"So how was your day, today?" I asked Molly as met at the end of what had been another quiet day.
I enjoyed having things being quiet. Quiet generally meant there was no trouble brewing. Of course, one could also say that it could be a calm before a storm. And at times that had been the case. The gang that Beauregard had hired, the time before MacClure's murder of Joshua Marksman, Bill Williams' rampage, and then before Washerman's nonsense... All of those instances had been preceded by periods of calm. Now, to a certain extent that was to be expected. None of those cases were linked through some sort of criminal mastermind. All of them had different aims and objectives. Beauregard wanted Molly and I to leave Columbia Falls. MacClure was enraged over Beauregard's betrayal of his own organization and murdered another R.A.M. member over a disagreement on Beauregard. Williams wanted to get back at those who he perceived to have slighted him. Washerman was crazy. None of their actions moved toward one singular goal. Which meant that there was obviously no Professor James Moriarty in Columbia Falls.
This of course meant that something could come up in the near future. I hoped, though that things would remain quiet for awhile. Molly was pregnant and we were in the process of figuring out how to deal with the developments of our growing family. Because Molly would need to go to Kalispell for the treatment of her pregnancy, we would need a new vehicle. Since my transformation we didn't ride much, and I could count the number of times I'd ridden in the Ford Ranger I had owned on one hand. Molly's pregnancy had changed that. And that was why I hoped things remained calm. A calm atmosphere would make solving our vehicle/transportation problems a lot easier.
"It went well," Molly answered, "though, just to let you know, I will be expected to go into the first school board meeting of the year."
"Which is..." I wondered.
"Tomorrow night," Molly told me, "seeing as it's Tabby's first meeting as superintendent, I think the agenda for it is dismantle the ridiculous regulations that Hireman had forced through when I started as an aide."
"Mr. Patten must have something special planned as part of that ceremony," I commented.
That was the only thing I had come up with. Tabby had been involved in the PTA before Molly and I moved to Columbia Falls and had only just been elected. I was confident she would do a good job, and would certainly be better then Hireman, but because she had just been elected I doubted that she'd had the time to do anything special in this regard. Molly's co-worker, Joseph Patten, however, had been on Columbia Falls' School Board longer and probably could organize something. I figured that was the best explanation I could come up with, as neither Molly nor I were on the School Board.
"Maybe," Molly shrugged as we walked along, "he didn't say anything of that nature this morning... though most of what we talked about was "car" related."
"Car related?" I wondered, "he have any ideas?"
"A few," Molly nodded and then repeated what Patten had told her that morning.
It was all fairly interesting to hear, though I figured a lot of it was likely to happen. While the Animal Person population was a minority in every country where orders for the Animatrix Serum, and not every Animal Person was of a species that was bigger then people. Amos and Marcella had both become Domestic House Cats, which were normally much smaller then people, but since they were human before they took the serum, they remained at the size of a human. Still, I was sure that there were plenty of people who had become Animal People of species that were larger then people. And because of the growing Animal Person population and the potential of more large Animal Person species, companies would have to respond to their needs accordingly. Part of me wouldn't be surprised if new fifty foot tall one story houses started appearing for anyone that decided to become an Elephant.
"So, what do you think?" Molly asked as she finished her description of the suggestions that Patten had given her.
"The HiAce and Transit ideas might work... or at least as something to balance things out with GM's Furtopia idea," I managed a slight shrug, "the testing out of vehicles at a rental lot... that I'm not so sure on. Enlarging the cab height couldn't hurt... but there's also our leg space to consider. We'd still need to move the seats back on them... and even then, we could end up practically looking through our knees."
Molly shock her head and sighed, "You know that if we moved the seats back all the way, our legs wouldn't be that cramped."
"I know..." I sighed, "but they're built to a human's dimensions... you have about three feet on most human males... and the tallest male humans around have so far maxed out at around seven feet... STILL shorter then you..."
"We could get lucky," Molly commented, "after all, most of this is for a ride to Kalispell for the obstetricians appointments for my pregnancy. We'll still likely be walking around here... if absolutely necessary we can get a normal SUV or a minivan... we need Uncle Frank or Dave or someone else to drive us that way... but it would accomplish the minimum requirement that we need."
"But you would prefer to be able to drive yourself?" I wondered.
"Of course," Molly nodded, "but I'm not going to fight for it if the solution is impractical. And for the moment, I'm not showing yet. We can ride in the backseat for the moment... getting a new vehicle is for when I start to show and it would be wise to have you pressing on my womb."
