You've been cerved.

Tamra

"Miss Green! Oh, Miss Green! Please wait one moment!"

Tamra groaned inwardly and slowed down. She'd finished her last morning class late because Mindy Ahmed had gotten her period - her first period - and Tamra had been forced to deal with the less than exemplary class reaction while searching her far-from-organized school bags for a spare pad.

Even after five years, Tamra was too new to warrant her own classroom and desk, so she had to lug everything from one classroom to the next in a cost-saving practice the school board called "floating." (As opposed to drowning, the younger teachers had whispered wryly amongst themselves, noting how often words carried their opposite meaning when coming from a political body.)

Tamra had finally found a tampon with which she had horrified Mindy when, in the nearest girls' bathroom, she'd explained its application to her. Reluctantly leaving a sobbing Mindy alone in a toilet stall, Tamra had chased after all the other teachers packing up to go to lunch until she'd found someone with a spare pad.

Her savior had been the shop teacher, who'd picked up pads for his wife yesterday, but forgotten to take them home (much to his wife's chagrin.) Having deposited a tearful, padded Mindy wearing Tamra's sweater wrapped around her waist with her preferred peer group in the student cafeteria, Tamra was now just inches from the door to the teachers' parking lot and some much coveted alone time.

Sure, she was probably only going to have time to wolf down a sandwich in her car, but at least no one could open her car door without her permission. Right?

"Miss Green!" The Principal shouted again.

After a longing look at the exit, Tamra fixed a smile on her face, wrapped her arms across her chest to cover any potential bra-less embarrassment, and turned around, her multiple "floater" bags banging all different parts of her body as she did so.

"Principal Harris! How are you this fine Friday?" For some reason, Tamra always felt the need to over-articulate her words to compensate for the principal, who had one of the biggest southern accents she'd ever heard - and it was real, Tamra had learned over the years, not affected. Principal Harris simply wasn't capable of affectation. He'd never had to be.

"I tried to find you this morning," the diminutive Principal grasped one of Tamra's hands and shook enthusiastically while Tamra did her best to keep her other arm in place over her erect nipples. It was chilly in the hallway and she missed her sweater. She wondered briefly if she'd ever see it again or if Mindy would keep it for her next period.

The Principal frowned, but then he smiled, opening his arms to indicate the lady next to him. "Better late than never! This is Miss Reynolds, from the Richmond Dispatch."

"How do you do? Abigail Reynolds, Richmond Dispatch." Miss Reynolds offered Tamra her hand, though the journalist's eyes barely flickered away from her phone.

Miss Reynolds was an abnormally tall and thin woman, even more so next to Principal Harris, who was neither. Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumpy, Tamra thought. She almost laughed but smothered the urge.

"This is Ms. Tamra Green, who I was telling you about," The Principal pointed at Tamra's chest, and Tamra tightened the arm across her breasts.

The one about whom I was speaking. Tamra shook the woman's hand awkwardly and suddenly wondered what the hell was going on - a journalist? From Richmond? Here? Why? Tamra glanced past Miss Reynolds to Nora, Bobby Harris' ever-present shadow and John Randolph Middle School's Vice-Principal.

Vice Principal Nora's face remained carefully and blandly cheerful. Rumor had it Nora's job had been guaranteed to her the moment Bobby had clapped eyes on the former math teacher. Nora had been the only politically endorsed candidate shorter than him. But Tamra had found that Nora was actually quite brilliant at shouldering not only her job but the deceptively difficult work of making Principal Bobby Harris look and feel more than mildly competent.