Page 18 of The Headmistress

“Despite a number of people spreading rumors to the contrary, I actually do try to take all information into account when making a decision, Professor. I listen.”

“You mean…” It was too huge, too unbelievable to even voice it.

“I mean that you made a compelling case.”

Sam’s heart was hammering so loudly in her chest, she was certain the whole school could hear it.

Magdalene's smile was a touch self-deprecating when she added, “Of course, I also spoke to the trustees and some of the current and former students, but overall, your staunch defense of the esteemed—or, depending on your point-of-view, less esteemed—Professor Fenway got the ball rolling. So if she has one individual to thank for still being at Dragons, it would be you, Professor Threadneedle.”

“Except gratitude isn’t why I provided the defense I did.”

“Ah, yes, she is essential to the school.”

Sam swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat at the thought of all the things essential to the school that were being simply swept aside.

“Headmistress, the Houses are essential for the school too.”

“Of course. You are like a dog with a bone. A new bone, I should say, since we have settled one of your charity cases.” Magdalene waved away Sam’s look of outrage. “Fine, fine, I apologize. Orla Fenway is no one’s charity case, obviously. Next thing you will challenge me to a duel over Joanne Dorsea.” Sam’s face fell and her heart plummeted. Joanne, more so than Orla, was the one person at Dragons she cherished, she treasured, she truly loved.

“No, stop.” Magdalene turned away from her and looked out of the window, hands on her hips. “Do not give me the kicked puppy look. Before you actually mount another campaign, let me reassure you that Professor Dorsea is safe and sound and will continue at Dragons. She will not remain in the Art Chair position. Her health condition prevents her from doing so. But she agreed to stay on as a member of the Residential Faculty. The students love her, and having her closer to the dormitories will be a boon for everyone. And she’ll still teach photography. So—”

“So she keeps the job she likes, adds another that she will excel at, and gives up the bureaucracy and paperwork she hates as the Art Chair. Thank you.” Sam’s words were tearful, and she couldn’t make herself care. Joanne was safe. Better than safe. Magdalene had made a change that Orla should have implemented five years ago. She’d taken away the strain and the pressure of the Chairmanship and given Joanne the joy and simple pleasure of doing what she loved to do, anyway.

“Yes, yes, you’re all welcome, I’m sure. But can’t you see that you seem to be fighting absolutely every single decision I propose? And I’m not even sure you understand why you’re doing it. Tell me why the Houses are as ‘essential’ as you and everyone else seem to think?”

Magdalene sat down, rolled her chair closer to the window, and resumed scratching Willoughby’s ear, with the cat unrolling from his loaf-like position and stretching in complete and utter ecstasy under her ministrations. Now that some crucial things had been resolved, Sam allowed herself to relate.

“The girls learn the importance of a collective, that they are stronger together, that they can achieve so much more as a team, that belonging is important—” Sam stopped her enumeration when an eyebrow rose questioningly.

“Did you belong?” And with one question, Sam felt her argument start to fall apart and her defenses crumble. She wanted to stand her ground, but three simple words had dismantled the very foundations of her position.

“Your eyes are grey, Professor Threadneedle. How did you fit into whatever House they shoehorned you into? Sky Blue, I assume? Did you feel you belonged? And how about the girls with hazel eyes? And god forbid, girls with heterochromia?”

Sam dropped her chin and looked away. She knew the answer to that one. There were no girls with this rare genetic condition at Dragons and, to her knowledge, never had been.

“Here you are, defending Doctor Fenway’s presence at the school to me, defending the scholarships, arguing that the school should accept and include and innovate, yet you are standing up for an archaic structure that excludes, divides, and pits students against each other.”

Sam wanted to jump and defend a two-hundred-year-old tradition, but to her own horror, all that came out of her mouth was a choked sob. But Magdalene wasn’t done.

“Did you know that, in the pursuit of the soccer cup just last year, there were fifteen violent incidents between members of the different Houses? Or that, during the lacrosse competitions, the girls from Sky Blue and Amber got into over twenty altercations off the field? Bullying, verbal abuse, hazing. Is this the unity Three Dragons has been promoting? House over school loyalty?”

Sam was, of course, aware of those developments. The Houses were notoriously competitive, and the adversity was only stoked higher by all the cups and competitions that pitted them against each other. Sam could still remember getting her nose bloodied by the Amber House girls after she’d scored the winning goal in the soccer championship in her sophomore year.

“This isn’t that magical school in Scotland, Professor Threadneedle. And even there, the Houses were the ones to tear the school apart, to establish unfair stereotypes and misconceptions, to pretty much determine the entire future of a student before they uttered a single word!”

Impressed and not a little turned on now at Magdalene’s display of nerd-like bravado, Sam just stared. The cat, disturbed by the agitation of the hands that were caressing him, jumped off the windowsill and hissed at Sam before putting his tail up in the air and departing with a disgruntled air.

“Pop culture references aside, and wow, how cool is it that you even know…” Magdalene’s eyes narrowed and Sam decided not to finish that sentence. “The Old Dragonettes will not permit this to happen.” The last line of defense seemed flimsy even to Sam’s own ears.

“Alden and Tullinger, Ohno and Rolffe, are the people who have to permit this to happen, Professor. They actually have the power to allow things. Believe me, when I say, I couldn’t care less about the thousands of women who stood idly by when the school was sinking lower and lower on the national chart of private schools. Did you know that Dragons went from number one in the Northeast to dead last in every single denominator, academics, sports, everything in less than ten years?”

Sam had, of course, known this.

“The only bright spots on the school’s horizon were the awards the faculty kept receiving and the recognition they kept getting from the state and national education boards. And in the past three years, by faculty I mean you. You have single-handedly kept the school in the good news column, papering over the cracks of incompetence. And yet you sit here and argue that some women who descend on the island once a year—to get boozy and rowdy and break chairs and kitchenware down at Rowena’s Pub—are the reason I should not do whatever I deem necessary to drag the school out of the quagmire it has sunk into? Do you seriously think they are going to be the ones to stop me from doing what’s right?”

Sam hated that Magdalene had a point. That she, in fact, had many many points, but her stomach clenched for a different reason. There it was again, the unfailing correctness of the terminology used by Magdalene. Sure, you could learn the customs of the locals, you could even know the nickname of the one local watering hole down in the village, for nobody called it The Rooster or whatever its original name was. Both the school folk and the townspeople called it Rowena’s, after the first owner who had long since passed. But the way Magdalene kept correctly hitting all those notes, never once missing? Sure, Magdalene was always prepared, always so on top of things, but this was just a bit too accurate, uncannily so. All of Sam’s instincts were standing at attention.

“I accept that some of the reasons behind your proposal are reasonable—”

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