Till The Clock Strikes Gone

14 | beautiful

The next morning, William entered his first class and was surprised to find Eliza there. It was her first class too. She was sitting on the front desk, directly facing him. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she leaned on the chair, one leg over the other, as she watched him with a doubtful look in her eyes. He felt like a microscopic specimen under her gaze just like how he always felt when Harvey looked at him.

He wanted to avoid her. He already let his tongue get in the way yesterday and almost ended up making a huge mistake. But today, he planned to just avoid her. After all, that's what Harvey Scott asked him to do.

Avoid Eliza.

He had let Harvey know that Eliza was in his class and the man was upset and appeared deeply troubled by the news. William was clever enough to understand that Harvey didn't want William anywhere near his daughter. He had tried to reason with Harvey, told him how difficult avoiding his wife would be, but Harvey just got more furious with him and William dropped the topic when Eliza entered the room.

William put his book on the desk and he finally read the title, 'Frankenstein' and that relieved him a little. Frankenstein was his favourite book; it was the book that inspired everything. He knew it thoroughly. He could feel a flicker of interest spark within him at the prospect of discussing Mary Shelley again.

"So class," he began with new enthusiasm, trying to avoid Eliza's glare. "I assume you have completed the assignment that I tasked you with yesterday?"

The class groaned when the words escaped him.

"Please, submit them," he commanded.

Most of them came forward, one by one and submitted their sheets. He observed and then saw that the only people who didn't submit anything were - Eliza, the boy in black, the girl who almost flirted with him yesterday, a redhead guy and the guy at the last desk, a blond one.

"You people." He pointed to them one by one, scanning his eyes around the room. "You didn't do it?"

The boy from the previous day smiled at him. "Oh..we have done it, Mr Ray or at least we wanted to get it done but then a lot of things came up and it just escaped our minds."

William was upset by that but he calmed himself down. "So you didn't do your homework?"

"Duh!" the girl exclaimed. "Are you going to punish us, Mr Ray?" she said, batting her eyes at him. "Because if that is the case, then I will be the first to go, but only if you are ready to give 'individual' punishments."

She winked at him and from the corner of his eye, he saw Eliza throwing the girl a dirty look at her shameless flirting.

He smiled a little and then said, "This is my second and last warning to you Ms Whatever your name is. You say things like that again, and you will find yourself in detention."

He didn't wait for her reaction as he opened the book and asked them to do the same.

After about thirty minutes when he was done explaining a few premises and backstory of the book, he checked his watch, another gift from Lorna, and saw that it was almost time to go. He closed the book and looked at his bunch of students. For a moment, he wondered if he knew any of them from his time. Surely, they were his age. He felt creepy when he thought about how weird this all was, how he was practically teaching students his age. He was somewhere at this time too. The nineteen-year-old him was probably attending his classes at Oxford.

He brushed the thoughts away from his head and cleared his throat. He was about to speak when he saw Eliza raise her hand. He looked at her raised hand as she spoke, "I have a question."