Caleb

Mrs Hartford glared at me disapprovingly from behind her big, ugly, round rimmed glasses.
“Caleb,” she said calmly, with a familiar firm tone.
“What’s going on? Three months ago you were one of the top students in this class. I had no doubt you were going to become something great, something special. But now I’m not so sure. All of a sudden you have this, this smart ass attitude, your behaviour disgusts me. Never in my thirteen years of teaching have I seen a students standards fall so dramatically.”
I stared at her wrinkled face is disgust. Her speech was quick and painless, something I’d heard many times before and was sick of.
What did she expect me to say? That I was sorry to admit I had issues? To tell her everything would be okay? That I would try my best to improve? As if.
There was a long silence, in which she began to lose her patience.
“What’s going on?” She asked again, using the palm of her hand to hit the table with such ferocity it made me jump.
“Nothing,” I muttered staring at my feet, “nothings going on.”
Secretly, I was scared to look the old bat in the eyes, my face was so easy to read sometimes, especially when I lied, I had this habit, this twitch in my eye which I hadn’t yet learned to refrain from doing.
Mrs Hartford screwed up her face in frustration. I held my mouth up to mute the sound as I laughed. She really needed some anti-aging cream, or maybe a fountain of youth, it was wrong for more fifty-year-old teacher to resemble my ninety-year-old grandmother.
“Fine,” she said, finally, taking a sip out of the sup of tea on her desk, slurping every drop.
“If you won’t tell me, I’ll send you to the principal and you can tell him.”
“What happens if I don’t tell him?” I asked.
Mrs Hartford stared at me for a moment trying to think of her best answer.
“We call your father.”
I clenched my fists tightly under the desk and gritted my teeth, fighting the urge to turn the table over and storm out of the room. That would be irrational. Still I didn’t want them to call my father, it would cause a lot of trouble if he knew I’d been failing school.
“Why?” I retorted, “What did I do wrong?”
She held her hand up taking another long slurp of her tea. She shook her head the flab on her chin wobbling as with each slow turn.
“Don’t argue with me Caleb, I gave you a chance to tell me. I would have kept it confidential, tried to help you and not even the principal would have to have known. But since you blatantly refused to tell me I have no other choice. I’m sorry.”
I sat there staring into blank space. I couldn’t even look her in the face. I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought she was a good, reasonable teacher. She only seemed like a mid-aged menopausal bitch now. I had to compose myself to not say even that to her face. I was thinking of much worse things I could do.
She continued to stare at me her hand folded neatly under her chin.
“Go.” She said pointing one fat wrinkly finger at the door.
I shook my head at her picking up my belongings and said,
“You shouldn’t stare so much you know you’ll burn holes through things.”
Mrs Hartford didn’t even react to my insult she simply smiled pleasantly as I opened the door and said, “have a pleasant afternoon Caleb.”
I didn’t reply slamming the door behind me I stormed out into the corridor and to my locker.
It was lunchtime, therefore the corridor was empty. So empty the silence was somewhat eerie. I threw my books into the locker and grabbed out my backpack. I slammed it hard and clicked the lock back into place and began to walk toward the exit.
As if I would actually go the principal. I didn’t need my father knowing about what was going on. Not yet.