Mrs. Hornberger

Mrs. Hornberger is a character in the Dexter Novels.

She is Cody Bennett’s teacher.

Personality
According to Dexter Morgan, she is relentlessly cheerful and proficient in buzzwords.

Summary

 * Dexter's Final Cut

Rita is annoyed when Dexter arrives at school twenty minutes late for a parent-teacher meeting (because he’d just murdered Patrick Bergmann). Mrs. Hornberger is at her desk with Cody and Rita sitting in front of her. Not being offered a chair, Dexter drags a student’s desk up next to Cody. The teacher tells him they were discussing Cody’s “conceptual difficulties with socialization.” Silently, Dexter admits that Cody has a problem with communication, attributing it to trauma caused by his biological father, a crackhead, who used to beat Cody and Astor.

As Mrs. Hornberger explains social and educational goals, Dexter feels assaulted by her “earnest and needless platitudes.” Cody, not understanding most of it, feels tortured. He squirms and squeezes his hands together, and moves his legs back and forth. Rita, however, follows every word from Mrs. Hornberger, her “brow furrowed with worry.” A few times, she interrupts with questions. Dexter thinks that Rita’s face looks pale, wrinkled, and sagging. He feels a “faint repugnance at her sudden visible old age.”

After half an hour, Dexter is fidgeting as much as Cody. It’s another fifteen minutes before the meeting comes to an end, with Mrs. Hornberger having tailored a plan for Cody’s social goals at home and at school. Dexter walks Rita to her car, while he yearns to have a cold mojito with beautiful Jackie Forrest.