By October, she had a clearer picture. She never really knew what Brennan did exactly, but there were signs. There was a boy named Deacon, shy, quiet, and precise, who had answered questions readily in September. By mid-October he had stopped volunteering answers entirely.
He still did the work — she could see that in his writing — but in class he kept his eyes on his desk and waited to be called on directly, and even then answered quickly and looked away.
A girl named Reeta had moved her seat without asking, relocating from the middle cluster where Brennan sat to the far end of the room. She said she could see the board better from there. Maybe that was true, but she had felt the tension between her and Brennan.
Ms. Nair mentioned it once to a colleague, Tom, who taught ninth-grade history. She described what she’d noticed without specifics, just the pattern. Tom was a reasonable man. He shrugged and said, “If you haven’t caught him doing anything, there’s not much to take to the principal.” He wasn’t wrong. She knew the school’s process well enough to know that patterns without incidents went nowhere. So she watched, and she filed away what she saw.