The library chairs at Shady Brook are fourteen inches tall.
At 3:30 PM on Monday, ten grown-ups sat in them anyway.
Nine of them were parents from Room 104.
The tenth was Megan Sutter, room parent, with a clipboard on her knees.
Our principal sat at the end of the reading table.
Beside her sat a woman from district HR with a laptop.
I sat across from all of them.
My knees were almost at my chin.
Garrett came in at 3:34.
He took the last tiny chair, next to his sister.
The HR specialist explained why he was there.
"Garrett Mabry is here as the complainant."
Megan stood up first.
"We have a petition."
She read the top of it aloud.
"'We, the families of Room 104, request a teacher who is stable and safe.'"
"Twenty-seven signatures."
Twenty-seven.
I had twenty-two kids.
She passed it down to the principal.
The principal didn't read it.
She set it face down.
Garrett leaned forward on his elbows.
"I just want to say something."
"Honestly."
"Whatever she says she saw is fake."
Nobody had asked me what I saw.
He held up his phone and turned it around for the table.
It was a screenshot of his Apple devices.
Room 104 iPad — last online Sept 8, 3:22 PM
"Three twenty-two," he said.
"School was out."
"She read my private messages on a school iPad."
A dad by the window shook his head at me.
A mom wrote something down.
The HR specialist typed.
The principal turned to me.
"Callie?"
"Did you access his messages?"
"The iPad buzzed on the charging cart," I said.
"A student told me."
"I picked it up."
Garrett pointed at me.
"See?"
"She admits it."
My phone was in my lap.
The photo was on it.
Three of the parents were looking at my lap.
I didn't take it out.
The HR specialist looked up from her laptop.
"Do you have something to show us?"
"Not until it can't be called fake."
Garrett smiled at the table.
He thought that meant I had nothing.
Then the library door opened.
Mrs. Odom came in from the front office.
She'd run that office for twenty-six years.
She was carrying a green binder in both arms.
DONATIONS 2025–26
She didn't ask permission.
She set it on the reading table.
She opened it to a yellow tab.
Then she turned it around to face the parents.
"Every gift to this school gets a form," Mrs. Odom said.
"This one came in last August eighteenth."
"Asset tag CMS-SB-04471."
"That's the Room 104 iPad."
The parents leaned in.
So did Dr. Pham.
At the bottom was a line in blue ink.
I knew that handwriting.
It was on two years of grocery lists.
I read it out loud.
"'Left it signed in to my account so the kids get my music.'"
"Signed G.M."
I looked across the table at him.
"You signed it in."
"I picked it up."
The dad by the window put his phone face down.
A mom at the far end said it out loud.
"HE signed it in himself!"
Garrett laughed once.
"That's a form, guys."
"That's from a year ago."
"It's the same iPad," Mrs. Odom said.
She closed the binder.
She carried it back to the front office.
The parents looked at the handwriting.
Then they looked at Garrett.
Then at Megan.
Megan was staring at her clipboard.
Dr. Pham folded her hands.
"Thank you, Mrs. Odom."
"That helps."
She slid an envelope across the table to me.
"But I can't ignore the rest."
"Families are calling."
"Reporters are calling."
"The media attention alone."
She didn't finish the sentence.
She didn't have to.
Across the table, Megan smiled at her clipboard.
I opened the envelope.
Paid administrative leave, effective Tuesday, September 15.
Paid meant my $48,200 kept coming.
It didn't mean I kept my room.
"Twenty-two kids," I said.
"Who's covering?"
"A sub," the HR specialist said.
"She's very experienced."
I stood up out of the tiny chair.
It took two tries.
Nobody laughed.
The hallway to Room 104 smelled like crayons and floor wax.
My name tag was on the door.
Laminated, yellow, with a cartoon apple.
Miss Callie · Room 104
I'd made it myself in August.
I unpinned it before anyone could do it for me.
I put the pushpin back in the corkboard.
The parking lot was half empty.
Megan was buckling Brody into her minivan.
Brody saw me and waved with his whole arm.
"Miss Callie!"
I waved back.
Megan kept her eyes on the car-seat buckle.
She didn't look up.
She shut the door very gently.
Garrett's SUV was already gone.
Dr. Pham caught up with me at my car.
She didn't apologize.
She held out a sticky note with a date on it.
"Review's Monday the twenty-eighth."
"Nine sharp."