Couldn't wait to leave grade school behind.
The mother of two children who never excelled at school had very mixed feelings. She didn't know what to make of what was going on. Should she be happy or angry? Without provocation, the children were going to Shorewood nearly every day after class and staying until curfew time in the evening to help Mary Letourneau. It was so peculiar. The first time it happened Danelle asked Drew what was going on at the school. The boy said a bunch of former students were helping their former teacher with class projects, paper grading, bulletin boards. Among the group were Vili and a cousin.
“I thought it was strange, weird, but how nice. I'm thinking they're safe, going down there after school, helping a teacher and getting involved and interested in education. So, Mary Kay's a cool teacher. What harm could the little thing do? Could be nothing but good for them,” she said later.
Not long after Drew started hanging out in room 39, his twin sister Molly and her friend Nicole joined in. It was only when the girls started coming home late, saying they had stopped off at McDonald's on Ambaum Boulevard, that Danelle's blood began to churn.
“But we're helping Miss Letourneau,” Molly said.
Danelle shook her head.
“I don't care what you're doing down there with her. If she's not giving you a ride home, then you're not going down there to help her.”
And as teenagers do when they can, they ignored their mother and continued to go to Shorewood, but they made it a point to get home on time—or at least closer to the 8:30 P.M. curfew.
Later, Mrs. Johnson remembered how it was that she allowed her children to hang out at the school so late in the evening. She felt as though her kids were safe with their former teacher's unorthodox after-hours help sessions.
“I thought it was good for them. I was worried about their schoolwork. Worried about them going from sixth grade to the seventh. They were getting interested in school. I swear to God, I thought it was a help. I couldn't imagine that anything she could do would be wrong.”
It was sometime after ten P.M. on a school night in October 1996 when Danelle Johnson began to wonder what was really going on at the school. Her son and daughter were in bed and the mother of six was watching television when she heard a knock on the door. It was Mary Kay Letourneau standing on the front step looking agitated and flustered. Behind her was a young boy whom Danelle recognized a friend of her son's.
The teacher apologized for the intrusion at the late hour, but she had no choice. Her words were rapid-fire and aimed right at Mrs. Johnson.
“He was helping at the school. He got locked out of his house. His dad's not home. I can't wait around for him to come home. Is it okay if he stays here with you?”
Danelle Johnson was flabbergasted.
“What the hell is he doing down there this late at night anyway? My kids are in bed already. They went to bed at nine. I don't understand. Why would you want these kids down there that late at night?”
“Well, he was helping me with the bulletin board and then he just got locked out. I've got to get home. I don't know what to do,” she said.
“Yeah, he can stay here,” Danelle finally said, as she led the boy inside and shut the door as the teacher quickly turned and walked back to her van.
A few minutes later, the impromptu care provider had the kid's father on the phone.
“Are you sure he's there?” the man asked, as if he'd been that route before and wasn't exactly sure that the call was legitimate.
Why would I make that up? Danelle wondered.
“Yeah, I'm sure,” she said. “And he's scared to death that he's gonna get in trouble from you, but I don't think it was his fault.”
The father agreed that it would be all right for his boy to spend the night—as long as Danelle made sure he'd get to school the next day.
Years later, Danelle tried to put two and two together.
“Now that I think about it,” she said later, “I'll bet she had Vili out in the van also. She was trying to get rid of the boy so she could be alone with him.”
It was Mary Kay Letourneau's sweet and young-sounding voice on the line. It was mid-December 1996. It was a call out of the blue. Not for Christmas greetings or school fund-raising or anything that anyone might come up with to characterize a call just before the holidays.
“I'm concerned about Molly,” the teacher said.
Danelle Johnson repeated the statement as a question.
“Why are you concerned about Molly?”
“Molly comes down to the school all the time.”
“I know that. Her and Nicole, Vili, Drew—all those guys come down. What's the problem?”
“Well, Molly seems to think that I'm her best friend. That I'm the only friend she has… She tells me all kinds of things and stories about school and life up at the junior high and I don't think she should be hanging around here so much. I don't even know her!”