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City High has what we call "Teacher Helpers", or just "Helpers". They're not really teachers, but they wander around and help out in any class they're needed in. Some are specialized in math or science, some in English, and some just all around whatever. Freshmen year was Mr. Jones, the heartthrob of all the girls. Tall, built, handsome, older, he was everything a high school girl wanted. He was the topic of lunchroom discussions, and if anyone claimed they didn't like him, they were either lying, or were lesbians. We were pretty sure that some of the guys even had a man crush on him. I pretended I could care less if he said hello to me or not, but inside I was just a fangirl like the rest of them. It was probably either the end of second trimester or the beginning of the third trimester when we found out he had to leave. He was going off to Philadelphia; he was going to go back to school or train to become a "real" teacher. Everyone was heartbroken, we even had a Facebook page for him. We were hoping that he would be back soon, that we wouldn't get anther helper. Because, really, who could replace Mr. Jones?

Well, soon enough the time rolled around where we walked in one day and we knew he wasn't here, not even in our city. Stepping in, we all saw his replacement, the short guy with the short brown hair and the blue eyes. He was our target of hatred, especially me. How could this man replace Mr. Jones? The teachers always stood near my locker with the "COW", or basically where we left our laptops, and the first time I saw him was while he was half leaning against it, watching the students. I ignored him, he wasn't talking to anyone anyways. I'm sure a few students questioned him, asked him who he was, why he was here, etc. No one liked him at first. He replaced our heartthrob.

It didn't take long for him to be the talk of the school. I'm sure there were a few that liked him, but kept it to themselves. It was a bad time for him to show up, (and looking back I wish he would have never shown up), no one was going to like him. I remember our first end of the year trip; Splash Lagoon. Of course, everyone was in their suits, even some of the teachers. I stuck close to my friends, self consious over myself. We joked around, and one thing I remember clearly was when we were in line for a water slide.

"Turn around, look," my friend, Kayla, half-whispered.

She was talking about him, Zappa, as we knew now, standing a few people behind us. We snickered, it was frightening enough seeing our teachers in suits, but our new one? I'm sure he was the butt of everyone's joke at least once that day. I never paid him much attention, and no one was too fond of him for quite awhile.

Break came and went, and soon we were Sophmores. It was that year where everything soon fell into place, where it didn't take long at all for everyone to warm up to the new teacher....