Courtney Farron was a short, stout woman with a penchant for wearing sensitive sky-blue blouses, and modest heels to help hide her smaller stature. Once upon a time, before something of a falling out between them, Ms. Farron used to be the Assistant Coach to Ashley Knight. As Hannah understood it, the two of them were still not on friendly terms, an understanding between them growing more and more unlikely as Ms. Farron settled into a nice, cushy position as the permanent Economics teacher. But be that as it may, Hannah knew that if anyone had any information on Coach Knight, it would have been the closest thing that she could have called her 'friend.'
"God, it must be awful for you." Ms. Farron snorted, taking a sip of her coffee as she sat back down behind her desk, "I can't believe that they'd stick you with Ashl-- Coach Knight, of all people."
"It's not so bad." Hannah smiled pleasantly at the former assistant, "Really, she's not as bad as a lot of other people make her out to be."
"Pff." Courtney rolled her eyes, "Right."
Hannah was already beginning to think that this might have been a lost cause. She figured that if anyone could explain Coach K, it would be her former assistant. Hannah remembered the two of them being somewhat close, sometime during her sophomore year before all the rumors started spreading that they'd blown up at each other on the track. Hannah wasn't sure what exactly happened, even now, but Courtney--Ms. Farron--was her best bet at explaining some of the subtleties of her hypocritical heifer of a gym coach. Especially the significance of that baby talk...
"I was wondering, actually..." Hannah began, watching as the plump little woman on the other side of the desk added about six Splendas to her coffee, "If she ever acted... weird with you."
Hannah could tell by the sharp fishhooking of Ms. Farron's eyebrows that she had phrased the question in the most unpleasant way possible.
"N-No! Not like that. Not like that at all." Hannah actually stammered, growing genuinely flustered in her accidental implications, "You know, j-just, uh... anything out of the ordinary. For her."
"Everything with that woman is out of the ordinary." Ms. Farron relaxed her posture a bit, mixing in a bit of powdered creamer before stirring it with the tail end of a pen she had laying on her desk, "You're going to have to be more specific. Most people would say laughing while a girl threw up on the track was out of the ordinary, for example."
"Yeah, that's happened... maybe a few times." Hannah unwillingly admitted through the side of her mouth, "Okay, I was really thinking more like... has she ever had these moments where she seemed really... I don't know... sweet?"
Ms. Farron giggled suddenly from the other side of the table, her round belly bouncing beneath her sky-blue blouse as the doughy ex-assistant fought against her own laughter. She slapped the table jovially a few times, doing her best not to spit hot coffee all over the inquisitive brunette's face. She eventually composed herself, swallowed, and continued.
"Sweet?" she repeated a little loudly, "That woman doesn't have a sweet bone in her body! Who in the world have you been T.A.'ing, sweetie?"
Hannah could understand Ms. Farron's unwillingness to suspend disbelief. Hannah had been assisting the tubby teacher for a week now, and until earlier today she would have agreed readily that Coach Knight was as vicious as her ass was big. But there was something... missing there. Something that Hannah had seen in that brief instant, that little flicker. The mere utterance of that soft, timid "pleasy-weasy" was enough for Hannah to at least put her own thoughts about Coach Knight and her hateful treatment of all those poor fat girls in class on hold... for now.
"I know, I know, it sounds silly." Hannah laughed, "But today I got a please from her."
"A please?" Courtney repeated incredulously
"Specifically a..." Hannah shrunk her voice and raised the pitch to better emulate the sweet timidity of it all, "Pleasy-weasy?"
"Oh..."
Ms. Farron suddenly looked softer. Her round face, still smiling, slowly faded from pleased as punch to trash-talk a coworker to somewhat somber. She put her coffee down on the table as her smile shrunk in size, but turned genuinely sweet. It was short-lived, however, as the littlest teacher on staff quickly fell back into motion.
"That's nothing." Ms. Farron psshaw'd, quickly regaining some of her former demeanor, "Just something that she used to say back when she taught kindergarten."
"Wait... Coach K taught kindergarten?" It was Hannah's turn to be incredulous, "Like... they actually let her around little kids?"
"Yeah, I know right?" Ms. Farron snorted, reaching into her desk drawer and returning with a box of Donut Stix, "Whenever the kids in her class would get grabby, she would make them say 'pleasy-weasy' for whatever they wanted before she gave it to them. She told me that a while back, and threatened to slap the taste out of my mouth if I ever told anyone."
The mental image of Coach Knight in full workout gear, standing out in the Buttercombe track making toddlers totter along until they puked was an understandably immediate image that popped into Hannah's head. For some reason, it seemed a lot more funny than disturbing, as it should have been.
"Wow... so, how'd she end up here?" Hannah asked, interested enough in the topic of conversation to manage to mostly ignore Courtney dunking her donut stick into her coffee and taking a big sinful chomp, "And how'd she get so... not-child-friendly?"
"I don't really know sweetie, that's really more of a question for her." Ms. Farron said almost mournfully through a mouthful of coffee and donut stick, "But I know she really liked her job teaching kindergarten."
So Coach Knight; the meanest, nastiest teacher on the payroll at Buttercombe Academy, used to teach kindergarten. And enjoyed it. And somehow managed to speak in that very soft, almost infantile manner of speaking all the time. In many ways, this little trip to Ms. Farron's office had raised more questions than it answered. But in others, Hannah may have just found the perfect leverage in her mission to mold Coach Knight into someone who better fit her idea of what a teacher she assisted should be...
BRRRRRIIIINNGGG!!
"Oh, sweetie, that's the bell." Ms. Farron said quickly, reaching for another pack of Donut Stix from her desk drawer, "Better hurry off to class. Don't want you to be late."
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