Teacher's pet

chapter 1: first meeting

I received my class timetable the first morning of the school year. The silent form class erupted into talk and emotions- everyone comparing each other's hoping they were together. I guess the not-so-enjoyable classes are made better by friends. A couple of my friends had specs of duplicity with mine- but never identical. I guess I'm going to have to be on my own between lessons.

My first lesson of the day was science. For context, in my school, GCSE science was defined as biology, chemistry and physics all taught by the same teacher. Not that the school was lacking resources or anything, they said found it easier to lay out the timetable that way with the overboard amount of subjects they forced us to take( me taking 15 in total). I look down at my timetable just as the bell rang.

Science
Lab block 17
Mr Win

Oh, Ohh- a memory flickered across my mind. Isn't this the teacher who had a infamous title of being a pervert? It was a known fact across the entire school. I didn't think much of it and walked to science hoping there wouldn't be a seating plan. You see, seating plans are the worst thing in existence; you're forced to sit next to someone you might not know and even worse at the front of the classroom.

I stepped into the classroom and looked up at the board. Why is it that the exact thing I had hoped not for happens ugh. I had been assigned the seat directly in front of Mr Win. Great.
To be fair, at least the girl sitting next to me was an acquaintance I knew and shared conversations with.
"Hello everyone, I'm your science teacher this year, Mr Win. I've seen some of your faces around the school and I'm excited to teach a talented bunch of individuals this year in set 1."

He went on about the compulsory information we had to know for the year- just the usual: expectations, behaviour, exams etc. My mind wandered as he talked.
He was a tall, built guy and he looked like he was in his late 20s. He wasn't exactly handsome but there was a weird aura of charisma about him, something about his natural ability to joke that wasn't cringey.

-"Joy"
I looked up, "What are your goals for science this year?"
"Um uh, I guess it's to get a grade 9 in biology, physics and chemistry."
"High expectations, that's good" he replied.

And finally after all the monotonous introduction talks, we finally opened our books. I was excited , you see, as much as I fantasised about the kind of romance in movies and books, academics was what I truly loved. However, I did avoid saying this around school where I'd probably get labelled as the 'Teacher's pet'. Definitely not something I wanted.

The first science we started with was physics. For heavens sake I thought to myself, this was the only subject I struggled with. The ambiguity of  forces, graphs and electricity really messed with me. Sir Isaac Newton, couldn't you have just eaten the apple instead of creating a whole new concept I thought. How was it that I was exceptional at every single subject apart from this one?

We started with a recap of the last year; surprisingly enough I understood everything he said. This is weird- all this time I had been struggling with this exact content. So was he a better teacher or did my brain become physics-understanding in the last 30 minutes? I'm guessing he's a very good teacher despite the dark claims surrounding him. He picked on me a couple of times to answer some questions which I did so correctly and well, nothing out of the ordinary happened.

But it was extraordinary to me, did I just enjoy physics?