Try and Guess

Mr. Vela

I decided to let Mom drive me to school the next day, and it turned out to be a bad call.  The usual embarrassment and motherly smothering followed, so of course I did the most logical thing possible.

"Oh my gosh!" I screamed while looking at my watch.

Mom stopped the car immediately and let the car just sit in the middle of the parking lot.  "What?" she asked frantically.  "Is everything okay?"

"No!  School starts fifteen minutes earlier today because of . . ."  I desperately tried to think of something to say before Mom started to tell everybody how cute I was when I sat outside all day and pured chocolate syrup onto myself to make me look 'black' when I was five.  I'm sorry!  I'm not racist; I just used to think that African-American people just tanned a lot.  As for the chocolate syrup, I had no idea.

"Why does shool start fifteen minutes early?" my mother demanded.

"Because I have to talk to Mr. Vela about something!" I made up.  "I wanted to ask him about my assignment about the character analysis on Pride and Prejudice due on Thursday."

Mom seemed satisfied and let me go.  "Tell me how school goes, honey!"  I simply waved a quick goodbye and ran as fast as I could to Mr. Vela's classroom.  If I told my mom that I would see him, then I would.  I could use some pointers from him anyways.

I ran even faster when I saw the two girls who listened to Mom tell the embarrassing tanning story.  They probably thought I was a super racist jerk, but I was willing to make a sacrifice in order to get out of the parking lot.

Bursting through his classroom door on the other side of the campus, Mr. Vela looked up from his papers on his desk with a startle.

I was panting pretty hard which embarrassingly showed how unfit I was.  My hair had a million fly-aways escaping from my tight ponytail and my blue backpack was slung over one shoulder carelessly.

"Hi," I breathed.  "Mr. Vela."  I rested my hands on my knees, hunched over, and stumbled my way over to a tan desk in the front row to sit down.

Mr. Vela adjusted his rectangular glasses on the bridge of his nose.  For an English teacher he seemed pretty young.  I guess that's why so many students connected with him easily.  I supposed that was why he was my favorite teacher; he had a goal to make students the best they could be and could answer pretty much any question or concern I had.

"I'm guessing you have something important to say to me," he smiled.  I shook my head as my heart rate finally slowed down to a normal speed.

"No, sorry."

Mr. Vela looked hurt and shook his head towards the green carpet.  "You shouldn't have come here, Kaitlyn."  I blinked and waved my hand as a 'no'.  "You burst into my classroom and brought my hopes up.  It was hiding in the back of my soul, and you lifted it up with your lively presence just to sink it down further in the dark waters than it even began with," said he in a solemn voice.

He saw me roll my eyes and we both laughed goofingly.  He tended to speak in a poetic way every once in a while, and this time it was in a very cheesy way.  But whenever he lectured the class his words were truly captivating.

"I actually came here to get away from my mother--you know what I mean, right?"  He shrugged and took a seat on the stool in front of his white board.  "And I also needed some writing tips."

"No you don't," he said matter of factly.  The twinkle in his eyes almost matched the brightness of the hair gel slicked through his black hair.

I frowned and asked quizzically, "What do you mean?"  It was his turn to be surprised.  He stood up silently and took the laptop from his desk to bring over.  Setting it down in front of me, I was too transfixed by the screen to notice the grin on his face.