Brett rounded the corner into Mrs. Lee-Reilly's office after fourth period, feeling a little triumphant. One more teacher down. He was going in to make a few demands and he felt very entitled to them. This time, he wouldn't be caught unprepared for the meeting. After all, he was really doing the principal a favor, right? Surely he could play hardball here.

First, he wanted the agreement he had signed printed out, or in PDF form. Emailed to his personal email, not his school email since his mom could read that one. What a sucker he'd been not to read the whole thing.

Second, he wanted to ensure that there would be no multi-day sessions anymore. He'd had to work with Ms. Olivier for five evenings total and it was somewhat grueling. Three of them were spent working out how they would even approach the certification process, and with no formalized procedure Ms. Olivier had wanted to be thorough. They had basically worked together to develop a document that would serve as a template for the rest of the faculty. Then there were the two days of "practical exercises". He wanted the paperwork process streamlined and immediately to follow or precede the practical - so that it could be done in one evening. The primary goal here was to get done before the end of school in June. He only had ten days left before the last day and he really didn't want to come to an empty school on his free time to do it. Surely the principal would share his haste because she wanted to get the certifications filed with the state before they had to marshal the special disciplinary needs students. He had good reason to believe the time demand would be acceptable. The legwork that Ms. Olivier did had paid dividends. This morning, the day just after his single constrainment training session with Mrs. Gu, he had shown up at Mrs. Gu's classroom and asked her if she could do the paperwork with him over lunchtime. Not only was she prepared to do it, she had already read it over and did it with him in 30 minutes, so he figured he could make the case to demand that all of the remaining 5 teachers work with his schedule to get wrapped up in a single school day evening apiece, at most.

Third, he wanted to broach the question of his mom. Was she already certified? Was she in the document? He still had not told her, so he felt he had to clearly request that Lee-Reilly should not tell her for him. His mom probably wouldn't be happy that he was doing this with her coworkers, because it could make her feel weird in her professional relationships with them. He had to confront her with it himself or it would be even worse for him. He could see his mom getting pissed off and he really didn't want that if she was going to be training with him.

Lastly, he wanted to talk more formally about the GPA assistance. He had choked slightly on his last chemistry test and had barely passed it. Chemistry and math were tough subjects for him, but he did seem to have a good relationship with Mrs. Samson, he just hadn't had time to see her after school due to the certification volunteering. He had to ask Mrs. Lee-Reilly to tell Samson about the deal and plead for a little bit of leeway. He still intended his final project to be a decent effort, but there was not much grading content left in the semester.

With this in mind, he went in primed for a battle.

---

He found his principal at her desk waiting for him and she looked up, smiled a tiny bit, and gestured for him to come in and close the door. Lee-Reilly had bags under her eyes and looked a little tired. "Brett. How are you doing? Glad that you came to see me."
"Well, y'see, I really need-" he started, expectantly.
"Oh sorry to interrupt, before I forget, here's your agreement printed out." She reached behind her desk and grabbed it from the top of a filing cabinet. He heard a little slam as she spun around and dropped it on the desk in front of him - there had to be at least 100 pages in that stack, and it was bound with a gargantuan 1.5-inch binder clip.
Brett took it with a look of triumph on his face. "Thanks, I was just going to ask. I really should read everything."
"Of course you should young man!" she chided him. "Always best to read every agreement you sign."

Brett thumbed through the pages idly and whistled. "This is a hefty document. I had no idea."
"Yes it is Brett. But if you're worried, I promise it's 90% boilerplate. I simply have to make sure that our agreement is up to the standards needed to get the certification training needed for our timelines."
Brett tried to regain control of the conversation and blurted out abruptly: "Speaking of timelines. I think we can only do 1 day per training session."
Lee-Reilly sighed. "I know you do, and it's something I want too. I want you to get out of here and enjoy your summer. I want all the loose ends tied up so we don't need you again over the summer. You planned to go to the city with your dad, right?
Brett nodded. Apparently the principal knew that his sometimes-distant dad, a New York City hedge fund business analyst, was going to take him for the summer. This was going to be a big deal and he was hoping to get the equivalent of an internship by learning from his dad on the job. He had never told the principal that, so evidently his mom had let it slip out among the faculty at some point.
Lee-Reilly continued "... but if you review the training documents closely it really does stipulate 4 hours of training per teacher, which we don't have to pedantic on but we can't simply dismiss out of hand. Several hours can be tough to fit into one day at the end of school. I think you did way more than that with Sondra, and maybe just a bit less than that with Wendy technically. Though I went over it with Wendy and she seemed to have retained it very well. But some of the other teachers you'll be helping have kids at home, or they need to get out of the school at a certain hour for different reasons. It's been very tough to arrange a schedule like you've done so far.
Brett sighed and looked down. What was she proposing?
"I think we can get all the teachers trained in time as long as you agree to one thing." Lee-Reilly said, hanging on the pause.
"You would need to either go home with them or do it on a weekend day."

