Text 1 B

From DADDY’S GIRL by Lisa Scottoline (continued)

Nat stiffened. She wasn't sure what McConnell did except hire and fire people, and she had already been hired.

McConnell was in his sixties, with a silvery wave of hair that rolled sideways across his head. Today he was dressed in a dark wool suit with a bloodred tie, unusually formal for this school's faculty. Every­body here dressed academic casual, which was like business casual only with footnotes.

McConnell entered the lecture hall, took a seat, and crossed one leg over the other, scrutinizing Nat from behind his tortoise-shell bifocals. Nat imagined how he saw her. She as thirty years old but looked thirteen because she was only five foot one, with her mother's sparrow-thin bones. Her features were nice in a for­gettable way; large brown eyes, a slightly upturned nose, and a small mouth. She had thick, straight hair, a deep red brown, which she wore shoulder length in an overpriced cut. Today she had on a tailored black pantsuit, but nevertheless came off more middle school than law school. Her childhood nickname was Gnat for a reason.

She saw her career flash before her eyes. She was only an assistant professor and was up for tenure next year, and McConnell must have come to evaluate her. Did he hear her say that nobody had done the reading? For a minute, she didn't know what to do. She didn't want to lower the grades of the entire class, especially for the students with­out job offers. But she couldn't let them get away with it, not in front of McConnell. The vice dean watched her, puckering his lined mouth in appraisal.

Do something, Gnat! She squared her shoulder pads to show that she deserved her job, despite all evidence to the contrary, and said, "Well, then, class, you leave me no alternative."

The students gulped collectively. McConnell half smiled and folded his arms.

"Mr. Carling?" Nat pointed to him. "Please come up here and bring your book."

"Uh, okay." Carling rose, slid his paperback from his desktop, and climbed the steps to the stage with a too-cool-for-school smile.

"Come here, please," Nat said, motioning him over to where she was standing.

Carling crossed the stage, scanning the high-tech lectern, with its touch-screen controls and multicolored display. "This is sick up here."

When Carling was beside her, Nat reached up and took the wool hat from his head. "May I borrow this?"

"Sure." Carling refluffed the layers of his sandy hair, looking at the class from the stage. "I could get used to this, yo."

"Now stay there, please." Nat scanned the lecture hall. "Mr. Wykoff?" She pointed to Charles Wykoff IV, an all-Ivy lineman from a Main Line family, via Dartmouth. Wykoff had a big baby face, a fringe of crayon-yellow bangs, and guileless blue eyes that telegraphed Legacy Admission. "Please come up and bring your book. And Ms. Ander­son, please come with him."

"Sure." Anderson happily made her way to the steps. Wykoff fol­lowed her, mystified.

"Hurry up, guys." Nat hustled over as the students made their way to her. She positioned Wykoff by his shoulders, solid as bowling balls under a faded Patagonia fleece. "Good. Now, Mr. Wykoff, you be Bassanio."

"Ba-what-io?"

"Bassanio. He's the hunky boyfriend in the play you didn't read. Open your book. You've got lines." Nat turned to Anderson. "Lady, you're Shylock."

"Terrific!" Anderson grinned.

"Whoa, we're putting on a skit, in law school?" Carling asked in disbelief.

"Not a skit, a play," Nat answered. "It's William Shakespeare, not David Letterman."

"Pssh. What's next? Milk and cookies? Nap time?"

Wykoff guffawed. "Damn, I left my protractor at home."

"Guys, would you rather I lowered your grades?" Nat didn't wait for an answer. "You'll read this play, one way or another. By the way, Carling, you're Antonio."

"But he's gay!"

"So what?" Nat turned on her heel. "And how do you know that, if you didn't read the play?"

"I saw the movie. Jeremy Irons borrows the money from Al Pacino because he's in love with a dude''

"Way to miss the point, Mr. Carling. Don't discriminate in the class about discrimination."

The students laughed, and Nat startled at the unaccustomed sound. They'd never laughed at any of her jokes before. In fact, all nine of them were paying attention for the first time ever. Behind them, McConnell leaned back in his seat, but she couldn't stop now. She took her place downstage.

"Everybody," Nat said, "please turn to act one, scene two, the big courtroom scene. I'm playing Portia, one of Shakespeare's best female characters, except that she fell for the wrong guy. She's about to save the day, and in this scene, she disguises herself as a man, like this." She shoved Carling's wool hat on her head and hurried to the lectern for her purse.

"You look hot, Professor Greco!" Elizabeth Warren hollered, and the class laughed.

"You ain't seen nothih yet." Nat rummaged through her makeup bag, found her eye pencil, and drew a crude mustache on her face with two quick strokes, courtesy of Clinique.

"Awesome, professor!" San Gupta shouted, making a megaphone of his hands. The class broke into applause that echoed in the cavern­ous hall. Somebody in the back of the room wolf-whistled, and Nat looked toward the sound. It was Angus Holt, whose blond beard and ponytail qualified him as Faculty Freak. Angus taught in this room after Nat's class, but she didn't know him except to say hello and good­bye. She smiled, then caught sight of McConnell in the foreground, which gave her an idea.

"We need a judge." Nat rubbed her hands together.

"I'll do it!" Max Bischoff volunteered, forgetting he had typhus.

"Pick me! It should be a woman judge!" Marilyn Krug shouted, and Adele Mcllhargey chimed in, in an unprecedented traffic jam of class participation.

"Wait a minute, gang." Nat waved them off. "Vice Dean McCon­nell, would you please be our judge this morning?"

The students turned around, surprised to see McConnell sitting in the back. The vice dean frowned at the sudden attention, cupping his earlobe as if he hadn't heard, but Nat wasn't buying.

"Vice Dean McConnell, we'd love for you to play the Duke of Ven­ice. Right, class?"

"Yes!" Everybody shouted, smiling, and Nat started a cheer.

"McConnell! McConnell! McConnell!"

The students joined her, and as if on cue, Angus Holt lumbered down the sloped aisle of the lecture hall. He scooped up McConnell on the way and escorted him to the stage, amid laughter and clap­ping.

"Special delivery, Professor Greco!" Angus handed over a slightly winded vice dean.

"If it pleases, Your Grace." Nat extended her arm to McConnell with an Elizabethan flourish. Gotcha.

2. Decide what helped the teacher to find a way out of a difficult teaching situation. Write down your opinion (200 words).

3. Watch the movie Dangerous Minds. Get ready to talk about it in class a while later (Class 1.3).