"Courage doesn't always ROAR. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying; 'I will try again tomorrow.'" - Mary Anne Radmacher
I walked into my English Lit class six minutes late with my backpack still over my shoulder and my wrinkled schedule in one hand, my locker number and combination in the other. By the time my brother and I finally got ourselves registered at Westfield High, the final bell had already rung, leaving us with the run down and vacated halls to walk through.
Since Terrance was older than me by a year, his classes were different from mine so we parted ways in front of the main office, him right and me left. It only took me a minute to locate my locker with the help of the neon orange map the frazzled secretary handed me; although the problem wasn't finding the locker, but trying to open that locker. It seemed like no matter how many times I dialed in the combination and tugged on the handle, it refused to budge. So after six minutes of dialing and tugging, I finally gave up and decided to head to my first hour Lit class with all of my stuff in hand.
"Ah, you must be the new student."
I twisted my gaze away from the twenty pairs of eyes that were watching me with mild interest, and instead looked over at my new English Lit teacher.
He was surprisingly young for a teacher, especially one in a town of eight thousand. He wore retro black rimmed glasses and had honey colored tresses that were styled in an expert quiff that screamed Frat Boy more than English Teacher. He was leaning casually against his desk with his arms crossed, dressed in a faded grey sweater and dark jeans, his feet clad in all white sneakers. If he hadn't addressed me directly, I would have assumed that he was another student here.
I nodded at him and pulled the blue pass out of my pocket; it was warm and wrinkled as I handed it over to him. He took it and tossed it on top of his rather cluttered desk before waving an arm out and at the rest of the class. I noticed a silver wristwatch poking out from under the sleeve of his sweater.
"Why don't you tell us something about yourself?"
I turned back to the watchful gazes from my peers. With such a small town, I doubted that they got new kids often so it was no surprise for their scrutiny, but that didn't mean that I enjoyed it. My mouth felt like it was full of cotton when I parted my lips, my eyes scanning the unfamiliar faces as I shifted my weight to my other foot.
"I'm, um, I'm Waverly, Waverly Cadwell. I moved here yesterday from Brighton." Someone coughed and a phone vibrated against a jean-clad thigh. I glanced back over at the teacher who nodded at me and pushed his glasses up his nose with his middle finger.
"Well Waverly, we are pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Mr. Andrews. Welcome to English Lit 101. Why don't you take a seat behind Joshua," he nodded toward an asian boy with near-black hair that fell in his eyes. The asian boy raised his hand lazily and I nodded before hurrying to my seat, my grip on my bag tightening as I kept my gaze trained on the chipped linoleum beneath me.
I slid into my seat behind Joshua at the back left hand corner of the classroom. There was a girl with frizzy red hair to my right and a short, plump guy with sleeked back ebony hair and pimples galore residing in the desk behind me. I unzipped my backpack and dug around until I found a notebook and pen. The desk creaked as I shifted my weight so I could cross my legs and scribble 'English Lit 101' across the top of the page in black ink.
"Back to our earlier topic. Who can remember what we were discussing?" Mr. Andrews asked as he pushed off the desk and made his way to a stack of books in front of the windows. He picked up a stack of four and began handing them out. "I'll give you a hint. It starts with an S and ends with 'carlet Letter.'"
No one said anything so he launched into more detail about The Scarlet Letter, the book we would, apparently, be starting the year with. Josh reached back with two of the books in hand and I took them before passing the extra back to the pimply-faced kid behind me.
As Mr. Andrews continued with the topic of The Scarlet Letter, I turned my gaze out the window and at the yellowing grass and parking lot beyond, uninterested. I squinted when I saw a familiar red pickup pull into the parking lot and an equally familiar man step out. He straightened his tie, grabbed his briefcase, and walked with clipped strides towards the school, a determined look on his face.
And that man, with glistening golden waves and chiseled features, was my father.
* * *
Before my dad lost his job to my aunt, he was the owner of Cadwell Security Co. which was a large corporation that sold complex security systems to people—alarms, cameras, and red laser beam motion sensors. It was a multi-million dollar company that sold their systems world wide. He ran the corporation for twenty-five years before my aunt swindled her way into the company and into my dad's CEO position, knocking him off the top and running him out of town.
For someone who once owned a global corporation, you'd think that he'd apply for a more complex job like running a computer-chip plant, or something else more his speed, not a teaching position at a public high school. I didn't even know that my dad could teach, or had the degree for it.
I blinked, looked away, then looked back and blinked again, but he was still there. What. The. Hell?
As soon as the bell rang I gathered my things and shot out of the classroom, standing on my tiptoes so I could scan the crowd of teenagers for my brother. It only took me a moment to spot his familiar halo of golden waves among the crowd.
I immediately made my way towards him, ducking around elbows and the edges of textbooks while I tried not to step on anyone's foot. I grabbed his shirt sleeve and gave it a tug.
"Terrance."
He glanced down at me and grinned. "Hey Waves, how's it going?"
"Did you know that Dad is applying for a teaching position here?"
Terrance blinked and furrowed his brows. "What?"
I took that as a no.
"Dad is applying for a teaching position at Westfield. Our school Terrance. Our. Friggen'. School."
Terrance didn’t say anything for a moment, he only stared at me and then blinked again. "Okay." I noticed him swallow as he considered our options of having the least amount of embarrassment ride on our shoulders this school year.
It's one thing to have the humiliation of the world knowing that your dad lost his job and all of his money to his sister, then having to move to a crap town and enroll yourself in a crap public school when you went to Brighton Prep, but adding that your dad is going to be a teacher at that crap school in that crap town, brings the embarrassment to a maximum. Terrance may have been overly optimistic, but even he was prone to the teenage embarrassment that all parents wrought on their children.
"Okay," he repeated. "Don't panic. As long as we don't talk to him in public, no one will make the connection between our—"
"Hi there!" Terrance and I turned to the sound of the overly-perky voice behind us. We both had to look down at the girl with the sparkly purple barrette who couldn't have been taller than five-foot, at the most. She had on a purple cashmere sweater, sparkly purple high tops, and a matching purple Coach purse that resided in the crook of her elbow. Her straight brown hair and rounded face made her seem younger than the average high schooler, but the way she held herself with her back straight and chin high told me otherwise.
"My name is Bethany and I just wanted to welcome you to Westfield High!" I didn’t know that it was possible, but her gleaming white smile seemed to broaden even more as she spoke. "I am part of the welcoming committee here at Westfield and since I was the first to see you, I figured I'd say hello."
It didn't take Terrance long to recover from the initial shock of the interruption because he soon had his charming grin on and extended his hand out to her. "Well hello there Bethany," she took his hand and gave it two firm shakes. "I'm Terrance and this is my sister Waverly; it's a pleasure to meet you."
"The pleasure is all mine Terrance," she tightened her grip on her purple binder and let out a short breath. "Well, if you two need anything just let me know," and with another glistening grin, she turned on her sparkled heel and sauntered down the hall with a skip to her step.
I blinked and glanced over at Terrance. "We seem to be meeting a lot of . . . interesting people here." I said softly and he chuckled.
"I like her."
I rolled my eyes and shifted my weight to my right foot while glancing down at my schedule, finding that my next class, Psychology, was in room 112. After discovering this, I gave Terrance a pat on the shoulder.
"Of course you do. All right, well I have to go. According to the map, my next class is on the other side of the school."
Terrance grinned at me and ruffled my hair. "See you at lunch."
"See you," I replied and then we parted ways once again, but this time I went right and he went left as we headed to our second period classes.