I nodded, "It wouldn't hurt, I suppose... I'm not entirely confident that there would be a "normal" vehicle that we could drive, but doing some additional research first hand couldn't hurt."
Molly nodded, "but that may be a little ways off. And we can do some research on the exact prices for the HiAce or the Transit."
"They might work even better on fuel economy," I commented, "if they're actually running a diesel engine that is used for sale in Europe."
"What makes you say that?" Molly questioned.
"Volkswagen... don't you remember the commercials they've had on TV, they've advertised a car running on a "clean diesel" that gets forty miles to the gallon," I replied, "most cars using gasoline are lucky to get thirty miles to the gallon, and thats on the highway. In town driving, they average between twenty three and twenty six because of all the stop and go. So if the Volkswagen engineers are accurate, and Toyota and Ford have a model competing WITH Volkswagen in Europe, their engine would have to be just as efficient..."
"Nothing beats German engineering," Molly snickered.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We continued our research on the various vehicles that we would need for the journeys to Kalispell in the future for Molly's coming appointments with the obstetrician there. We found that both the HiAce and the Transit models were comparable in price with GM's Furtopia. The HiAce was slightly cheaper and the Transit was slightly more expensive, but they were all fairly close in price. To some extent, that was understandable. These vehicles were all larger then the normal cars built for humans, and thus used more material to produce them, which raised the cost of manufacture, and at the moment, there weren't enough Animal People out there to make these vehicles sold in mass numbers, yet. So they all remained a sort of custom project for the car company. They had the designs for larger vehicles and would build them as needed to meet the present demand. In time as the Animal Person population grows, either through the serum or through births, I figured that would change, but like all things that would take time.
But that wasn't the only thing that Molly and I had. Buying a vehicle was a big thing, but at the moment, Tabby's taking over as the School District's Superintendent was bigger. Molly and I had a little time to research things and make our decision when it came to the car. Tabby's first meeting would only come once, and Molly was apparently invited to attend. I still figured that the invitation was part of some present or something along those lines that Patten had organized for Molly, so when she departed for School District's Central Office, I tagged along.
The evening air was cooler then some of the previous nights, and there was a bit of a breeze going. I figured that was part of a large storm system that was heading in the general direction of Columbia Falls. Though, according to the newspaper, they figured that was still a day away. Hopefully they were right. When Molly and I arrived at the Central Office we found there was a fair amount of activity there. A couple of local newspaper photographers had arrived to take pictures of Tabby's first meeting. Seeing all this made me feel a bit nervous and uneasy with all the attention.
"If you're worried about a repeat of what Williams did, you need not be," a voice spoke from behind me as Molly and I wiped our feet, "Hiremen left town shortly after Mrs. Choir won... it shorthanded us between the November election and Christmas break... but we managed."
I turned to see Patten making his way in.
"He left?" I wondered.
"I know a neighbor of his... and when he missed the first meeting, I called the office here to try and brief him on what was discussed and voted on, and the secretary told me he hadn't come in," Patten sighed, "when this repeated for the second time, I went to his house. He may have lost the election, but he still had a term to finish... but he wasn't there. The neighbor told me he saw Hireman drive out a week before with practically everything but the kitchen sink."
"Sore loser, I suppose," I commented.
To that, Patten only shrugged. We let him in first and then followed him in. We found there was a fair amount of action going on inside the room the school board met in. The photographers were positioning themselves for their shots and one of the other board members were actually setting up a couple of chairs. The chairs were normally there for parents or other citizens to use to deal with disciplinary questions for a punished child or complaints about school employees, of which Molly and I had been the recipient of under Hireman's policies. That would likely change now with him gone.
"George... Molly... you're here?!" came a surprised voice after a few moments.
Molly and I had moved to a side where we were out of the way. Our ears allowed us to pick up on things a fair distance away and our height insured that our view would never be obstructed. We then turned to see Tabby standing there, looking somewhat surprised.
"Yes," Molly told her, "Mr. Patten asked me to come, and George came because he's curious."
"About what?" Tabby wondered.
"What a normal meeting looks like," I gave a soft chuckle, "Most of the ones I've seen were Hireman's various ideas to try and fire Molly."
"Hopefully things go well... fixing his mistakes will be the first order of business," Tabby nodded and then slowly made her way to the table that was set up for the school board members.
