Tuesday morning came surprisingly early as the home phone rang surprisingly early at the Anderson home. William could hear his cellphone ringing in his pants pockets with a fierce repetitive chime that he couldn't sleep through. As his eyes blinked open, he saw that the ringing was also getting Martha to stir. He sighed heavily.
"The one negative about being a were is that that ringing sounds much louder now than it ever did," William said to Martha as he sat up in bed and retrieved the phone, glad to be getting reception at the moment.
Martha slowly rolled over as he sat up and blinked her eyes slowly as he picked up the phone and then pressed the enter button to answer it. She was partially curious as to who it could be, particularly when the time read to be rather early. It wasn't too far from when the alarm was to go off, but much of that was simply to make sure that Nate and Eric were up on time for school. Tuesdays and Thursdays had seemed to be a lighter day for William with regard to his classes. He didn't have his first class until closer to ten on those days rather than the eight o'clock start on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, though this also often meant that his classes went later into the day than his Monday, Wednesday, and Friday classes. And since everyone in the Anderson family was a were and Yvette Smith was likely in Moon Lake's prison by now, Martha didn't see any problem with the city, which left her curious at who could be calling at 5:45 AM.
"Hello..." William said slowly.
"Good morning Professor Anderson," came a feminine voice from the other end of the "line," he recognized the voice as the head of the English Department a Ms. Victoria Grayson, "I trust this isn't too early..."
"No my alarm wasn't to go off for about another fifteen minutes," William answered with a slightly sarcastic tone in his answer, though he did calm down to continue, "Is something the matter?"
"I'm sure you're aware of what's gone on over the past few days," Ms. Grayson's voice said slowly and falling off toward the end.
"Yes... the reveal and the fighting that's gone on because of it," William answered with Martha paying more attention.
"Yes, well after the riot from yesterday, the College Administration has sent down a series of guidelines that are to be considered mandatory," Ms. Grayson answered, "Some of them you may have read in your handbook... some you may not. Largely because until yesterday, we've never had incidents as big as this."
"I take it you want a department meeting before classes start today?" William asked as he stood up and stretched, getting the sense that sleep wasn't going to be likely.
"Just to outline what the Administrative Office has passed down and let everyone pass on any suggestions on things to add to it, if need be," Ms. Grayson replied, "and trying to limit violence as much as possible. I know your Tuesday, Thursday classes don't start as early, but there will be staff that do have early morning classes... thus we'd like to have this meeting done before eight. So we'll meet in the Department Lounge... you know the area... right next to Professor McCall's office. At seven AM."
"Of course, ma'am, I'll be there," William answered and gave small sigh as he hung up and looked over to Martha, "this shouldn't be anything to panic over... but it will mean I've got to start getting ready."
"Of course..." Martha tried to stifle a yawn, "if you want to shower... I'll get some coffee going."
From there the two oldest Andersons were up and set about getting ready for the day. It was earlier than expected, but then at the same time Martha didn't necessarily feel that tired and neither did William. There were times before Moon Lake when these sorts of things happened and they'd be profoundly tired. Either William was up late grading papers and blue book tests or Martha had been up and down nursing Nate or Eric when they were infants and that left them tired in the morning, particularly when woken up earlier than normal. However, since becoming weres in Moon Lake, they'd had the notice that early starts and late nights didn't necessarily have the same feeling. They might be up well past midnight, and sometimes even after 1 AM, showing each other how much they loved the other and still got up between six and seven AM feeling as though they'd gotten more sleep than they actually had. That made some early mornings far easier...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Getting ready didn't take too long, though the sound of William turning the main shower on did wake up Nate as well and from there, Eric was also soon up, but it was something that couldn't be helped. William was quick to get clean and dressed before making his way down for coffee and some eggs that he found Martha scrambling. He had enough time to get through his coffee before heading out and thus let him explain to Nate and Eric the phone call he'd gotten. In general it wasn't something that was super necessary, as neither were students at the college, but William felt it best to at least let them know why the day started a little bit earlier than normal for a school day.
From there, he drove down Wood Street to the turnoff to the college that the more southerly part of the street and then made his way to the parking lot near the building where the English Department was. As he arrived, he found a few other members of the English Department also coming in. Most were weres, though there was one older human professor. William found himself falling in line with Professor McCall as they walked in, though he could note some look of frustration on all of them.
"I take it things like this aren't normal?" William tried to make some conversation.
"As in special staff meetings before classes start? Nope, not really normal," Professor McCall answered, "though likely also necessary given the circumstances... the riot from yesterday and all that."
"What's strange is that campus security isn't out..." William commented, "make sure no trouble makers are out..."
"They might have some out on foot patrols over the campus," another one of the English Department members commented, "most of the students are usually asleep at this hour and thus foot traffic is lower. Thus they aren't needed for full on riot duty... assuming that sort of tension continues."
