Doug groaned. “Board meeting? We just got out.” He sat down on the couch. “Besides, I thought the meeting wasn’t until the end of July.”

“Well, the bastards moved it up. They figured if they held it while most of the teachers are on vacation, they’d be able to slip the budget through with no opposition. Hell, the only reason I found out is because one of the janitors told me. I saw him at the pool.”

“But they have to post the date and time.”

Hobie shrugged. “I’m sure they did.” His voice took on a sarcastic note. “You know them. They would never do anything illegal.” He snorted. “They probably buried it in the classified ads of the paper last week so no one’d see it.”

Doug shook his head. “I’m sick of school. I don’t even want to think about it until the end of August.”

“I just thought you might want to know. If I remember correctly, you were going to petition them for more funds?”

Doug sighed melodramatically.

“For new books?”

He nodded, drinking his Coke. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I’m tired of teaching To Sir, With Love.” He leaned back, his head against the wall. “Some asshole got it into his head a few years ago that teaching popular novels instead of classics would interest kids in reading. So they bought a twenty-year-old novel the kids hadn’t even heard of, bought a videotape of the movie, and told me to teach it. It doesn’t interest them in reading; all it does is bore them to tears. The Scarlet Letter would bore them to tears too, but at least they’d learn from it.”

Hobie chuckled. “I kinda liked Lulu, though. She had nice knockers.”

“Very funny. It’s just that the board and the parents are always harping about how our test scores compare to the rest of the state. Well, other schools are reading Heart of Darkness and Huckleberry Finn. Our kids are at a disadvantage. I just want them to be able to compete.”

“I learned to read from comic books,” Hobie said.

Doug sat up straight. “I have nothing against that theory. Of course kids will want to read if they are given interesting reading material. And there is a lot of popular fiction that is worthwhile. I just think that if we’re going to operate on that assumption, we should have better material to work with.” He shook his head. “Shit.”

On the porch Billy giggled.

“Stop spying,” Doug called out. “Nixon Junior!”

Hobie grinned. “Sounds like you’re going to the meeting.”

Doug sighed. “Yeah, I’m going to the meeting.”

“Good. We can present a united front.”

“A united front?”

“I need a new spray gun for my advanced auto.”

“And you want me to back you?”

Hobie looked hurt. “We’re brother teachers.”