with the kids — he was, he knew, widely considered to be one of the cool teachers — and a number of them shouted out his name as he passed: Mr. Weller! Hey, it’s Mr. Weller! Oddly grati fi ed by the recognition, he acknowledged his fans with a quick wave as he approached the double doors, onto one of which someone had taped a single sheet of red paper, its message printed in big black letters: THIS IS HOW WE PARTY .
Th e main hallway was deserted, faintly ominous despite — or maybe because of — the Mylar balloons taped to classroom doorknobs and the festive hand-lettered signs posted on the walls to mark the big occasion: DREAM BIG ! THE SKY ’ S THE LIMIT !! PREPARE TO MEET YOUR FUTURE !!! Ethan was a little puzzled by these phrases — they seemed o ff -message for a dance, more like motivational slogans than manifestos of fun — but he wasn’t all that surprised. Th e kids at Daniel Webster were products of their time and place, dogged little achievers who were already taking SAT prep courses and padding their résumés for college. Apparently they were ambitious even when they danced.
As far as he knew, the other chaperones on duty were Rudy Battista and Sam Spillman, so he wasn’t sure what to make of it when he spied Charlotte Murray checking her re fl ection in the glass of a vending machine outside the cafeteria.
When Ethan fi rst got hired at the Daniel Webster Middle School, teachers weren’t expected to babysit the kids at social functions. But that was back in a more innocent time, before the notorious Jamaican Beach Party of 2009, a high school dance that degenerated into a drunken brawl/gropefest and scandalized the entire community. Six kids were arrested for fi ghting, three for misdemeanor sexual assault, and two for pot; eight more were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. Cell-phone videos of some shockingly dirty dancing made their way onto the Internet, causing severe embarrassment for several senior girls-gone-wild who had stripped down to bikinis during the festivities and become the focus of unwanted attention from a rowdy group of varsity lacrosse and hockey players. Dances were canceled for an entire year, then reinstated under a host of strict new rules, including one that required the presence of faculty chaperones, who would presumably impose the kind of professional discipline that had been lacking in the past.
Ethan thought the new rules made sense for high school, where the kids were old enough and resourceful enough to get into real trouble, but it felt like overkill to extend it to the middle school, one more burden added to a job that already didn’t pay nearly enough, though he knew better than to complain to anyone who wasn’t a teacher. He was sick and tired of people reminding him that he got summers o ff and should therefore consider himself lucky.
Yeah, he didn’t have to teach in July and August, but so what? It wasn’t like he got to while away eight weeks at the beach or lounge in a hammock by the lake. He didn’t even get to sit home reading fat biographies of the founding fathers or take his kid to the playground. He was a thirty-two-year-old man with a master’s degree in history, and he still spent his summer vacations the same way he had when he was sixteen — standing behind the counter of his father’s auto parts store, ringing up wiper blades and air fi lters to make a little extra cash.
•••
FOR THE second time in less than twelve hours, he parked in the faculty lot and made the familiar trudge around the side of the building to the main entrance, where a crowd of boisterous seventh- and eighth-graders had already begun to gather; there was no such thing as being fashionably late to a dance that went from seven to nine-thirty. Ethan was popular with the kids — he was, he knew, widely considered to be one of the cool teachers — and a number of them shouted out his name as he passed: Mr. Weller! Hey, it’s Mr. Weller! Oddly grati fi ed by the recognition, he acknowledged his fans with a quick wave as he approached the double doors, onto one of which someone had taped a single sheet of red paper, its message printed in big black letters: THIS IS HOW WE PARTY .
Th e main hallway was deserted, faintly ominous despite — or maybe because of — the Mylar balloons taped to classroom doorknobs and the festive hand-lettered signs posted on the walls to mark the big occasion: DREAM BIG ! THE SKY ’ S THE LIMIT !! PREPARE TO MEET YOUR FUTURE !!! Ethan was a little puzzled by these phrases — they seemed o ff -message for a dance, more like motivational slogans than manifestos of fun — but he wasn’t all that surprised. Th e kids at Daniel Webster were products of their time and place, dogged little achievers who were already taking SAT prep courses and padding their résumés for college. Apparently they were ambitious even when they danced.
As far as he knew, the other chaperones on duty were Rudy Battista and Sam Spillman, so he wasn’t sure what to make of it when he spied Charlotte Murray checking her re fl ection in the glass of a vending machine outside the cafeteria.
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