The Last Teachers

Miss Ribbon

Miss Ribbon forlornly tugged a comb through her shapeless brown hair. Sighing, she gazed into the tarnished mirror in her dormitory at the school. Two hundred pounds of bitterness and regret stared back at her. "Why did the zombie apocalypse have to come now?" She wondered selfishly. "Why couldn't It have happened thirty years from now? I wouldn't have to deal with this crap and screw the children!"  Lately, her frustration had been manifesting itself more and more, pushing through the happy, carefree facade she kept up with her students.
While the constant screams and brains splattered on the sidewalk did not help, there was a deeper reason for Adrian Ribbon's anguish. She missed her children. They were only toddlers, and already on there own, for they were living at the local preschool, whilst she was stuck staying at the middle school where she taught civics.
Miss Ribbon's class was all she had, and she couldn't disappoint them- not when she'd already disappointed her own children, so she forced a smile onto her face and skipped into the classroom.
"Ladles and jelly spoons," she shouted, extracting a giggle from the class. "Are you ready to learn about the electoral college!"  Most of the class grinned. Learning was all the had now, and many fully embraced it, but one girl stood up.
"Why the hell do we have to learn about the electoral college? It's not like we're ever going to have a president! We're all just gonna drop dead as soon as the walls to this frigging hell hole give in?!"  This girl was Leah Thompson, known pessimist who's only hobbies  included wasting away in the orchestra room, wailing on her violin. Her best friend, and opposite, Darcy Walker gave her a look.  Leah's attitude drove Darcy crazy! She used to be so sweet and Darcy resented her for losing that, but who could blame her for this change. Her whole family was eaten gruesomely by zombies just twelve nights before, right in front of Leah. She saw her brothers brains pulled out from his ear, and slurped up like spaghetti. She saw her mothers arm ripped off, and gnawed on. Who could hate her for voicing her wishes that she could go back in time, to a time before scientists experimented with human DNA. 
Darcy tried to compose herself, and wiped the irritation from her face.
Finally, the silence was broken by Miss Ribbon.
"Leah dear," she spoke quietly. "I know these are hard times, but we must persevere, and have hope. Pessimism gets you nowhere. Now I'll escort you to the orchestra room. You can have the rest of class off."
Before she left, Miss Ribbon turned to Darcy. "Hey Darc', can you take over the class for a minute? Just read off your study guide, maybe tell a story.  'Peter the Personified Propaganda' hasn't been read in a while, right?"  Darcy nodded her head in agreement. It wasn't odd, what Miss Ribbon was asking. After all, Darcy was the smartest girl in the post apocalyptic school. She knew it, and the rest of the class did too.
As Miss Ribbon and Leah trudged down the hallways, Leah's eyes trailed off towards the boarded up windows. Miss Ribbon obviously sympathized, and worried much about this girl, but there were better things to think about....
Miss Ribbon had an ulterior motive to go to the orchestra room, and that ulterior motive went by the name of Miss Base!