The Valedictorian Spot They Gave Away
The board voted four to nothing to restore the class rank to the order printed on April 14. It voted to have the counselor, not the superintendent, run and sign the rank each spring and post it on one day, with no change allowed without two signatures and written notice to the parent. It voted to send a letter to each of the six families. Dr. Cantrell was placed on administrative leave, effective that evening, and the meeting was adjourned at 8:20.
Nobody clapped. The Baker girl’s mother reached over and squeezed my arm, and that was the whole of it.
I found Dr. Cantrell afterward in the hallway by the glass case.
The library had emptied. He was alone under the one light that was still on, working the tape off the new sheet with his thumbnail, careful not to tear the paper, the way a man handles something he has been asked to take down. He heard me and did not turn around.
“Greg mentioned it in March, on the fourth tee,” he said. “I have golfed with that man for twenty years. He came to me with his hat in his hand about that boy’s waiver, and I told myself it was a weighting question. I’m sixty-one, Mrs. Kessler. At sixty-one you can tell yourself most things.” He got the last corner free and held the sheet against his chest. “Marsha did what I asked her because I asked. That one is mine.”
I did not say anything. I had a sheet of paper in my purse and nothing to put on it.
“You’ll have my letter Thursday,” he said. He left the glass case empty, the tape rolled into a small ball in his palm. His hands were not steady. Then he picked up his folder and went out the side door to the parking lot, and I heard his car start and idle for a long time before it pulled away.
The letter came Thursday, effective the thirtieth of June. The board accepted it without comment. That was all anyone ever heard from Dr. Cantrell, and I am told he has gone to live near his daughter.
Marsha Hobbs kept her job. The board voted on it separately, and nobody voted no.
On Friday, Tanner Hale’s silver truck sat at the end of our drive for a full minute with the engine off. Then a tall boy in a school sweatshirt climbed out, left an envelope in our mailbox, and drove away without coming to the door. Inside was a photocopy of his own transcript with a note in pencil. It said he had never taken the dual-credit class, that he had asked for his record on Monday because he wanted to see what his father had been talking about, and that he was sorry. It was signed T. Hale. Maddie read it standing at the mailbox. She put it in the drawer where we keep the warranties, and she did not say what she thought of it.