"I hope it doesn't," William said looking down, "but to see so many people startled and..."
"You're still new to being a were," Professor McCall reminded him, "thus many things are still knew to you... and you've never heard the stories of hunts and all that. Many of the older weres, and particularly those who were born weres did get those stories and will tend to get a bit more... personal with regard to their opinions."
"What do you think?" William asked curiously as the group made their way into the building and finding that many of the halls only had their security lights on at the moment. The main hallway and room lights were not on.
"To be honest... with what's been reported in Moon Lake..." Professor McCall answered, "I really don't know what to think. A part of me thinks that we should let things be... at least until we can know for sure how humanity will react to the fact that were-beasts are real... but then at the same time there is the part of me that would love to be the real me all the time and with some understanding that we can't just keep pretending that the world can't find out about weres. It's like the two sides are just battling that out..."
"I'd think that's where most of us are... even if we have a chosen side," the other professor commented, "something like this is rather new... not so much that a new were wants to share the secret with everyone... but has actually made an argument that the city council couldn't ignore. Thus... not many of us know what to do."
Professor McCall nodded and they made their way in and up to the floor and area where their offices were. The individual offices weren't big enough to hold all of them together, but in a corner of the hall next to Professor McCall's office there was a larger room that was set up as a sort of faculty lounge for the English Department. With its larger space and less clutter, the professors could rest and talk, sip coffee, or snack on some food without risk of getting papers or other material that would need to be graded dirty. It wasn't quite a luxury lounge, but it was better than nothing and as he entered, William could smell jelly filled doughnuts sitting in a box in the center of a round table in the center of the room. Opposite the table was the head of the department, Victoria Grayson.
"I thank you all for coming," Ms. Grayson spoke as she combed her hair back. William had found that she was a Moon Lake normal and had stayed in Moon Lake to stay close to friends, even while teaching and running the English department, and as he sat down next to Professor McCall, he could see the bags underneath Ms. Grayson's eyes. "I'm sorry things are such that we've all had to come in early."
"So long as we can avoid things like yesterday's riot," one of the others in the group said, "I heard most of them got taken down to the station and will still be there... and that Dean Myers might look to suspend some of the ringleaders."
William shuddered at the memory of seeing it break out the previous day while trying to get some guidance from the dean. William was sure that Dean Myers had a lot of other work to do as the dean of the college, but a part of him had felt that the dean might have more experience with the sort of social science related aspects of the crisis that would require and thus his questions.
"That is hopefully what the instructions from the Administrative Office, and Dean Myers will accomplish," Ms. Grayson nodded, "many of these things will be pretty standard... and might be part of your guidebooks from when you were hired or went through college... but given that the level of tension this reveal has reached in Moon Lake this is going to be something that has to be mandated and kept pretty tight."
There were several nods among the other professors, with William reaching to pick out one of the doughnuts from the box.
"The first will be that the reveal is not to be discussed in the classrooms at all," Ms. Grayson spoke clearly, "write it across your whiteboards if you have to. The subject is clearly divisive and there will be people willing to pick fights over it if its allowed to continue. And notify all students through the day that they will only get one verbal warning..."
"What are we to do if it's ignored?" William asked, "I don't know about anyone else... but a good many of my students yesterday had opinions on the reveal and it did dominate the day... even with reminders that the reveal wasn't the subject of the class."
"And it's not as though the college could hold students in in-school suspension or anything of that nature," another commented, "what can we do if they're determined... particularly while they're afraid... or anxious... or even hopeful."
"From what the Administration Office has agreed on," Ms. Grayson commented, "the failure to comply with this requirement... at least until this reveal business is concluded or until things have calmed down as a whole... could allow for credits for classes could be docked. Let students know this, as if they loose too many credit hours, their grades may well become irrelevant as they wouldn't have the credit hours to graduate... and in theory if enough add up on an individual, they could automatically fail the class and have to repeat it next year rather than moving on to the next class in their major... The hope being that college students will recognize the importance of their degrees and take things seriously."
There were a few nods at this, though Professor McCall soon had a question.
"What about in the hallways between classes?" Professor McCall wondered. "We can't control the students there..."
"Campus Security will be having extra staff on hand, including reserve police officers during the day to monitor the grounds," Ms. Grayson answered, "they will provide one man per floor to monitor the situation should anything get out of hand. I have been instructed to tell you not to become involved in any fight if it breaks out... Especially those of us that are normals."
"What if they ask direct questions on the reveal between classes?" a different professor asked, "is there any guidance there?"
"For the moment... the best we have is to advise patience and to be civil on the matter," Ms. Grayson spoke, "but it would be advised not to engage in such discussion between classes... if only to keep things moving along."
William could only sigh as he took a bit of the doughnut . Things weren't necessarily bad, but he got the sensation that the day would be tense.