Fate Had Nothing to Do With It

“Prank week?” I asked.

The two explained to me how, every year, when Ms. Parker goes on a week’s vacation, leaving the Vice Principal in charge, the seniors declare open war on the juniors, doing random things to the whole year. I asked why they had never gotten in trouble, to which the answer was, “It’s just so amusing. Plus, Vice Principle Vicks would rather show up to school without a pocket hankie than admit to Ms. Parker that he let this happen while he was in charge... for seven consecutive years.”

We all talked a bit more, greeting the other teachers whose classrooms were also in the department (like geography and history) as they came in, before heading off to our classrooms. I stopped outside of mine, Room 25, with a small smile on my face.

Opening the door and putting the stopper down, I walked into the classroom; I knew immediately that I was going to end up taking off my heels and letting my feet relax on the carpeted floor. According to the clock above the whiteboard the students would be arriving in about ten or so minutes. Since the room smelled kind of musty, I opened the windows and sprayed some Febreeze around the room, sighing contentedly as the aroma of lavender filled my nose.

Still having about seven minutes to kill, I went back to my desk and logged onto the computer. The first thing I did was changed the dull blue background to a picture the view from my parent’s home in Los Angeles, and then I went to check my email.

It was evident that Garbo was bored too, as I was sent a message, “Hi. Waiting for the kids too?” I was startled at first he could tell what I was doing, then I smirked as I remembered it. I turned around and found, in the corner, the old door with the little that was no longer used. Garbo happened to occupy that room, and he had drawn up the curtain to wave and smile. I gave him a wave back and sent him an email.

He replied quickly saying, “I’m not a stalker!”

I laughed and closed out of my inbox before going to put down my own curtain for the small window.

“Hey Audrey! Uh, I mean Miss Burrows,” said a familiar voice. I turned around to see Demi. We were both smiling.

“Oh don’t worry,” I said, “as soon as we get back to our street, we’re on a first name basis. Go on, pick a seat.”

She chose one in the second row, putting her bag down beside her. “So, you’re my homeroom teacher... that’s awkward.”

I chuckled. “Not necessarily. I mean I could... no, that’d be weird... Or we could still talk about... nope, that’s against the rules. Okay, yes, it is awkward.”

She just laughed her loud laugh as more students piled in, greeting me with ‘Nice to see you’ and ‘Hello, Miss Burrows’. Soon my homeroom class, of about twenty students, were all sitting in front of me. I took attendance quickly, not needing to ask who was who, and let them off to class.

Of course, my senior class was late. I was expecting it. For those ten minutes, I had been playing Tetris on the computer. Funnily enough, all of the seniors arrived at the same time.

When they were all seated, I got up and stood in front of the class, saying, “Hello. My name is Ms. Burrows,” at which I took a marker and wrote it on the board, “and I am going to be your English teacher for the year.”

“That is fine with me,” said one of the seniors, a slightly obnoxious boy named Damien.

I rolled my eyes as I went to search through my binder for a reminder of what the teacher last year, who had retired, had set for them. “Compliments will get you nowhere, Damien.”

The class laughed as I drew out the sheet. “Okay, your summer reading list,” I said, at which everybody groaned. I had a coy smile upon my face, knowing this was going to happen. “You were to read three books; Pride and Prejudice, Oliver Twist and Jane Eyre. Now, if your old teacher was still here, I’m sure she would no doubt believe that you had read all three. I do not.”

There were some chuckles there, and a bunch of nods.

I continued, “But you should have at least read one. So, I am assigning a book review, due the Monday next week. You can choose which one you want to do it on. Don’t try any websites either, like Spark Notes, because I will know.” I smiled as some of the students started to look a little guilty.

“Anyways, you can start it now. If you haven’t read any of the books, they are in the back cupboard marked ‘Seniors’. Oh, and I almost forgot, whoever does the best book review, not report guys, review, will get a special surprise! You can start now.”

