Teachers Tapestry

Six

Once we were home I just went straight to sleep.

But when I woke up this morning, the interaction I had with Collette the night before kept playing in my mind.

I wondered if she was genuinely alright and was just having a bad night. Or if there was something more to her problems.

It bothered me a little, I don't know why but it did.

I didn't dwell on it too much and just got ready for work, said good bye to Artemis and moved along.

✾ ✾ ✾

"Please take out your work from last lesson. And complete it. I want it by the end of the lesson. Complete to a good standard. You're seniors, please write like it." I tell my english 15 class.

This whole day has been stressful, it's the third day of school and the students are already irritating me.

The freshmen's, think if they suck up it'll do them some good when in reality, there is no point in sucking up. The one sophomore class are actually really quiet and have a good work ethic so I guess there's nothing wrong with them, the juniors are feral and I have nothing more to say about them but these seniors are so irritating and act like toddlers.

There's a knock at the door and a light skinned student with long curly hair stands at the door.

"Come in." I say sternly as the students in the class look up from their work.

"Um, I transferred to this class. I'm birdie spine." She says softly handing me a small yellow paper with her name and transfer number.

"Okay, take a seat." I tell her taking it from her.

"Everyone else. Back to work." I say sternly.

I walk over to her as she looks around to everyone else writing. She's come prepared, she already had a notebook and a pen out when normally the students are waiting for me to spoon feed them instructions.

"Okay, the last three days I've asked them all to write a two page summary of their favourite book they read last year. So everyone is just completing it for the end of the lesson, I can give you until Monday but if you finish it before then it would even better. Welcome to english 15 birdie." I say to her firmly and she nods.

During the class I keep my eyes locked in my computer and finished planning my lessons I have for the upcoming week.

Suddenly my phone lit up with a message.

From Zara, of all people.

Zara
Val, please just talk to me. Please.

Me
No Zara. There's nothing to talk about.

Zara
Val, come on. It's us. Please talk to me. I never realised that it was that big of a deal. Please.

Me
Zara, sleeping around while we were engaged isn't a big deal to you? There's nothing to talk about.

Zara
Come on Valentina, you and I both know there's more to this. Come home tonight, we can talk.

Me
Zara, there's nothing.

Zara
Just once val, that's all I'm asking for baby.

Me
Fine.

Zara
I'll see you at home.

I shut my phone off and looked up to see all the students have their heads down except one. Birdie Spine.

I make eye contact with her and realise that she has two pages on her desk. Spread out.

I nod in her direction, and the bell goes off.

"Everyone please hand in your summaries and bring the book we spoke about last lesson in Monday. The odyssey." I raise my voice above the ringing bell and the students hand in their papers one by one.

"Birdie stay." I say as she approaches my direction.

She stands off the side as everyone else handed in their papers and walked to their next class.

Once everyone left I turned to birdie who stood to the left of my desk.

"You finished your paper early, despite only joining this morning." I say calmly but sternly.

"Yes." She says slightly confident.

"And the book you chose was?"

"Pride and prejudice." She says softly once again.

So there's two up to standard pupils who did the same book. Collette and Birdie.

"Okay, that's a good book. I'll read over the paper and give it back to you. You did it in the given time despite only joining my class this morning. You have good work ethic. You can leave, please do remember the odyssey for Monday." I say to her firmly and coldly.

"Thank you. And I'll remember." She says turning to walk to the door.

I quickly skim over her paper and realise that her paper is well written but she uses sophomore level writing most of the time. Unlike Collette's take on the book, she has so much depth but lacks personal opinion.

Their writing styles are similar but the standard is different. I decided to log into the school systems to see the differences between Collette and Birdie.

Birdie seems smarter than all the other students in this class but I don't know if she has the level to be with the other group. Since Collette is the best student I have in the other class, maybe I could compare the level they work at to see if birdie could move up or not.

I look over the students name in the school system and click her name first.

Birdie Spine.

BIrdie spine is an overall straight A student. She's only failed one class, calculus. Understandable, don't like any form of maths either.

After birdie I click over to Collette's name.

Collette Calliope Hollis.

I try and fight back a smile at her middle name. It's very pretty. She's a good student, most of her grades are A's but she has a few B's and is also only failing calculus.

She's an interesting student.