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“Shouldn’t we be reporting it, or something?” Paul Davies asked his colleagues as he poured himself another cup of lukewarm coffee.

“You can, but I’m telling you they won’t do anything about it. Not unless a student is willing to talk, and we both know they never do. Most of the time it’s just kids fighting in the damned parking lot.”

Paul sighed. “She isn’t a testosterone-fueled teenage boy. She’s a good student, one of few to be honest, and clearly whoever clocked her meant business.”

Paul was new to the school, though not to the neighbourhood. He knew how things were, knew that you minded your business around here, but Laney’s swollen eye had been bothering him all morning. He felt like it was different now, as a full-time teacher. Like he was supposed to be able to help. Like he should help.

She was a bit of a smartass, he’d admit. He tried not to call on her in class very often as she usually retorted with something snarky that he’d have to pretend he didn’t think was funny. He hadn’t liked her at first, lumped her in with all the other girls who mouthed off for attention.

Then she’d turned in her first assignment.

They were studying Canadian short stories, and he’d asked each of the students to submit an original short story with a Canadian twist. He’d been on the verge of gouging his eyes out with a spoon when he finally picked up Laney Hawton’s.

The story dropped you into the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a conversation, between two unidentified people with rapid-fire dialogue and zero narration. At first, he’d been annoyed at the lack of narrative context. But he’d very quickly been drawn in by the clever comments and heated words – like eavesdropping on a couple arguing at the next table in a restaurant.

It is eventually made clear to the reader that the two characters are a couple, and that the woman is masterfully reliving the sordid details of a steamy affair from the night before out loud for her husband. What at first seems like cruelty, like witnessing the end of a marriage, is eventually revealed to be a cuckold scenario, ending in the man begging for her to go out again tonight.

Apart from the extreme level of inappropriateness, it was the best thing he’d ever read from a student. If he were being honest, it was the best thing he’d read in general in quite some time.

He hadn’t been able to figure out the “Canadian twist” until the end, when the woman gets into a car and the driver says, ‘Where to this evening, Madame Trudeau?’

The story was about the former Prime Minister.

He’d laughed himself hoarse, given her an A, and then – shamefully – jerked off.

“Paul, I know you mean well,” Carol said with a pat on his hand, “but you want my advice? Just get through the fucking day.”