Picturesque

Chapter 11: Marlboro

"Now, you don't have to spend your every waking moment teaching these heathens," Marty told me as he walked me through the house. "I'll be pleasantly surprised if you can even get them to sit down for an hour. Plus, they don't have to be fluent by the time summer's over. We just want them to know the basics, get a good foundation going, and before you leave in the fall, you can give them some homework to do throughout the school year so they don't forget everything they teach you. Oh, and watch out for Judd—he can be a prankster sometimes. Like I was saying, just try to get them to sit down in the mornings, and then you can let them loose around lunch. You're here for a whole summer, so I want you to take some time getting to know Los Angeles—I'll have Jo take you out some time, if I can catch her. She's hardly ever here these days—always out with her friends doing God knows what. I stopped trying to keep up by the time she got to high school."

I was nodding so much that my head felt like it was going to roll off my neck by the time we made it into a smaller room that looked like a study room for the kids. There were two small desks for them, a desk for me, and a standing chalkboard. Holly and Judd were already seated at their desks fighting—Judd was pulling her hair and Holly was using her little legs to kick him under his desk.

"Kids!" Marty boomed, and they both stopped and paid attention to him as he clapped his hands loudly. "I want you two to be real nice to Becca here and listen to everything she's gonna teach you. If I hear that you're being disrespectful, I'll tell your mother."

They both gulped at the thought of their mom, and Marty pointed a finger at both of them before smiling charmingly. He gave me a rather rough pat on the back and wished me good luck before walking out of the room.

I was carrying some French books and a notebook to track what I teach them. Holly was looking at me with a half-toothed smile, and Judd had his arms crossed, staring me down. I had already distinguished which kids were most like which parent. Holly was a charming angel like Marty. Judd was rather sinister and judging like Katie. From the two minutes I had met Jo the day before in Holly's room, I had firstly recognized her as more like Katie, but the more I thought about it, I thought she kind of had a charm to her like Marty. I was ashamed of how much I had thought about it that night.

"Alright," I began, sitting my books down on my desk. Both of the kids already had a notebook and pencil on each of their desks, so I thought I had rather just begin.

My very first day of being a teacher was a little unstable. I just wasn't quite sure where to begin, and I was worried that since Holly was so young, she wouldn't be able to grasp anything I was teaching. It turned out to be the opposite—Holly was very smart for a six-year-old, and Judd had the attention span of a squirrel. He also kept trying to throw balls of paper at me, and Holly was the one who finally told him off and got him to stop acting up. I taught them the very basics of French, like pronouns and verbs, until Flo called for lunch, so they were dismissed.

A few hours of teaching already had me fatigued. Marty said that he didn't expect the children to be fluent in French by the end of summer, but I still felt a pressure to do my very best. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, as Dr. Marlar said, and I didn't want to mess it up in any way. It was vital that I had to be perfect.

It also seemed that co-nannying with Flo was another element of my job that I wasn't expecting. While I would have rather retired up to my room and read for the rest of the evening, Holly wanted me by her side at all times.

"Let's go swimming!" she told Flo a little while after lunch. Marty was in his office making calls, Katie was out to lunch with a friend, and Jo was still nowhere to be found. Holly, Judd, Flo, and I had been sitting on the couch watching the kids draw for about an hour. Holly had the bright idea of drawing the Eiffel tower for me (I think she thought I was from France since I knew how to speak French), and Judd was drawing his favorite football player. I had finally met the family dog who was a golden retriever named Max. He seemed to always stay by Holly's side, a perfect, dutiful family pet.