Page 5 of Faking It with Mr. Uptight

"Hales, you're an addict. The last time you binged a show you fell asleep in class."

"That was a fluke."

"You have to learn to manage your time. And quit hacking into my parent controls. I thought your access turned off at eleven?"

"Dad, don't use your teacher voice. It's too early."

I grinned. "Well, I'm going to change my password. In the meantime, you need to get ready."

I left her room and went to the kitchen to whip up some instant oatmeal. While the microwave purred, I pulled out my phone to change my parental control access, only to learn Hailey had taken over the whole account and removed my access. She came bounding down the stairs and plopped down at the kitchen island. "I'm starving."

I grabbed the bowl from the microwave. "You realize I'll have to ground you for this latest hack, right?" I raised an eyebrow, sliding the cinnamon-dusted oatmeal to her.

She shrugged. "I haaad to watch it and once I started, I couldn't stop. This season of Starlight Serenade was the best one yet!" Then she launched into a detailed recap of the anime, waving her hands excitedly. I watched her eyes dance with delight, recounting plot that only half made sense to me as she wolfed down steaming spoonfuls.

Hailey was not like me or her mother. While she looked more like her mother every day with her deep brown almond-shaped eyes and curly hair, she was unapologetically herself, and I always admired that about her. Her intelligence was surpassing my own and her tech savvy had surpassed mine years ago.

After breakfast, I hurried us out the door, hoping to get to my classroom a few minutes early to get things ready. I taught seventh-grade history and while I wasn't everyone's favorite teacher like Molly, I did my best to make things interesting.

Before we even made it to the car, Hailey squealed, “Ms. Sinclair!” before taking off. I looked up to see her collide into Molly’s open arms, almost toppling my infuriating new neighbor.

Molly swept Hailey into an enthusiastic hug like a long-lost friend, “Well, good morning, sunshine."

Molly was the same height as Hailey, her curvy figure clad in a maxi dress, bright colors cutting triangular patterns, her dark honey-brown hair flowing loose around her shoulders, a large floppy sunhat and big sunglasses hiding most of her face. She was effortlessly gorgeous, and it pissed me off. When people imagine having a feud with someone, the other person should be ugly or much older than you. Not beautiful. And it didn’t help that her personality was like a My Little Pony meets that teacher from the Magic School Bus.

No one at work understood my annoyance with her. They acted like my distaste for her was like trash talking sunshine or rainbows. I just didn’t buy into her schtick. She’s all tests kill creativity and children should be able to grade themselves. It was bullshit. And my daughter ate it up.

Hailey grinned, hugged her back, then stepped away. I took a deep breath and pasted a smile on my face, crossing to the car, and pulling the door open while they chattered girlishly.

"Good morning," Molly called cheerfully, removing her sunglasses. Her green eyes glimmered with humor. She must be thinking of the night before. Molly always seemed to be in on some joke and right now, I was the butt of it. Despite my best efforts, I was thinking about it too.

I nodded, tight-lipped. "Hailey, we need to get going," I called, hating that I had to be the unfun one. One thing about being a single parent that sucks is that I always have to be the bad guy, the responsible one. Brush your teeth, eat your vegetables, say no when it’s a school night. At least when there are two parents, the roles can switch. Or at least that’s the way it should be. Luckily, Hailey was an easy going enough kid, and I didn’t feel like a bad guy most days.

"Can I ride to school with you? Please?" she asked Molly, who nodded looking pleased with herself.

"As long as it's okay with your dad."

Hailey looked back at me. "Dad, can I ride with Ms. Sinclair?"

"Sure," I said, unable to deny my daughter her simple request, even though I wanted to.

"See you later," Molly said.

"Mhm," I said with a small wave as I tucked into my car. I could hear Molly laughing as I drove away and my grip on the steering wheel tightened.

What was her deal? Was she purposefully trying to antagonize me?

I parked at the school and grabbed my things, then headed inside. I waved to the ancient secretary Mrs. Givens, who chatted with the equally aged librarian Mrs. Wiercinski, stopping when I saw my principal, Mr. Walker. He motioned for me to come over.

"Jake, how are you?" His tone was stilted, not his usual chipper tone.

"Good, sir."

"Good.” He paused, shifting his weight around on his feet and shoving his hands in the pockets of his faded brown tweed suit. “Now listen, the school board has asked me to address your issue. It’s all over Patsy’s Page. The whole town is weighing in. You need to fix this. We’ve had more complaints already today."

Patricia “Patsy” Wilkenson was on the far side of her sixties and head of the local gossip mill. Worse than that, she has a cult following online. And by cult, I mean most of the town that knows how to use Facebook and Instagram. I don’t follow her closely, but from what I remember, she just makes a lot of posts, polls, and videos, discussing or commenting on things going on. This wasn’t my first time making her page, but when she first started, Natasha had just left.

"I spoke with both of the websites’ customer services, and they can't remove the profiles without proof of fraudulent activity. If the women making the complaints would file them with the website, there's a good chance the user will get blocked."

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