Patten shook her hand and offered her the seat that up until now, Hireman had occupied. There were a few other preparations that were made and a few more people even came in to watch, but after a few moments, the meeting came to order. As it did so, Patten stood up.
"Normally, it is the District Superintendent that is leaving that calls the meeting to order and hands authority over to the incoming District Superintendent in cases when an incumbent is either defeated in an election or leaves..." Patten spoke, "but the past race has been a first for the Columbia Falls School District in many ways. Wayne Hireman is unable to perform that task, so it is my honor to introduce the new Superintendent of the Columbia Falls School District, Tabitha Choir."
Tabitha nodded quietly until another school board member motioned for her to stand up. She did so and shook Patten's hand.
"Thank you," Tabby said to him.
"Do you have any opening remarks?" a reporter asked.
"I hope I can do well for the students here," Tabby said weakly. Saying more would have likely come off as a campaign speech, and she seemed to have been worn down by them toward the end of the campaign against Hireman.
Molly and I quietly watched as they went through the meeting. There were moments where Tabby looked a little shaky in handling things, but much of that I was fairly sure was due to the fact that Tabby had never been in such a role beyond her membership in the local PTA. She knew the basic form of parliamentary procedure, which was the basis for how groups like this met, but was unfamiliar with most of the people there. I figured that would ease as she got used to her new post. The meeting started with old business that had been left over from the "lame duck" portion of Hireman's term that needed to be finished off.
"And that now brings us to New Business to be done for the district," Tabby spoke, "and if I may, may I present possible business to vote on...?"
The other school board members talked among themselves for a few moments before nodding.
"Thank you," Tabby said slowly and then sighed, "as I'm sure you're all aware of my personal stand on the presence of Molly Rhoer-Wayne as a teacher here... she is a person just like you and I, and my daughter loves her... has even said she wants to go back to Kindergarten. The measures that Wayne Hireman put in place were not only unnecessary, but unjust. Mrs. Rhoer-Wayne has not attacked anyone, and even put herself in harms way to defend her students. First with the Mountain Lion and then when Williams attacked the school. I propose that restrictions against her be lifted and removed. Let her teach without having daily updates on what she's done. She's more then proved that we do not need to monitor her."
"I second the motion," Patten nodded.
"I third the motion," another member spoke, since Tabby had been the originator of the motion, she needed the support of two board member to put it to a vote.
They then carried out the vote. There were a couple of new faces on the school board, but most of them appeared to be many of the same people that had been there during Hireman's tenure. But many of them had been worn out by Hireman's attempts and even turned on him in his last attempt to fire Molly. As a result, this vote was near unanimous. Hireman's restrictions were undone. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Is there any other new business?" Tabby then asked, opening the floor to the others.
"Yes," Patten nodded, "this vote was held at the Elementary School level before we went to break this past December. And since the first order of new business has been to show that we trust her... I would be fitting that the next order of business would be to present Molly Rhoer-Wayne with a special award for her service to the school, in spite of all that men like Hiremen threw at her."
Molly and I then both gasped as he presented an award that looked very official. It couldn't be a "teacher of the year" award, as that would be given at the end of year. Molly didn't begin teaching until closer to the end of the 2012 school year and hadn't taught long enough to have qualified for the award then. And the school district was only half way through the 2012-2013 school year. Molly was in line to win that award, but we wouldn't know if she won until the summer.
"What could it be...?" Molly asked in a surprised voice.
"It's an award," I told her, "That is all that I know... best to go up and accept it... people are watching."
Molly turned back to the people that had come to watch the meeting, along with many of the local photographers that were looking toward us. She then slowly made her way up the isle between the chairs. I remained near the rear of the area. Tabby had been a close friend of Molly and I, and Patten knew Molly well as a fellow teacher at the Elementary school... and despite the initial "hostility" between us, things been Patten and I had also calmed way down. The other school board members were either new members who, based on their earlier vote, didn't support Hireman's policies, or veteran members who had grown tired of having to listen to Hireman's rants. And so, with no potential threat, there was no need for me to go with her.
"Thank you, Joseph," Molly said politely when she got to the table, "thank you all."
"The other teachers at the school agreed with it," Patten said with a soft smile, "and Mrs. Fitzpatrick got it rolling. You've earned this."
"Thank you," Molly said again, "thank you."
The photographers all opened up with their cameras to snap pictures of Molly accepting the award. I smiled at this, but I could hear the wind beginning to pick up outside. The blizzard may not be here, but it had to be getting closer.