Lee-Reilly continued while Brett looked suspicious. "There's just no other way. They are mostly agreed that as we approach the final weeks, they just can't spend 4 hours after school with you, but they could possibly do it in pieces from home or from their other after-school job sites. Fatima and Loren also teach evening classes at the community college, for example.
"How am I going to get home if we do it at their places? The community college is completely in the other direction of my house."
"I know. It's hard for them too to consider taking you back to the school or home on a school night. I've asked them to try to do this with you and take you back home if you need to be, but it would be a lot easier to get the faculty to go along if you would spend the night. I asked all the remaining ladies and they seemed more amenable to setting up a small quarters for you overnight."
Brett processed the idea. It turned out that, quite apart from the requests of Mrs. Gu on behalf of her sister, he was going to very soon see exactly what it was like to go to strangers' houses as a shrinkee.

Brett asked somewhat plaintively, "How do I know it will be safe?"
Lee-Reilly continued on in a somber tone. "Your safety is the number one priority. These conditions are basically exactly what we're putting to the test in real world school conditions. Think about it - if a teacher is faced with unruly student who has to be shrunk for the safety of the student, the other students, or the faculty, the number one thing that we want to ensure is that she can get the shrinkee to a safe place of isolation as rapidly as possible, where no accidents are going to happen. Ensuring that the conditions are enforcing discipline by making them unpleasant is always a secondary priority, even though I want to see it done."
Brett nodded as she spoke. She basically had a speech planned for when he finally stopped trusting her, and he realized he was just going to have to listen to it in silence. "So don't worry. We've asked and made sure that cats and dogs are restrained and kids in the house know what they're dealing with. You will have a safe shelter wherever you go. I promise you - I have specifically told each teacher how serious it is to take care of shrinkees. It is more than their careers on the line if they actually let anything happen to you." At this point, she changed tone to sound a bit sweeter. "I know this is another wrinkle on top of what we've orally discussed, but the alternative is that you continue to come in on the summer days to get us done by the end of the obligated date. We absolutely have to get all the certification paperwork notarized and mailed to the state office by June 25 or we won't meet the deadline for the new transfers for the next semester. That deadline cannot be allowed to happen. I would really really rather you did this by June 9, the last day of school - the teachers are also looking forward to a little break. I might have to add some extra time to your program if you make some of us change vacation plans to get this done."

Brett pounced on the pause in her sentence. "Extra time to my program? What do you mean?"
Lee-Reilly cleared her throat. "If you'll look at page 6, it describes what the terms are. You have agreed to get these certifications done for us. You are functioning as a student volunteer worker with specific privileges and responsibilities. We have set nominal hour levels for how long you need to commit to getting us across the finish line. I have no doubt in my mind that we will get everything done in time, but if you make it harder for us - we can make it harder for you too. We can obviously revoke your extra credit and scholarship award if you fail to complete the requirements, but there are other milestone requirements. If you don't get done with your part by the last day of school, we are also permitted to shrink you and detain you for extra periods of time."
Brett flipped to the page and it said explicitly that. Ugh, he thought. That sounded dangerous.

"Look I want to make sure everything goes off without a hitch, but if we have scheduling conflicts how can I avoid delays? I can't control teachers' schedules." Brett said, somewhat despondent.
Lee-Reilly went back into a pleasant tone. "You're in luck! We've already had all the discussions. I have a schedule laid out for you to consider - the teachers involved were obviously a little miffed that we had to squeeze all this in at the very end, but I think everyone will uphold this if you do."

She handed him another piece of paper. Starting from tomorrow, which was Tuesday, it went like this:
Tuesday - Fatima Erenli, overnight
Wednesday - break (no teachers available)
Thursday - Alicia Gomez, in-school or overnight
Friday - Loren Issakinen,in-school or overnight
Saturday - break (Samson alternative, or Gomez/Issakinen available if catch-up needed)
Sunday - break (Issakinen available if catch-up needed)
Monday - Katie Samson, overnight
Tuesday - break (no teachers available)
Wednesday - Alka Padmanabhan, overnight (also day of pep rally and staff relay)
Thursday - break (no teachers available)
Friday - break (Brett has 3 finals)
Saturday - Nancy Henderson, overnight
Sunday - break (emergency catch-up day)
Monday - last day of school! (June 9)

"WAIT! You have listed my mom on Saturday June 7?" Brett exclaimed.
Mrs. Lee-Reilly looked puzzled. "Yes.... is that a problem for you? I would think you could easily resolve it since you live with her haha!" She spoke as though this were a joke, as though she didn't remember not mentioning Nancy's name!
Brett just started shaking his head angrily. "You don't understand! I didn't... tell her about any of this yet."

