Free Mrs. Million by Pete Hautman Page A

going to do now. All that money?”
    Was he going to ask her for money? Barbaraannette waited, more curious than anything.
    Grunseth cleared his throat. “Ah, I assume that you, ah, won’t want to go on teaching?”
    “Why would you assume that?” She hadn’t actually thought about it. Even with her lottery money she would still need something to do during the day.
    “Well, ah, I mean, since you obviously don’t need the money…”
    Barbaraannette waited.
    Grunseth cleared his throat again and continued. “I mean…I mean, since, you know. You don’t have to work…and then of course there is the Pooh problem. I really don’t know what you were thinking about, Barbaraannette. We’ve had complaints!”
    Pooh problem? Barbaraannette said, “What are you talking about?”
    “Several complaints. I understand that yesterday you told your students that Pooh had won some sort of lottery?” Grunseth paused.
    “Something like that,” Barbaraannette admitted.
    Grunseth slapped his palm down on his desk blotter. “You can’t go around making up stories that aren’t in the texts!”
    “Winnie the Pooh? That’s not a textbook.”
    “For God’s sake, Barbaraannette, it’s Winnie the Pooh!”
    “Tell me you’re joking, Lew,” said Barbaraannette.
    Grunseth was too agitated to take offense at the familiar use of his first name. “You told them that Pooh won the lottery, for God’s sake!”
    “And what’s wrong with that?” Barbaraannette asked, genuinely puzzled. “It was simply a way of introducing them to their arithmetic lesson.”
    “Barbaraannette, people don’t want to think about you having all that money. It makes them feel like they don’t have enough.”
    “People felt that way before I won it, Lew.”
    “And now you’re using up a job that maybe somebody else needs to make ends meet. There are a lot of young teachers out there looking for work, you know.”
    “Are you asking me to quit?” Barbaraannette asked.
    Grunseth pursed his lips and looked down at his desk blotter. “I just think you should consider the effect you are having on other people’s lives,” he said, adjusting the position of his desk calendar.
    “This isn’t about Winnie the Pooh, is it?”
    “We had complaints.”
    “How many, Lew?”
    He shrugged. “Oh, you know.” He dragged his forefinger across his desk blotter, following impressions invisible to Barbaraannette. “The usual. George Berg, Adam’s father.”
    Barbaraannette felt her face heating up. “Have you seen what that man has on his truck?”
    “I…what?”
    “Adam’s father. He has a bumper sicker that says ‘My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Roll Student.’ I really don’t think we should be designing our curriculum around his opinions.”
    “Yes, well, you’re right of course.” He drew a figure eight on his blotter, lifted his finger. “Look, the Pooh thing is no big deal, Barbaraannette. I don’t know why I brought it up. I just thought that if you were thinking of leaving us…” He stared down at his invisible drawing with the intensity of a seer reading tea leaves. “I wanted to let you know that I’ve got someone willing to step in and take over your class.”
    Barbaraannette remembered something then, a rumor she’d heard about the college. They were cutting way back on their Liberal Arts program to make room for the new veterinary school. She heard they were eliminating a dozen tenured positions. “Is your wife one of the professors getting laid off at the college, Lew?”
    Lewis Grunseth’s face bloomed bright red. He slapped his palm down on his desk. “You leave Angie out of this! And don’t call me ‘Lew’!”
    Barbaraannette sat back, startled by the outburst, but continued her thought. “Let me guess. Angela is your candidate for taking over my class, and you want me out of here as soon as possible. Right?”
    Grunseth’s eyes bulged; he squeezed his fist so hard Barbaraannette could read the bones through his