Half of the students rushed to the cupboards, all of them fighting not to get stuck with the biggest book there, which happened to be Jane Eyre. More than a quarter of the class had pulled their own unfinished books from their bags and began to read furiously, which only left a few students starting to plan what was going in their review. I smiled.

I always knew the ‘special surprise’ thing worked. I was known for it last year; at the beginning of the year, at Christmas and at the end of the year I would give out these little surprises. You see, my best friend back in LA worked as a secretary for Hollywood Records, so she of course knew everybody that worked there. So she had hooked me up with some signed CDs, accessories, gift-certificates and whatever she didn’t need that was given to her. She gave me a lot, and then I would sort through and decide what I could give to the students and what I could keep for myself/give to other friends. This worked out great; she was happy, I was happy and everyone else was, well, happy! Plus, it worked as a great motivator for the kids.

Seeing that my class was already working hard on this task, I went and emailed Paige- my best friend in California- asking what was new.

During the whole lesson I learnt new things; I should be expecting a huge shipment of ‘special surprises’ by next Thursday, a new band of brothers called Hanson was recently signed to Hollywood and were expected to be a hit with teen girls soon, and that I was going to have to be seeing Alicia- the most academically challenged (a nice way of saying brainless) student in the class- a lot after school to give her help as she had been left to read Jane Eyre for her book report.

At the end of the lesson I dismissed them for recess and, after making sure my room was orderly, made my way down to the Staff Room.

On the way there, Nick fell into step with me, giving me a smile. I returned it.

“Your first lesson was good,” I guessed.

“Yup,” he said, running a hand through his slightly unruly curls. “Had freshman. Piece of cake. You?”

“Seniors,” I said as we rounded a corner, students making way for us. “It was pretty cool; they arrived late, I gave them a book report due Monday and I wasn’t bothered for the rest of the lesson.”

“Funny, the freshman showed up ten minutes early.”

“I bet I’m going to have a short recess then,” I sighed. “I have them next.”

He grinned, saying, “Or you could do what Emma did.”

At that moment, however, Demi approached me, saying, “Hey! Ms. Burrows! Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Yeah, sure Demi,” I said, and looked beside me to see that Nick had kept walking waving at me before he turned a corner. I just smiled exasperatedly and looked down at the student in front of me. “What do you need?”

“Well, my mom was wondering if we were going to keep the same driving arrangement as last year,” Demi said.

“Oh! Yes, of course,” I said after a couple of seconds, trying to remember what that arrangement was (since we were neighbours, I’d drive her to school with me, and sometimes back). “Can we start that next week?”

“Sure,” Demi said and started to walk away, but then stopped turned around and said, “Oh, and Ms. Burrows?”

I turned around too. “Yes?”

“What’s going on between you and the music teacher?”

I felt like I blushed. “Nothing, why?”

“Oh, just wondering.”

With that she walked away. Just because Nick and I happened to be the two youngest teachers in the school (he was almost 27 and I was almost 23) didn’t mean we were going out. Even if we wanted to, we wouldn’t. That girl was too nosy for her own good, I decided as I hurried to the staff room to at least get an apple before going back to class. When I got in I greeted the other teachers and took an apple from the bowl before joining Emma on the couch again.

“So, what did you do to the freshman,” I asked nonchalantly, biting into the apple.

She looked confused for a minute before saying, “Oh, you heard about that, did you?” Emma than stared pointedly at the music teacher, who just grinned. “Well, they got there before I did and were already lounging around. I got a bit peeved and made them go back to their homerooms before coming back to me.”

I laughed. “Really?”

She nodded. “Really, but there’s something more important I wanted to tell you guys. You know Ms. Lynch and Mr. Bell?”

Nick, Garbo and Melanie, who had come to join us, nodded their heads while I shook mine.

“Oh, of course you wouldn’t. They are elementary school teachers... or at least they were.”

Garbo’s eyes widened. “They got fired?”

“Apparently so, Garbs.”

“But why?” asked Melanie in surprise.

“Get this; Mr. Bell and Ms. Lynch were going out! Apparently they went to Vegas and eloped!”

