MSC (Rewritten)♡•~

CHAPTER SIX: Textbooks

The sounds of cackles and loud chatty shouts vibrated around the house, while I lay quietly on my old mattress, reading my old english comprehension book.

Uncle had invited his colleagues around to the house for the evening, which meant I had to stay silent in my room and not come downstairs. The only time I was called was to serve dinner, and so for now, I was free to do what I wanted in my small bedroom.

Auntie Gifty was a teacher before she had her sickness. She was the one who taught me at home, and encouraged me to work hard. My Dad had initially wanted to send me to the local school, but Auntie had warned him how untrustworthy all the nearby schools were, and offered to homeschool me at least until I was at the end of the primary stage. She made sure I was still able to play with the other kids in my area though, and besides, I enjoyed spending most of my days with her. I remembered my Auntie getting a lot of backlash from the women of the neighbourhood-homeschooling was practically unheard of around here. But she didn't care.

I continued to study, long after she had left, but since Uncle Philip didn't have the heart to teach me, I collected all the textbooks in Auntie's old study, and attempted to read them myself. There was a lot I didn't understand in those books, and so I could only stick to the younger class ones. I still read them anyway, because I knew Auntie would be proud of me.

The comprehension book already had loads of my notes written all over it, and so now it was hard to read the short story. But every time I looked at it, I would discover something more that I didn't understand before.

"Okay, Chocolate cake. Which of these sentences are a metaphor"? I asked, watching as Chocolate cake stared at me, boredly. I frowned. "Don't look at me like that. How do you expect to go to university if you don't even know what a metaphor is"?

He continued to give me a bored look. I sighed. "You're right...we'll probably never go to university anyway".

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For the next week following my first day, Dad stayed home with me, and decided to start teaching me some of the basic school subjects. He bought textbooks and sat with me at the dining table. I was rather excited to start learning again.

I enjoyed the moments with just the two of us, when Susanne was at work and Katie was out with her friends. Unfortunately for me, Dad wanted me and Katie to hang out after my lessons, and so Katie would invite me to her room when Amber came round. I'm not sure why though, since they both seemed to hate me. They didn't stop their constant down talk about Ghana, and I wished I had the courage to ask them to stop.

The other thing I wished I could talk to Katie about was her behaviour towards Beatrice. I had seen Beatrice twice since our first encounter, but we only had very short conversations, as Katie would come out and pull me back inside, scowling at the girl on the other side of the fence. It was very worrying to me, and I realised that I didn't actually like Katie very much. However, I decided to keep my thoughts to myself.

Luckily, the hours with Dad and sometimes Susanne made up for this. I didn't see much of Susanne-she was either at work or shopping, but when she was around, she would learn recipes with me. Even though she took photographs of practically everything for her instagram page, meaning I had to wait for her to dress up before we started cooking, I still enjoyed my time with her.

I was finally starting to settle into my new home. But even though I was still getting used to the normality of this environment, one of the main things on my mind was when I was going to start school.

Dad had told me that after he had spent time home schooling me for a while and had to go back to work, he would hire a private tutor who would dedicate his whole time into my educational wellbeing.

"But I want you to teach me". I had complained at the table, while we were in the middle of a maths lesson.

"Jem, listen. When you start school, you're not going to know anyone there. Not the students, or the teachers. But it's good to try something new. Life is made up of things changing and moving onto something else. But you'll find it's worth it once you make some friends".

I looked down at the table. Dad seemed very confident with what he was saying, and so I nodded slowly. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to give it a chance.

And so I wasn't too pessimistic when the day finally came round that I would be introduced to my new tutor, Mr Kenichi Nakamura.

Mr Nakamura was a tall, slender man with high cheekbones and small, bright eyes. My dad had brought him over on a Saturday, sparing me from listening to Katie talk about how one of Amber's ex boyfriends tried to get with her behind her best friend's back. I was pretty sure I'd heard the story before, and I longed to politely ask her to shut up.

However, when the two of us came to meet the adults at the door, I immediately stood behind Katie the moment I saw this stranger coming in, my Dad right behind him. His tall figure initially intimidated me, as I peered at him from behind Katie's shoulder. But then he smiled, and bent down slightly, and my shoulders immediately relaxed when I could see his features up close, and realised how gentle he looked.

"So you're the Jemimah I've heard so much about," Mr Nakamura said to me, and held out his hand. "I know my height can be scary at times. Kids have told me I look like slender man from that movie. But trust me, I'm quite chilled".

I gave him a small smile, and stepped out from behind Katie, reaching out to take his large hand. "It's nice to meet you..." I said, quietly. His smile grew bigger and he turned to Dad.

"You're old man was telling me you'd probably be too shy to say hi. He should give you more credit". He smirked at Dad who rolled his eyes but still had a smile on his face.

I decided immediately from there that I liked Mr Nakamura. And so from the following Monday, he came over five days a week to tutor me. He had different methods of teaching than Dad, but I liked it. Having missed out on so much of school already, it was a bit overwhelming for me to learn all these new subjects, but his optimistic attitude and bubbly personality made every lesson fun, and I couldn't wait to tell everyone when they all got home at dinner how well the day had gone.

Being with Mr Nakamura also reminded me of how much I actually enjoyed learning things. Even when he left for the day, I would sit up in my bedroom with my head in one of the thick textbooks he had brought for me. It was what I did most of the day. I wanted to take the opportunity to finally go to school.

"You are SUCH a nerd!" Katie kept telling me every time she caught me in my room doing the same thing. "Don't you do anything else? You even stay in here when Amber comes round, it's kinda rude".

"I need to catch up". I told her, hiding my scowl behind the pages. "School is coming soon".

However, when school did come round, I wasn't actually able to go. "We still have a lot of topics we haven't covered yet".Mr Nakamura explained to me.

I was upset when I had to see Katie dressed up smartly in her black and white uniform, yelling out goodbyes as she left the house, leaving me behind.

"It's fine, Jem," Dad said, noticing my mood after she left, "Things take time. You'll get there".

"I'm getting better every day, in every way"-Joel Osteen