I looked straight at Gordon Lawrence.

I never thought he'd force a teacher under him to get an abortion just to shut up a parent throwing a tantrum.

I didn't give an inch.

"Director Lawrence, the Board of Education has never made a rule that a teacher needs the school's approval to be pregnant."

"You think threatening to fire me is going to scare me? I don't scare that easily."

Contradicted to his face, Gordon shot to his feet, shaking with anger.

Right then the office door was pushed open from outside.

The principal walked in.

"I could hear the shouting in here from all the way down the hall. Is this any way to behave?"

Howie's mother threw herself straight at him.

"Principal! You have to set this right for me!"

"Your school's teacher is bullying people!"

She squeezed out two tears and launched into a tearful, wailing accusation against me.

She made me out to be a terrible teacher, one who slacked off because she was pregnant, mistreated her students, and had a vicious attitude on top of it all.

Gordon jumped in beside her.

"That's right, Principal. This Rosalind Whitney has always thought she could look down on everyone just because her class scores well."

"Now she won't even give a parent the time of day."

"I was just trying to do the decent thing, telling her to apologize to the parent and settle this privately, and she talked back to me!"

In the hallway outside the office, a crowd of teachers had gathered at some point to watch the show.

A few of them, jealous that I'd won the Outstanding Teacher award, started needling me from the doorway.

"Oh my, Ms. Whitney's always so high and mighty. Of course she can't take a little grievance."

"Right, she's a celebrated teacher. Ordinary ones like us wouldn't dare compare."

"If she's pregnant, she should just go home and have the baby. Why hang around school taking up a spot she won't fill?"

"Poor Howie, such a bright kid, stuck with a homeroom teacher like her."

I looked at these colleagues piling on while I was down and felt nothing at all, only that it was laughable.

After hearing out Howie's mother and Gordon, the principal's face went dark.

"Rosalind Whitney! You have no discipline, no respect for the chain of command!"

"Do you even know what day it is?"

"The Director of the Board of Education is about to make a surprise inspection of our school!"

"And you pick this exact moment to blow up into a huge fight with a parent!"

"Are you doing this on purpose, to embarrass me and go against the school?"

I looked at him coldly.

"Principal, Director Lawrence hasn't looked into what actually happened at all."

"This parent is the one making an unreasonable scene. She demanded I be her free driver, and when I said no, she used her child's fall to shake me down."

"My pregnancy is perfectly normal. I haven't broken a single rule. On what grounds should I get an abortion?"

"Since the Director of the Board is coming, that's perfect."

I looked the principal straight in the eye and said each word clearly.

"Let him come and settle it, and see whose fault this really is!"

The moment he heard that, the principal flew into a rage.

"Who do you think you are? You're not fit to go in front of the director!"

"He has a thousand things to handle. He doesn't have time for your petty mess!"

He turned and shouted toward the door.

"Security! Where's security? Get in here, now!"

Two uniformed guards pushed through the crowd and ran in.

"Principal, you called for us?"

The principal pointed at me and gave the order, half choking on his own fury.

"Rosalind Whitney, as of now you're suspended. Go home this instant and think long and hard about what you've done!"

"You two, throw her out of here!"

"Without my permission, she doesn't set one foot inside this school!"

At his word, the guards came at me from both sides.

But Howie's mother suddenly cried out.

"No! You can't just let her walk away like that!"

She shoved a guard aside and planted herself between me and the principal, hands on her hips.

"Principal, you're covering for her!"

"She bullies me and my son like this, and all you do is suspend her and tell her to reflect? Since when does anyone get off that easy?"

"Let me tell you, today she's going to bow and apologize to me and my son in front of every teacher in this school!"

"And then transfer me sixty thousand in compensation right away! Not a cent less!"

"Otherwise, I'll go block the gate and stop the Board director this instant!"

"I'll file a complaint straight to him and have him fire Rosalind Whitney on the spot!"

"And I'll show the director exactly how your school lets its teachers bully students!"

I gave a cold laugh.

"Fine, go complain."

"I'd love to see whether the director, once he's here, backs a parent running an extortion racket, or backs a teacher who's just doing her job."

Howie's mother hadn't expected me to hold this firm. She froze for a second.

But the principal came completely undone.

The Director's inspection was a serious matter. It decided whether he'd get his promotion next year.

If this blew up in front of the Director, his days as principal were over.

He wiped the cold sweat off his forehead and turned to glare at me, eyes full of venom.

"Rosalind Whitney! You won't rest until you've dragged this whole school down, will you!"

"Apologize to Howie's mother, now! Do exactly what she says!"

"Hurry up!"

I stood where I was and didn't move.

"I did nothing wrong. I will not apologize."

Seeing that nothing got through to me, the principal stamped his feet in a panic.

"Fine. You've got nerve!"

"Security! Hold her down! Make her bow to Howie's mother!"

The two guards heard the order and moved in at once, seizing my arms, one on each side.

They were strong. They shoved down hard on my shoulders.

I struggled with everything I had, but I was no match for two grown men.

The instant they forced me to bend, Howie's mother rushed forward.

Crack! Crack!

Two sharp slaps landed hard across my face.

My cheeks burned in an instant, and my ears rang.

"Worthless piece of trash! You had your chance to do this the easy way!"

Howie's mother shook out her stinging hand and jabbed a finger in my face, screaming.

"You teachers draw a salary from the state, so you should be serving us parents and our kids twenty-four hours a day!"

"Coming whenever we call is your job!"

"Letting you pick up my son was me doing you a favor, and you dare give me attitude!"

Pinned by the guards, humiliation and fury churned violently in my chest.

A sharp, stabbing pain shot through my lower belly.

Then came a heavy, dragging downward pull.

I felt something warm run down the inside of my thigh.

The guards saw the blood on my leg and let go in fright.

"My stomach… it hurts so much…"

I dropped to the floor, clutching my belly, and with a shaking hand fished the phone out of my pocket to call 911.

But Howie's mother snatched it away.

"Keep it up! Keep putting on the act!"

"Bouncing around fine a second ago, and now one little touch and you're playing dead on the floor?"

"Let me tell you, even if you die right here today, you're paying me first! Otherwise you're not walking out that door!"

The pain left me no strength to argue. All I could do was beg the people around me.

"Help me… call 911… I'm bleeding…"

I looked toward the teachers in the doorway who had come to watch.

But every one of them looked away, some even stepping back.

Seeing this, Howie's mother grew even bolder and shouted.

"I'd like to see who dares!"

"Anyone who calls that number for her today can pay her sixty thousand for her!"

The moment those words were out, the few teachers who had looked uneasy pulled their heads back in.

Just then, an authoritative voice came from the hallway outside the office.

"What's going on here? Why is there such a crowd?"

At the sound of it, the principal's whole body jerked.

He instantly put on a fawning smile and shoved through the crowd to rush out.

"Oh, Director! You're here early!"

"It's nothing, nothing, just a small dispute between a teacher and a parent."

"But don't worry, it's all been settled now."

"This way, please. Let's head to the auditorium first, they've got the welcome ceremony ready for you over there…"

The principal was doing everything he could to steer him away.

I lay against the cold floor tiles, the searing pain in my abdomen sending waves of black across my vision.

Summoning the last shred of strength in my body, I shouted toward the door.

"Dad! Don't go, I'm here!"