Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

it?”
    “Because I miss it; I miss school.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s what I do. Who I am.”
    “Do you need the money?”
    “Not really. I don’t have much. But I have enough.   Retirement pays me enough.”
    “Are you miserable in your life, the way it’s going now?”
    “Of course not. I like hanging out with Margot, helping at the shop. I go and come as I wish. It’s nice not having to be here or there at a certain time. And all the grading. The hassles with whatever kid is mad or whatever parent has screwed up.”
    “You really miss all those things?”
    “For a while I tell myself that I don’t; but somehow—somehow, I guess I do.”
    “Couldn’t they get somebody else?”
    “I’m sure they could. But they asked me. Paul and Macy asked me. And that means a lot. I don’t want to let them down.”
    “Are you in good enough health for this? I mean, you’re in your late sixties, you know. Most people your age are retiring.”
    “Well, if we want to look at it that way, a lot of people my age are dead. Doesn’t mean I have to be dead. And as for health, I feel better than I used to when I was teaching.”
    “That’s because you’re not teaching.”
    “Good point.”
    “Nina, you’ve been away from the whole thing for almost ten years now. Surely a lot of things have changed.”
    “I guess so.”
    “There’s testing. From what you can read about in the papers, all the students do these days is take standardized tests. If they don’t do well enough, the teachers get laid off. As principal, you’d be right in the middle of that.”
    “I know. But maybe I can make it easier on everybody.”
    “How?”
    “I’ll figure out a way to cheat.”
    “Oh, right, I can see you doing that.”
    “If the students like what they’re studying, if it’s genuinely interesting in class—then the test scores will take care of themselves.”
    “How many students like what they’re studying?”
    “None of them.”
    “So that kinds of leaves us where we were, doesn’t it?”
    “You’re just being difficult.”
    “I’m being a realist. And I’m telling you, Nina:   you killed yourself in the educational salt mines for thirty years.   You deserve a break now.”
    “I know. You’re right.”
    “Paul will find somebody else. Somebody younger.”
    “I know. You’re right.”
    “The school will survive. And you’ll live a lot longer. And a lot happier.”
    “I know. You’re right.”
    “So you’re going to turn it down, right? You’re going to call Paul Cox this afternoon, after you get back to your shack, and apologize to him, and tell him how gratified you are for the offer, and how you thought about it a long time, but how, after all is said and done, it would be better if you said ‘no.’”
    “I know. You’re right.”
    Pause pause pause pause––
    The waves breaking, the tanker honking, the fish white and jumping in the afternoon tide—
    “But then, of course, Nina, there is that thing that you’re always saying. You know the thing I mean.”
    “Yes. I know it.”
    “How does it go?”
    “It goes, ‘If human ignorance is the raw material upon which educators do their work, then no true teacher has any excuse ever— ever —to be unemployed.”
    “Yeah. That.”
    Pause pause pause pause—
    “You’re going to take the job aren’t you? You’re going to go back into the schools, and be a principal again.”
    “Yes.” “And you always were. You had your mind made up the minute Paul made the offer. We’ve been talking for no reason at all.”
    “I wouldn’t say that.”
    “You wouldn’t?”
    “No, of course not. We always have a reason to talk. And we always will.”
    “Good to hear you say that, Nina. Now—why don’t you go back home, and accept your new job?”
    “All right, Frank. And thanks.”
    So saying, she turned and went back to her shack.

CHAPTER 3: ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH, DEAR FRIENDS!

    Thus it came to be that, slightly more than one month