Marcus hesitated.
“Me?”
“She may answer another former student.”
Marcus typed carefully.
Hi, my name is Marcus Reed. I’m a student at Hawthorne. I had an incident with Mrs. Gallagher and I’m trying to understand whether anyone else experienced something similar. I’m sorry if this is intrusive.
He pressed send.
Nothing happened for an hour.
Then his phone buzzed.
It was Noah’s spare phone, temporarily loaned to him.
The reply contained only five words.
Give me your mother’s number.
The next morning, Denise spoke with Jamal Pierce’s mother for forty-three minutes.
Marcus heard only pieces.
“Yes.”
“No, he never told me that.”
“What report?”
“Did you keep it?”
Then silence.
A long silence.
Denise came into Marcus’s room afterward holding a notebook.
“There were four.”
“Four what?”
“Students.”
“Black students?”
She nodded.
“In three years.”
Marcus sat up.
“All with Gallagher?”
“All complained about her.”
“What happened?”
“One withdrew. One transferred after being placed on academic probation. One family accepted a tuition refund and signed something saying they wouldn’t discuss the dispute.”
“And Jamal?”
“He was accused of threatening her.”
“Did he?”
“His mother says he slammed a book shut after she told him his scholarship made him ‘ungrateful.’ Gallagher reported it as physically intimidating behavior.”
Marcus looked toward the floor.
“What happened?”
“Whitmore recommended he transfer.”
The room seemed suddenly very small.
Marcus thought of the forms in his file.
Increasing hostility.
Administrative intervention.
A pattern.
He whispered, “She was doing it again.”
Denise sat beside him.
“Yes.”
“But why?”
His mother looked at him for a long moment.
“That’s what we still don’t know.”
The answer came from an unexpected place.
Two days later, Marcus received an email from someone named Eleanor Price.
He almost deleted it because he didn’t recognize the name.
The subject line stopped him.
I used to teach at Hawthorne.
Marcus opened it.
Your mother may contact me. I believe I know why Gallagher targeted certain students. Please do not forward this message to the school.
Eleanor Price had taught history at Hawthorne for twenty-six years.
She retired suddenly in 2022.
When Denise called her, she refused to speak by phone.
Instead, she asked them to meet at a public library.
Marcus went with his mother.
Eleanor was seventy-one, small, silver-haired, and carried a canvas bag stuffed with folders.
She shook Marcus’s hand.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For staying quiet too long.”
They sat in a back corner.
Eleanor removed a thick folder.
“I taught with Margaret Gallagher for seventeen years.”
Marcus had never heard Mrs. Gallagher’s first name before.
“She always had favorites,” Eleanor continued. “That wasn’t unusual. Many teachers do, whether they admit it or not.”
She opened the folder.
“But around 2016, Hawthorne changed.”
Denise leaned forward.