Chapter 3

The furious parents weren’t about to give me any more time to think. Claire, still stirring them up, pulled out the same video from my previous life.

“Look at this! How can someone like him be allowed to run a school?”

“He’s been planning to murder these children! He probably started this fire himself!”

Those two familiar lines rang in my ears again.

Everyone had just heard me speak. My voice matched the one in the video perfectly. Parents who recognized it hurled themselves at the gate even harder.

Even some of the firefighters started cursing after hearing Claire’s accusations. Suddenly, I was everyone’s target.

But their insults passed over me like wind. I didn’t take in a word.

I stared at Claire instead. She stood on a raised platform, wearing a mask of righteous outrage. The fury in my eyes could have burned through all the smoke.

The fire commander, meanwhile, studied the smoke rising from the school. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully instead of immediately sending his crew inside.

I noticed him out of the corner of my eye and silently praised his experience.

Now that the commander had begun drawing his own conclusions, I could make my move.

I raised the megaphone and shouted at Claire:

“Enough speeches, Claire! Bring that bastard out!”

“Don’t think I don’t know what filthy things you’ve been doing. Stop hiding him!”

Her voice, so loud and defiant a moment earlier, suddenly dropped.

She turned and shouted back:

“Daniel, you’re beyond help! At a time like this, you’re still obsessing over your marriage?”

“And for the record, I’ve done nothing wrong! Say whatever you want. I’m not afraid of you!”

But anyone could hear the fear beneath her bluster.

That was when I remembered something else.

In my previous life, the teacher in charge of the chemistry lab had asked me to approve an order of sodium for the freshmen’s experiments.

We already had plenty of properly stored sodium in the lab, so I’d intended to refuse. But just then, Claire had come out of the lab.

She had pleaded with me, saying students never got their own little pieces of sodium. Several had to share one sample, which made the experiments much less effective.

It was the first time I’d heard her show so much concern for the students.

I’d been a teacher my entire working life, and not once had a parent come to me with a complaint about how I treated their child. That was because I truly cared about them.

No one could become a good teacher without a sense of responsibility and a willingness to care for those children as their own.

Claire, however, had always treated the students as if they didn’t exist.

Once, a girl at school suffered a heart episode and was on the verge of passing out. Desperate for someone to get her to a hospital, she grabbed Claire’s ankle before she lost consciousness.

Claire ignored her and tried to drag me away.

How could I call myself a teacher if I watched one of my students suffer like that? I immediately drove the girl to the hospital.

Fortunately, I knew some first aid, and the doctors saved her.

But Claire picked a huge fight with me afterward because helping someone else had delayed our trip home.

I should have known her sudden interest in buying sodium was kindness with a knife hidden behind it!

No matter how sturdy the school gate was, it couldn’t withstand that many parents attacking it without restraint. Before long, it gave way.

People flooded toward the classroom building. Others shoved me toward the athletic field, determined to put me on trial themselves.

I looked at Claire. A satisfied smile curved her lips.

A smile slowly spread across my own face.

Let’s see who ends up on trial.