Working Title-The O'Connor Codex

Prelude

Brushneck Cove

"Mr. and Mrs. O'Connor, I asked to meet with you to talk about your son Liam's summer project," extolled Vice Principle Florrey. He always extolled when speaking with his students' parents.  he had terrible people skills, and he knew it. "We are required to inform parents when a student hands in any project containing, or pertaining to; violence, abuse, drug or alcohol use, or promiscuity. This, reportedly, has all of them." Now that he was finished, he was somewhat at a loss as far as how to proceed, so he clasped his hands behind his back in a practiced move at looking nonchalant, and arranged his features into something he hoped was professional and pleasant. He liked the lad's parents, actually. He was still a farmer, at heart, and Liam's dad a former lobsterman. At the end of the day, they were cut from the same cloth.

Mr. and Mrs. O'Connor were also fierce advocates for their son, so that their paths sometimes crossed in rather delicate ways. Liam was no wallflower. The lad had some 'spit and vinegar', as his own father would have said, and his teachers could sometimes get frustrated taking the brunt of it during the school year. Just last year Liam had somehow replaced one of the well-preserved dissection frogs with a very large, extremely loud, and righteously angry live bullfrog. Somehow. Edwin Florrey still harbored a secret feeling that the frog had been telling him off, personally, for allowing such a travesty to befall its brethren as he carried it out to the mill pond and released, with a splash and a final croaking grumble, into its shallow murk.

Mr. Florey ran a calloused hand the size of a canned ham over his thick, black curls, and smiled at Liam's mother. She ran the marina the family lived on, a small affair that wintered a few dozen small sailboats and the odd fisherman's day-boat. She was also very kind. Unless, of course, you messed with one of her kids. Then she was scary.

"Reportedly?" Mrs. O'Connor's eyes quite suddenly reminded him of a distant thunderhead, although she hadn't even twitched.

"Yes, Ma'am." Mr. Sullivan, Liam's home room teacher, had taken the liberty of contacting the boy's parents directly, asking for a disciplinary meeting. Florrey found out, of course, when Liam's parents showed up for their appointment. "I haven't had the chance to read it yet, myself. Mr. Sullivan reports he was shocked at some of the imagery throughout, suggesting it may have been plagiarized from parts of something called the Devil's Bible." It was incredibly (!) hard to maintain anything resembling professionalism and say such a thing. Bill Sullivan needed a vacation.

"It has certainly not been plagiarized. We both read it, and his sister fact checked and proof read it for him. The quotations are cited perfectly." Ah. As soon as Mrs. O'Connor said the word 'sister', Florrey knew this whole thing was a huge load of old dingo's kidneys. Liam's older sister had blown through Kingston Junior High School like a very quiet, blue-haired warm breeze with a small, pleasant smile. No one in their small community had ever seen the like of it, nor were they ready for it. They still weren't; Mr. O'Connor had taken on the daunting task of coordinating home schooling for the brilliant young lady, supposedly. The other rumor was that she had been accepted to MIT.

Ah! Ding, ding, ding...Bill Sullivan nearly lost his job when Summer O'Connor had accidentally proven one of the text books-written and published, incidentally, by a W. S. Sullivan-had some quite prolific but very minor irregularities throughout. All of them pertaining, in some way, to the discrediting of the Theory of Evolution and therefore not suitable for a public school setting. Florrey had to resist the urge to rub his temples, suddenly. Bill Sullivan needed a long, long vacation. Maybe a transfer.

"Yes, right, then." Pulling out his glasses, Mr. Florey held up Bill Sullivan's report and glared at it through the lenses, as if it were the Devil's Bible itself. "'Student project contains'....umm...ah, here we are. '...disturbing in that the content describes ritualistic witchcraft and etc. with both cloying detail and intimate knowledge of such dark arts as..."

Again with the temples pounding. He could always go back to raising pigs and cows...no. This job was rewarding. Today was just one of those days that highlighted some of the challenges. Still, he came from a long line of New England farmers. With a deep breath, he calmed himself, and launched into the bemused silence that had suddenly fallen between them in an all-too-familiar, and not unfriendly, sort of group head-scratching. "Ok. I will speak with Mr. Sullivan once again, Mr. and Mrs. O'Connor, and I would truthfully appreciate it if you would speak to Liam about...well, the school year is almost half over, and maybe he could make it a personal challenge to not offend Bill?"

Bill Sullivan's union representative was a genius. He had his own, the others had begun to refuse to accept his calls.

"I'll speak with the lad, Edwin." Liam's father had been working cheerfully on the decks of various types of fishing vessels since he was a child, and it showed in both his loud, gruff voice and the brightness of his eyes. "You can still call me Colin, you know. We graduated together."

It was one of those moments Colin O'Connor was so good at turning into a friendly conversation. He was absolutely right; they'd gone to school together, in the same small town, all twelve years. They weren't great friends or anything, but friendly acquaintances wouldn't be far off by any means.

"Thanks Colin. I don't mean to sound desperate here..."

"No, Mr. Florey, we get it. Our boy has his father's...zest for life. I'm sorry we didn't catch the implications of this while we were reading it for him, it completely slipped my mind that I should ask him which of his teachers he would be handing it into." The implied challenge hung in the air, cooling things down a bit, but her demeanor implied much more of a conspiratorial commiseration with more than a little frustration thrown in. He could understand that completely.

"I promise, ma'am, I will speak to the man." Somehow, Bill Sullivan had ended up being Liam's home room teacher, something he had assumed his assistant would naturally avoid. He sighed. He knew what they said about assumptions, too, yet it had still happened.

With a little internal start, he suddenly realized Mr. Sullivan had requested the Music Room as his home room assignment, and Florrey had done it simply to appease the often difficult man. He flushed in anger at him; he hated being manipulated. He came from very straight-forward people, quite up front and honest. Bill Sullivan's year was going to be...scrutinized. He smiled at the thought, and somehow Colin met his eye with an amused nod, and an eye-crinkle of complete understanding. There were some legendary stories about how fishermen, of any variety, kept a crew in line. "Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. O'Connor, for your time. I will ask Mrs. Carroll to review Liam's project."