“No way,” said Nick in slight awe.

I stared at them all for a few seconds, hoping not to sound too ignorant when I said, “So?”

Apparently I did end up sounding very ignorant. All of their heads snapped to look at mine. I continued, “What’s the big deal? They just got married.”

“Audrey, sweetie,” said Emma, putting her arm around me on the couch and gave me a hearty squeeze. “So young. So naive.”

“What?” I asked impatiently, trying to break free of her death-grip.

Nick sighed. “Audrey, do you not know about the relationship rule at this school?”

“Am I supposed to know it?”

“There is strictly a ‘no work relationships’ rule here ever since Ms. Parker came into power. All of the teachers who were married to another teacher were fired. If some were dating, they got fired.”

I furrowed my brow. “But why?” I asked indignantly. “It shouldn’t be any of her business of who we can or cannot date!”

“That’s the thing,” piped in Melanie. “She just likes to have more power over us, I’m sure of it.”

“But her official reason was that she didn’t want any possible teacher drama affecting us, what we’re teaching and essentially, the students,” said Garbo, listing the reasons off in a bored manner as he rolled his eyes.

“That’s stupid,” I commented.

“Yeah, but after all, it was loosely legit,” said Emma, and when I looked confused she elaborated. “Before you came there were these two teachers who were in an on and off relationship. It got to a point where they had been having relationship troubles and were verbally trashing the other teacher in front of the students. It was hysterical.”

“And only happened once, hardly enough to make a rule about it,” said Wendy as she walked by.

We all talked a bit more on the subject before we found that recess was over and headed back to our classrooms. As I had previously predicted, the freshman were very early. I let out a quiet sigh as I gestured them into the classroom.

Now, from what you may be hearing from us about freshman, you’d think we hate them.
That isn’t true. We grow to like them, but in the beginning we have to bring up a whole new standard from what they had been learning in middle school. Plus, they don’t know us as well so they think they can use a whole load of different excuses about homework and such things that won’t fly by us. But give it a year, and we’ll have them pegged.

I spent the half an hour learning their names and telling them about the curriculum of the year. I then told them to write a small report on one event they particularly liked about their summer holidays, as if making it into a story. As they were doing this I went back to the computer, occasionally answering questions, and let them talk.

“Um, Ms. Burrows?” asked one of the students. I looked up and she gestured to the door.

Nick was standing there, waiting to be allowed in. He was being polite. I smiled and introduced him, as some might not know who he was and called him to my desk.

“What’s up?” I asked, turning my chair so I was fully facing him.

“My kids are working right now,” he explained, “so Emma sent me to ask you if you were free next period.”

“Let me check,” I said as I flipped through my binder, trying to find my schedule. “No, sorry. I have the sophomores. Wait, who’s watching over your class?”

“I’m not too concerned,” he grinned, showing his teeth.

“Why does Emma need me next?”

He lowered his voice conspiratorially, making me think it was really important before saying, “She needs help with the school play.”

I laughed, not only because the drama teacher needed help from me for the school play, but on the exasperated, funny look on the music teacher’s face. I stopped once I realized some of the students were looking at us with interest. “Okay, tell her we’ll meet up lunchtime.”

Nick nodded and turned to leave before I said, “Wait! Which play is it?”

“Wicked,” he said.

I smiled and then said, loud enough so the students would stop looking, “Thank you. Goodbye Mr. Jonas.” I watched as he had a playful smirk on his face while walking out.

The freshman lesson flew by, as did the sophomore one next. I found I didn’t have Demi in my class, but I did recognize some of her friends; Alexa Rhodes being one I knew well. I had them do what the freshman had done, except they had all lesson because I didn’t bother going over curriculum with them.

Lunchtime came and I met Emma in the staff room, we grabbed our lunches and headed towards the assembly hall/theatre. We ate our lunch there while she talked to me about her lessons and her plans for the play. She needed my help revising the script and such, and she knew I would say yes not only because I knew the play well, but because she was probably the best friend I had in Dallas.

My, this was going to be quite a year.