Chapter One
Her classroom was on the top floor of the aged brick building, tucked into the farthest corner of a dead-end hallway. Stella, with hands on her hips, surveyed the room with its vintage high ceilings and predicted it would be roasting hot in warm weather, freezing in cold. The shopworn desks were antiques and when she picked up the teacher’s edition of the textbook, she shook her head. The publication date was the year of her birth.
This was very different from the suburban high school where she graduated in the top twenty of her class, light years away from the modern, sprawling state university campus where she earned her teacher’s degree. The small town high school that served the entire county looked like a museum and she wondered for a moment just why she had accepted the job. Something about this small town, a typical farmer’s market Missouri town that drew from the surrounding rural area, appealed to her. Riverville, on the edge of the Ozark Mountains, offered hills to climb and some spectacular scenery.
Stella also liked the traditional town square with a courthouse in the center and businesses ringing each of four sides. Once it would have been the central hub of town but now most of the newer shops were located out on the highway on the edge of town.
In the older section where both the downtown Square and the high school sat, the terrain stretched out flat toward the river to the north and east. Above the Square, however, the Ozark foothills climbed like stairs with gradual incline to reach summits that looked down on the small town. On those hills, from the 1960’s onward, the more affluent members of the community, the bankers, lawyers, and local doctors, built their newer homes on those peaks and she wondered if that reflected their social views as well. She thought that it probably did, especially after learning that the neighborhoods on the hilltops were called Riverville Heights.
In the older part of town, where she would live and work, the buildings featured vintage architecture and went heavy toward brick.
Even the courthouse, a multi-storied and many-towered edifice was built of brick. One thing that she noted was that flowers bloomed in profuse color, from flowerboxes in front of small businesses, some with neat striped awnings, and to well-tended beds in residential areas.
She could have accepted the position offered by an inner city high school or the charter school in the suburbs but some latent desire to experience a retro way of life propelled her to take this job.
Riverville reminded her so much of the fictional Mayberry from the 1950’s television program that she expected to hear the Andy Griffith theme whistled into her ears as she walked around the Square. Stella liked her postage stamp sized apartment, housed in a former hotel on the corner of the downtown Square, but the high school was different.
Maybe it was the Gothic look of the three-story brick edifice that resembled a castle more than a public school building.
Something about the narrow corridors with vintage features–-full length multi-paned glass doors on each classroom for example—
made her feel like she was starring in a cheap horror flick, not reporting for her first year of teaching.
The bland beige walls begged for decorations, like maps or posters, and Stella wondered if the administration would be angry if she painted them a vivid violet or a pumpkin orange. They probably would since the principal, a graying man two years from retirement, had given her a strict faculty dress code and a written list of rules.
“The appearance and conduct of our staff must be above reproach,” he had told her, nodding for emphasis behind his huge desk. “I am sure you will agree.”
Stella didn’t but she had nodded anyway, tucking her feet with the mauve painted toenails further under the chair before Mr.
Sanderson noticed her toes violated #15 of the dress code. Very few of her new professional garments
Her classroom was on the top floor of the aged brick building, tucked into the farthest corner of a dead-end hallway. Stella, with hands on her hips, surveyed the room with its vintage high ceilings and predicted it would be roasting hot in warm weather, freezing in cold. The shopworn desks were antiques and when she picked up the teacher’s edition of the textbook, she shook her head. The publication date was the year of her birth.
This was very different from the suburban high school where she graduated in the top twenty of her class, light years away from the modern, sprawling state university campus where she earned her teacher’s degree. The small town high school that served the entire county looked like a museum and she wondered for a moment just why she had accepted the job. Something about this small town, a typical farmer’s market Missouri town that drew from the surrounding rural area, appealed to her. Riverville, on the edge of the Ozark Mountains, offered hills to climb and some spectacular scenery.
Stella also liked the traditional town square with a courthouse in the center and businesses ringing each of four sides. Once it would have been the central hub of town but now most of the newer shops were located out on the highway on the edge of town.
In the older section where both the downtown Square and the high school sat, the terrain stretched out flat toward the river to the north and east. Above the Square, however, the Ozark foothills climbed like stairs with gradual incline to reach summits that looked down on the small town. On those hills, from the 1960’s onward, the more affluent members of the community, the bankers, lawyers, and local doctors, built their newer homes on those peaks and she wondered if that reflected their social views as well. She thought that it probably did, especially after learning that the neighborhoods on the hilltops were called Riverville Heights.
In the older part of town, where she would live and work, the buildings featured vintage architecture and went heavy toward brick.
Even the courthouse, a multi-storied and many-towered edifice was built of brick. One thing that she noted was that flowers bloomed in profuse color, from flowerboxes in front of small businesses, some with neat striped awnings, and to well-tended beds in residential areas.
She could have accepted the position offered by an inner city high school or the charter school in the suburbs but some latent desire to experience a retro way of life propelled her to take this job.
Riverville reminded her so much of the fictional Mayberry from the 1950’s television program that she expected to hear the Andy Griffith theme whistled into her ears as she walked around the Square. Stella liked her postage stamp sized apartment, housed in a former hotel on the corner of the downtown Square, but the high school was different.
Maybe it was the Gothic look of the three-story brick edifice that resembled a castle more than a public school building.
Something about the narrow corridors with vintage features–-full length multi-paned glass doors on each classroom for example—
made her feel like she was starring in a cheap horror flick, not reporting for her first year of teaching.
The bland beige walls begged for decorations, like maps or posters, and Stella wondered if the administration would be angry if she painted them a vivid violet or a pumpkin orange. They probably would since the principal, a graying man two years from retirement, had given her a strict faculty dress code and a written list of rules.
“The appearance and conduct of our staff must be above reproach,” he had told her, nodding for emphasis behind his huge desk. “I am sure you will agree.”
Stella didn’t but she had nodded anyway, tucking her feet with the mauve painted toenails further under the chair before Mr.
Sanderson noticed her toes violated #15 of the dress code. Very few of her new professional garments
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