Page 71 of Worst Nanny Ever
“Hey, did you know Eugene Peebles?” I ask on impulse.
At the sound of Eugene’s name, he glances back with a bemused expression behind his reading glasses. “You know Principal Peebles?”
“I do,” I say. “He’s a close, personal friend of mine.” He clearly thinks I’m BSing him, so I add, “I had tea with him just this morning.”
He glances around, then adjusts his glasses before asking in an undertone, “Is it true that he’s working at that crappy brewery with all the nautical décor?”
“I love Big Catch,” I say frostily.
“Yeah, sorry.” He hesitates, his feet planting on the linoleum, and makes a scrunched-up face. “I mean…you know…I’m glad he landed on both feet after the nervous breakdown.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve said too much.” He starts walking again abruptly. “Principal Peebles is a great guy. Very…uh…organized.”
“What nervous breakdown, exactly?”
“Oh, man, there have been multiple?” He glances in both directions, but no small children or wandering teachers are there to distract him.
“Which time are you referring to?”
He does his glance-around move again, then whispers, “I’m talking about when he drank all that hard seltzer and drove the groundskeeper’s golf cart around the school to correct spelling mistakes on all the posters with a Sharpie. You know, they had to have the vending machine professionally serviced after he crashed into it. 5B wouldn’t work, and everyone knows the flaming hot Cheetos are the best.”
Oh, Eugene.
My heart melts for that hot mess of a man, and I double down on my determination to help him get his shit together.
The teacher doesn’t say anything else to me before we reach the classroom, and he raps twice on the door.
“Come in,” a woman says in a voice that drips with dissatisfaction and reminds me of three-fourths of my own grade school teachers.
To be fair, it sounds like both of my guys have given her the runaround today.
I open the door and see Ollie sitting at one of the front desks, one hand pressed to his head.
“Are you okay?” I ask, bounding forward, my heart racing. “Did someone hit you?”
“Now, now, it was nothing like that…”
I shoot Mrs. Applebaum a hostile glare, because it sure as hell seems like it was something like that. She’s an older woman with iron-colored hair coiled into a bun at the base of her neck and blue eyes so light they look like ice behind rectangle-rimmed glasses, with a chain dangling from them that’s surprisingly rainbow-colored.
Ollie has tears in his eyes, a rarity for him, and he buries his face into my dress.
“What happened, Ollie?” I ask, wrapping an arm around him.
Mrs. Applebaum begins, “One of the boys?—”
“I askedhim,” I snap.
“Mickey put gum in my hair,” he says into my chest.
“Why did he even have gum at school?” I ask, glaring at Mrs. Applebaum again.
“For the same reason he had a donut this morning,” she retorts. “Parents see fit to send in whatever they wish without any regard for how it affects the learning environment.”
Well, she and Eugene certainly have similar world views.
“We’ll take care of it, Ollie,” I say, rubbing his little back. “But why don’t you go wait in the hallway for a minute so I can have a nice, cozy chat with your teacher.”
