When Ms. Harner walked into her new classroom, she didn’t look like a threat. She wore a plain gray blouse, her hair loosely tied, glasses slipping down her nose. Her voice was soft, polite — the kind that didn’t command a room but asked permission to exist in it.
To a pack of bored, angry tenth graders, that made her prey.
The school had warned her this group was difficult. “They test every teacher,” the vice principal had said. “Don’t take it personally.” But no training could prepare her for the wall of hostility that greeted her when she introduced herself.
Jadon sat sprawled at the back of the class — tall, cocky, and always smirking. His two shadows, Malik and Trevor, followed his lead like obedient dogs. They’d already decided what kind of teacher she was: the kind they could break.