Relying On Ben and Jerry (Waltham #1)

Chapter Eleven: It Hath Hiteth The Faneth

I figured that today was going to suck egret eggs just for the sheer fact that it was my second day, but it became obvious two minutes into fifth period that I should have just stayed home and gone back to bed. Even though I was wearing fairy wings and a shirt with a Dali-style giraffe on fire on it, I should have seen the signs that today was just going to be jam-packed full of Suck.

Mrs. Tuck might have been pretty quick with a yard stick, but she was on estimate about a billion and eight years old. She swung that yard stick like Babe Ruth but she was all wrinkly and her skin hung down about six inches from her face and her attitude kind of reminded me of a steam engine’s—it spewed smoke and heat, and it ran over whoever was in its way.

It might not have been analogy of the year, but it proved itself truer every second longer I sat in her god-forsaken classroom.

She hovered like a calculating piranha behind her podium, holding a marker for the white board in one hand and a yard stick in the other, her eyes beady and staring out at the classroom with the sharpness of an especially evil drill sergeant. She was wearing another one of her old lady cardigans, this one a coral color with big three-dimensional flowers of all sorts of colors on the front, giving the effect of a garden that got bombarded with a bunch of ugly sticks. Her hair was snow white and stood in a thin puff around her head, maniacal to a point that I expected her to throw her head back and laugh evilly while twirling a hilariously legit mustache. And then she would beat someone to death with her yard stick and it wouldn’t be nearly as awesome of a mustache anymore.

She suddenly slammed the yard stick down on the nearest desk to her, and the whole class jumped like we had received an electric shock to the face. She stared us down, her lips pencil thin. Her chin wiggled.  

“Does anyone know the answer?” she asked in a sickly sweet voice that gave the impression of her not being an evil old hag. She glanced around the room, but no one either spoke or moved. I considered blinking, but staring into her eyes was like staring into the eyes of the basilisk—I was frozen. She shook her head, tutting as she meandered back closer to the board. The class relaxed a little with every step she took away from us. “Well, it’s really simple, class. I don’t know why no one knows.”

I opened my mouth to be, well, me, but Norma silenced me with a venomous stare. I bit my lip, glancing down at my paper. Anywhere but at that evil old lady.

If I didn’t learn it yesterday, it became obvious from the moment I walked through the door today that not only did she hated me, but we also had little to no hope of ever getting along. I didn’t like it when people bossed me around, and she didn’t like when people had free will. We got along like hippies and Hitler. Hippies with a dark complexion.

I was staring at my paper, totally lost in my own world, when she called out, “Lena?”

“Yes, sir?” I replied, and then looked up in horror. “Ma’am! I definitely meant to say ma’am!”

A couple of sniggers broke out throughout the classroom but most people learned to hush up nice and quick. Seeing as I was already set up to die, I couldn’t blame them for preferring to sit back and watch me suffer than volunteering their necks with me. Old Lady Tuck was staring at me, her eyes narrowed and her teeth yellowing, and she did not look pleased. Her bony fingers tightened around the yard stick, but she smiled painfully like there was even still a point of pretending to like me.

There was nothing more chilling than the smile of an evil old lady.

“Dear, do you know the answer?” she asked me, and I translated that to say, If there wasn’t anyone else in this room, I would have already massacred you.