This Is Not About Vampires

My lit teacher, Mrs. Webster, loved to hear the sound of her own voice. She talked on and on, ignoring the sea of raised hands that were begging to be called on. She liked to use big words that really weren’t necessary and stick prepositional phrases into the middle of her sentences. What bugged me the worst was how she talked down to every student in the room.

“You see students, your writing is at a sub-par level to my own, which, humbly I must add, is distinguishingly articulate. When you are an expert in the field of Literature, such as myself, you become a master of the pen and paper. When you are in high school, on the other hand, you simply do not contain the experience to fathom such literary skill.”

Um, you’re a high school teacher. Have you been published? I think not. Because if you were actually good enough to be published, there would be no way in hell you’d be wasting your days away teaching a bunch of kids.

The woman continued to blabber on about how her experience allowed her to judge literature, but how we do not have the necessary status to even begin to form an opinion. I tried my best to ignore her rant by doodling the woman getting devoured by a savage dictionary that was pissed off that she had stolen so many words from it.

I was reaching for my red pen to add some blood to the beautiful mural when I heard my name called.

Mrs. Webster had finished her monologue and was now calling out partners for a project of some sort.

Are you douching me? Partner project? This teacher was going to find a pipe bomb in her lunchbox. This was not going to work well. I don’t like people.

The girl who had been selected to be my partner moved to the desk next to mine. I refused to look at her. Maybe I could get her to do the whole project. I’ll just have to threaten her a little-

“Don’t think I’m doing this whole project by myself,” she stated, “I will rip your arms off, learn black magic, and reanimate them to type by themselves if I have to.”

Shit. She beat me to the threatening.

“So,” she said on a lighter note, “I thought we could do an analysis or poem or something about a Bosch painting. I want to make it gruesome if you’re okay with that.”

That’s strange. I was expecting something frilly, possibly involving flowers.

“Gruesome?” I asked.

“Yeah, I like to go over the top, but if you can’t handle it…” She smiled as she mocked me.

“Oh no. I can handle it. You have no idea.” It was my turn to smile this time. Okay, maybe this project would be fun.

“Why does she get to work with Tyler?

One of the mismatched, mentally unstable girls with low self esteem was in my lit class. Now she was trying to gain a little of her dignity back by shrieking in the middle of class. May a meteor smite her in the face.

My lit partner stood, pointed at mismatched girl, and screamed, “I hope a meteor falls from the burning heavens and annihilates your atrociously makeup-ed face! You mismatched clothes wearing clog shot!”

I liked my partner’s death wish better than my own, and I don’t even know what a ‘clog shot’ is.

Mrs. Webster was appalled, furious that her authority was being compromised by yelling girls.

“Cease communication!”

The mismatched girl looked as if she pissed herself with fright; my partner though, was unaffected.

“Okay,” my psychotic lit partner had snapped, “you know big words, we get it. But you can talk like a normal person. Who the hell says ‘cease communication’ outside of a formal essay? Try ‘shut up,’ ‘quiet,’ ‘stop talking,’ ‘shut your trap,’ ‘cierre la boca,’ ‘silence’, or ‘putta sock in it!’”

Mrs. Webster pointed to the door, “Remove yourself from my classroom and relocate yourself in the administrator’s office immediately.”

“You mean ‘go to the principal’s office?’ you out of control, human dictionary-windbag who wears cheap jewelry and will kill herself if she utters a sentence less than forty syllables.”

My lit partner stormed out of the room. All colour had drained from Mrs. Webster’s face. The entire class was silent with shock.

Yes. I was looking forward to this project.