Watchdog Read Free Page A

skirmish with the authorities had taken place over that quasi-feminist form of address. Apparently, I was the first woman teacher in the history of the school who wasn’t comfortable being pigeonholed as either a traditional Miss or Mrs.
    I’d had to point out that miss was hardly appropriate since I was the mother of a six-year-old son, and what sort of example would that set for Howard Academy’s impressionable youth? As for Mrs., that was out, too. I wasn’t married and had no intention of maintaining a charade that implied otherwise.
    Russell Hanover II, the school’s headmaster, had given in gracefully once I’d explained my position. Flexibility didn’t seem to be a strong suit of his, but as leader of one of Greenwich’s toniest private schools, he had beautiful manners. No doubt his mother had taught him at an early age that ladies were to be humored when it came to their preferred mode of address. How else to explain that the office staff, none of whom was younger than fifty, was collectively referred to as “the girls”?
    Fortunately, at almost nine o’clock on a weekday morning, the traffic was moving briskly on North Street when I got off the Merritt Parkway and headed south toward downtown Greenwich. My new Volvo station wagon, a gift from ex-husband Bob to make up for four years of missing child support payments, clung to the bumps and curves in the road like a burr in a Collie’s tail.
    Usually I like to go slowly and enjoy the view. With its landscaped lawns, imposing manor houses, and two-hundred-year-old stone walls, Greenwich is beautiful in any season of the year, and especially so in the fall when the weather is crisp and the leaves are shot through with vivid streaks of color. Today, there wasn’t time to look at anything but the clock.
    Like many of the homes in the area, Howard Academy is set back from the road. The driveway is flanked by a pair of stone pillars. A small, discreet sign, gold lettering on a hunter-green background, announces that you’ve reached your destination.
    The school itself sits on a wooded hilltop, one of the highest sites around. On a clear day it’s possible to see the Long Island Sound if you know just where to look. And if not, as any visitor quickly finds out, Russell Hanover will be delighted to show you.
    Honoria Howard had envisioned her students doing their lessons in a milieu that was much like home, and on first approach, the building she’d commissioned for her school looked much like a grand turn-of-the-century stone mansion. It wasn’t until the driveway dipped and turned that the newer wing to the rear became visible. Added in the sixties, it was a soaring spectacle of glass and concrete complete with its own astronomy tower.
    Kindergarten through fourth grade were housed in the original building, fifth through eighth in the new wing. There were large classrooms, plenty of amenities, and a low student-to-teacher ratio. I had to give Honoria credit. Seventy years later, her vision of what could be was still an educator’s dream.
    I drove around the building to the teachers’ parking lot in the back. A spot was open near the cafeteria door. From there, it was just a short walk down the main hallway to my classroom in the new wing.
    Classrooms in the original building were a model of old world charm. There were ten-foot ceilings, intricate molding, and working fireplaces. By contrast, those in the new wing featured recessed lighting, cable hookup, and central air. I’ve been a teacher for long enough to choose function over beauty any day.
    Most mornings I stop at the teachers’ lounge on my way in and pick up a cup of coffee. Today I just ran. Even so, I wasn’t the first to arrive in my classroom. Spencer Holbrook, my nine o’clock student, was sitting atop one of the two round tables in the room. His eyes were closed, his legs swinging back and forth, his butt bouncing