Tuition

I know Marcella couldn’t pay the tuition this month, but we have every reason to believe she’s good for it. I know with Stephen, it was slightly difficult, because he was already a few months behind, and we were giving him a lot of leeway, and I know that was a controversial decision for the school board and the, uh, the people in charge of the decisions to, uh, make--I know that. But this isn’t that. Marcella is behind one month, but her mother recently got another job at the flea market helping to set up the various stands and she assigns where everybody can put their table, and if you’ve ever been to the flea market down on Grocer’s you know that’s a big responsibility and she’s going to be tipped out quite a bit, because it’s common to tip the person in charge of the assignments, because the next time you go the flea market, if you’re a vendor, you want to make sure you have the best spot possible. That’s why I really wouldn’t worry about Marcella making tuition. I’m sure she’ll have it for next month, and I’d hate to see her go the way of Stephen just because of one missed--

Yes, we already set a bad example once, but when you’re talking about a school that’s been around for over two hundred years, I don’t think one exception in regards to tuition is going to shake the columns outside or anything like that. As it is, both Stephen and Marcella are perfect examples of students we’d have given scholarships to back when we had an expanded financial aid program, and now that we don’t, I think it only stands to reason that we’d show a little more understanding when a student’s parents have trouble--

Of course, I wasn’t going to say anything, but yes, I did notice that after Stephen was thrown into Mount Stopper, we did have one or two earthquakes that week. I would never suggest that the volcano was displeased with the decision of the school board and the, uh, ones who make those sorts of decisions, but we all felt the trembling. We all lost a precious plate or two as they came smashing down on our hardwood floors. We all woke up two or three times that week and we all let the thought cross our mind that perhaps we shouldn’t have thrown Stephen into the volcano when he couldn’t pay his tuition.

I’m aware of the custom when it comes to infractions, but the infractions, as detailed in the school manual’s last revision over seventy years ago, does not include failure to pay tuition. We started as a school that only required tuition from our most wealthy students and their families, and now we require it of nearly all the students, and when they can’t pay, we subject them to a fate worse than death.

Well, yes, it does lead to death, but the manner by which we bring about that death combining sacrifice with ferocious magma, would seem to be a fate worse than death leading to death itself eventually.

And we have no idea what goes on beyond that death.

If the sacrifice isn’t pleasing to Mount Stopper, then it stands to reason we’re being punished by the same gods we claim to seek approval from when we give them those we have labeled “problem children.”

Marcella is not a problem child. Stephen could be a little difficult, that’s true, and goodness knows I never could get him to stop shooting spitballs at little Wendy Taylor in class, but to know that he was swallowed up by ruthless, gelatinous fire, well it--

I’ll tell you, it keeps me up at night.

And you know what else keeps me up at night?

The billowing, black smoke making its way through every open window and crack in every house in town. Either the volcano does not like how we’re doing the sacrifices now or we need to be sacrificing a lot more people now that we’ve kicked things into gear again, so to speak. Eighty years is a long time not to feed a volcano, and all those years ago, we--

That wasn’t even a sacrifice so much as an accident. That geology student was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and down he went, but nobody took it upon themselves to force him into the hellmouth. He was totally innocent, and even then, Mount Stopper didn’t send smoke up our nostrils while we slept or cracked the ground in half.

You can bet it was angry about Stephen, and it’ll be even angrier about Marcella if you send her plummeting to her demise in that way. I say we give her the month to get her tuition payment in, and if she does, we never speak about sacrificing her again. She’s a good kid. They’re all mostly good kids--even Ralph. Even Ralph who put superglue all over my chair doesn’t deserve to be flung into the belly of the burn. We should ask the school board or, um, whoever makes those decisions, to consider coming up with a new plan of attack if a student can’t pay their tuition. I’d be happy to be on any kind of committee looking into something like that. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I’m sure we’d find that there’s no need to continue to take such drastic measures every time a bill comes back to us unpaid.

Oh, and that reminds me, I know you were all insisting that I need to chaperone the prom this year, but as I keep mentioning, I’ll be attending a wedding out of town that night, and I’m simply not able to do anything about that. I know you were counting on me, but you have to understand that when life beckons, one must run towards it.

I’m also choosing not to acknowledge that letter you sent me indicating that I should meet you all at the summit of Mount Stopper two days from now. I know a scare tactic when I see one, and that was clearly a, um, a scare tactic, and it didn’t work. That’s what you should know--It did not work and I am not scared.

Perhaps only for Marcella, who seems to be at your--our--your mercy.

And what a lovely word--mercy.

We could all use a little bit more of that these days, couldn’t we?

What a lovely example we could set for the students, if they saw us looking up at that domineering mountain--not with primal excitement in our eyes, but something else.

Something kinder.

Something that doesn’t burn quite so bright.