While we waited for the chance to fix Jessie LaRoe, Jeff asked me to come over to his house one day after school. He said he had an idea about someone else we could help.
When I arrived, he asked me what I knew about Lisa Glenn. She was our school's head instructor on sex education. Or at least whatever passed for sex education at our school. For the most part, it was still almost entirely about abstinence, which was the most useless form of the subject ever taught. Kids didn't want to be told that they had to wait until marriage to get it on. And if no one taught them how to have safe sex, they then contracted STDs. Or had babies. Or more often than not, both.
Jeff told me that this had to change. Ms. Glenn, it seemed, didn't give a crap about whether or not her students actually learned anything useful, and that was dangerous. It was time to take matters into our own hands. If she didn't have an incentive to update her methods, then we were going to do it for her.
The next day, a note arrived in Ms. Glenn's mailbox informing her that she was required to take a few of the many vacation days she'd accumulated or risk losing them for good. As she was already pouring herself her first cup of coffee laced with a touch of whiskey, she simply tossed it on her kitchen table and went back to bed.
At 8:00 am that same day, the Sex Education class welcomed its students for the day. Shortly after everyone was seated, Ms. Glenn entered, her usual charming smile on her lips.
In actuality, it was me wearing a perfect replica of her face and her clothes, and carrying the same purse she always had on her shoulder. I had spent all morning getting into character, since impersonating a teacher was serious business. Jeff had brought numerous references on how Ms. Glenn wore her makeup, walked, and spoke. I had absorbed them all, and let me tell you, it was not easy. Especially when I found that I was taller, and my curves now had a little fat around the edges. My boobs sagged slightly with age, and while my hair was now much curlier and lighter with a brownish color, I still felt like an old maid. But enough of that. It was time to teach.
The first thing I did was go around to each student and collect the dozens of textbooks they'd received at the start of the year. Without saying a word, I dumped them in the trash. Those books were full of nothing but empty propaganda and lies, and were therefore nothing but trash. I then passed out the pamphlets and booklets that Jeff had printed out earlier, containing far more important, medically accurate information.
Then I put in the movie. While digging through Ms. Glenn's employee locker earlier that morning, I had found some old films that she had inherited from the previous sex-ed instructor, who had retired the year before I entered the school. These films were a couple of decades old, but they were far more conductive to learning about healthy sexual behavior than anything I'd ever been taught. But judging by the dust on the sleeves, she had never even bothered to watch them herself. How such a lazy, unqualified idiot was hired to replace someone who, by all accounts, was a wonderful, beloved educator is beyond me. But my plan was now in motion.
For the final part of my class, I brought out my secret weapon. A man entered the classroom, who I introduced as my boyfriend. I then explained, in careful detail and with a lot of metaphors, how we practiced safe sex while also not denying our natural urges. As you probably suspect, the man was Jeff in a mask he'd assembled that morning. We'd spent the better part of two hours conceiving and practicing our presentation before I left for school. But even though I knew it was him, I had to confess, he looked quite sexy with his chiseled beard and muscles under a plaid shirt.
Then, the bell rung and the kids left. I walked up to my boyfriend and, in a low whisper, asked if he wouldn't mind demonstrating some of those "moves" he'd shown off gracefully earlier. He swept me up in his arms, and replied, well baby, I've got some time before gym class.
When the real Ms. Glenn returned to work the following week, she found her locker stuffed with both angry letters from parents who were horrified that she had used such "graphic" imagery in front of their children and letters of commendation from other parents, activists, and others who had heard of her and thought she was brave and courageous in taking the effort to actually teach kids something about expressing themselves sexually. The praise seemed to outweigh the criticism, because for her first class after returning, the first thing she did was show one of the old movies. Her fellow staffers reported that she was seemingly a new woman, more focused than ever on improving her performance as a teacher and engaging with her students.
Meanwhile, I put Ms. Glenn's face away in my bag for safekeeping, just in case she strays away from her new path...