Lee-Reilly widened her eyes and then looked off to the side thoughfully. "I guess that would explain why she was a little upset when I broached the subject with her. I thought she knew already. Truthfully, she didn't want to give me a date and said quietly under her breath that she'd figure it out with you on the side, but I penciled in a day just to keep you aware of the fact that we had thought of it."
Brett took a leap back into the past "But but you said that there were only 6 teachers last time we talked. I'm sure of it. You showed me a spreadsheet without her name on it! I would have been totally different on this idea if I knew I was going to be used for my mom's training."
Lee-Reilly shrugged. He heard the sliminess of her lie as she said noncommittally: "I may have misspoken, or you may have misheard. But you should have read what you signed. The document you signed clearly shows the name of all 7 women you will be assisting.
Brett whined "Are you going to, y'know, ask my mom to do the same things with me as all the other teachers?"
Lee-Reilly scoffed, "Of course. Who better than she to know how to interact with you?"
"But she has the most terrible smelling feet and I don't think I'll survive being under them. Can you please do it some other way.... jeez, that is the same day as the girls' softball and track teams meet."
Lee-Reilly was silent for a moment and shook her head. She then said in a low voice filled with barely-disguised contempt: "I would think, Brett, that if you have a problem with your mom disciplining you, you should work that out with her. I told her what you did with Ms. Olivier and Mrs. Gu, and told her simply to push the boundaries as she thought appropriate given the purpose of the training. It gets to a more personal level if I try to tell her to go easy on you just because you are her son. She might be insulted that I would even suggest doing that, as though she were too harsh with you. Surely you can understand how that sort of decision making should stay in the family and not come as an order from a boss, right?"

Brett couldn't say anything. He just sat there. He felt defeated. This schedule looked horrendous. He was really going to need those extra credit points as he was going to lose so much time to staying overnight at other places. His books and laptop wouldn't shrink with him, so he couldn't really do any studying.
Brett gave up. "Fine. FINE. I can't believe this but I will go through with it."
Lee-Reilly looked ecstatic, as though she expected more resistance. "I knew we could count on you, Brett!"
"And you will help me get the extra credit right away, right? I think I need a boost in chemistry. My mind was not in the right place after I was doing the training with Ms. Olivier."
"I'll email Katie and see what I can do - she will tell you how it's going to work out on Monday when you do training with her, if not sooner."
"And you'll be able to help me with other teachers too? Can I get a little boost in statistics? Mr. Lendman is not on the list."
"I'll talk to Chris and I'm sure he can help. I meant it when I said we'd be able to get things done for you. Please try to stop worrying and just focus on completing the program as we have laid it out."
Brett started to alternate between calming down and going into a panic attack. "Ok. I'm ok. I can do this. It's scary but I can do it. Boy is it scary. I, uh, I did not expect this conversation, I did not expect it to be so tight on time, I did not expect my mom to be involved."
Lee-Reilly said in almost a whisper, "I know you can do it Brett. We have plenty of second chances in the schedule if you need to skip a day for studying. There is enough time to get it done by Jun 9 if you work with us, I promise."

But then she slightly raised her voice. "I want to reiterate the stakes, as you may find them motivational. If you can't do this by Jun 9 as we've scheduled, it's going to make everything a lot harder. I am going to try and motivate you by saying - if you push past June 10, the last day I'm planning to be in town, I am going to have to reschedule a flight, and I'm going to penalize you with one full day of shrinking detention for every day you are late until the deadline of June 25. This is not a 4-hour training session, it's a full 24-hours of tedious confinement, dull shrinkee-friendly food, and any other random punishments we can devise. You will spend over 2 weeks shrunk in this state if you push us to the last minute. I can do this myself or enlist any other teachers who want to assist me. In fact, I can bring in anyone from the state who is certified."
Brett just stared. That would mean he'd miss the chance to spend the summer with his dad.
"If you make us later than June 25, I may not be able to get the state Board of Education controller to make an exception for me and this whole thing will be for naught. You will not get your scholarship, you will not get your extra credit, and you will undoubtedly be spending the rest of your program term shrunken. Your worker agreement lasts until the day before the first day of school, August 24. Again, I can hold you myself, or enlist any others in the faculty to help me find ways to punish you. Again, that includes *anybody* who is certified - I can call my friend in the corrections department and get her to send some buff ladies from the convict-shrinkee penitentiary to help me. Theoretically I could even have you sent on a tour of other schools in the state or any states which are reciprocal with New York State, which is most of them. Some countries like Canada or Mexico also have reciprocity in these rules with our state. I could take you to a new school every day in multiple states or countries, where I could have you penalized by any of the teachers there who want in, as long as you're always present with someone who is certified. You won't be harmed per se, but we can make it veerrrrry miserable and unpleasant for you. That is the nuclear option and I really do not want to have to do it. But I am telling you so you know - it's really really important that we get this done on time."

Brett started to tear up a little bit as he looked down in the chair. The room was silent for a full half a minute. He started to question the future, wonder if he'd ever get a shot at his dad's hedge fund. Started to wonder how his mom could protect him from this new reality and if he could escape.
Lee-Reilly's authoritative voice brought him back to reality. "But if you do let us get this done on time, you will have all of the privileges in that document. And you will have recourse if we don't deliver."
"The future is very bright for you young man. Now please go home and get rested up."

Brett wiped his face and, as he walked out the door, started to mentally prepare for tomorrow. He had to learn something about Miss Erenli before he spent the night at her place doing whatever she wanted to do with him.

And he would tell mom tonight for sure.