Chapter Text
The bell ringing was always welcomed with sighs of relief, from both parties in the room. The kids were usually very happy to say bye to the notebooks and the learning, and the teacher was generally happy that her day of work was coming to an end. Truth is, that evening, they all were even happier than they were usually. The day had been long, stormy, the natural light didn't really come all the way into the classroom and that bad weather had had an effect on the kids' behaviour. They had been particularly excited, moody and exhausting for the young teacher who had been pretty lost all day. Barely older than her students, she had on her side a proximity with their ways of thinking that particularly helped in the classroom and during recess.
Unfortunately for her, it also meant that half of the time, she wasn't taken seriously, whether it was by the kids, their parents or the head of the school. Balancing her textbooks in her arms, she wobbled a bit with her high heels and directed the kids to follow her to the school's doors. They were a bit late; the kids had had trouble copying their last lesson and were generally tired.
Good point was that they were on the last day of the week and were now leaving for a much needed and deserved weekend break. Everybody needed a bit of down time and she knew that she would enjoy it with all of her being.
It was a late afternoon of January, the kids were all wrapped up in coats, beanies and scarves and the weather had an incredible effect on them all. Everything was gloomy, cold and grey; making them feel like the day was dragging on and was longer than it really was. Everybody was lacking of sun vitamins, they were all exhausted and an entire day spent in class was getting too much for the kids. As much as she would have loved to spend their days playing board games, she knew she couldn't afford all this time spent on distraction, so instead, she found new ways to teach the kids that made them feel like it was a game. No test sheets, no lectures, just discoveries and eventually a lesson copied on their notebooks. Nothing too bad and they were loving it but it also took the young teacher an incredible amount of time of preparation ahead, which made her even more tired and she had to admit she snapped a handful of times. That day had been okay but it didn't mean she wasn't extremely tired all the less. Her general state made the fact that the day was coming to an end even more pleasant.
The kids and her had an habit to leave the school. She had asked them to come to her and tell her who was there to pick them up. It'd be longer than for the other classes but it allowed her to verify the identity of the adults coming picking the kids up and to chat with some parents, if needed. That day in particular, she had to discuss with a little girl's mom to tell her that her daughter had scrapped her knees by falling on the playground. Nothing major but she liked updating the parents about these kinds of stuff so they wouldn't discover it at home and wonder what the heck happened. As she was bidding the little girl's mom bye, she heard one of her students go nuts on her right side. Breaking into a run, the little red headed boy launched himself on a young man's torso, climbing up like a little monkey while the dude picked him up and hugged him tight. Furrowing her brows, she observed the two emotionally discussing and released her last pupil to his dad before she could approach them. Watching them together made her heart tighten. They were obviously smitten of each other, the tallest one playfully rubbing the smallest' head to mess with his hair, while the smallest couldn't stop laughing and trying to push his hands away. His little arms stuck around the biggest one's neck, he couldn't wipe off the smile on his lips. Coming up to them made her feel like she was intruding and bothering them, which was usually what she avoided to do at all costs. But she knew she couldn't let her student leave with a complete stranger, which is why she had to intervene, at some point.
“Hi, excuse me”, she breathed. “Patrick, care to explain why your mom isn't here?”
“Miss! This is my big brother, Tom”, he grinned, turning his head to her from the crook of his brother's neck.
“I didn't know you had another brother, Patrick”, she smiled. “Good evening, I'm Patrick's teacher”, she introduced herself.
“Tom”, he laughed, raising his head for the teacher to shake. “Sorry for barging in like that, Paddy didn't know I would be coming to get him tonight. I just came back home and it was a surprise for him.”
“No problem, but I'm gonna have to check with Patrick's permission slips and your ID. I've no doubt that you're indeed his brother but our principal is quite strict about these kinds of things”, she grimaced.
“No, no, sure”, he assured.
It didn't take much longer for the teacher to check the identity of the man in front of her. She compared the names with the ones on Patrick's permission slips and quickly released the two guys to head back home. Watching Patrick leave, curled up on his brother's hip, was a sight to have. The little boy was usually a very reserved student, barely talking in class and always shy to answer back to the teacher's questions. He had a couple of friends only and was usually one of the few to sit down during recess but he had a cheeky side that his teacher had learned to control and know. Patrick was a great kid, he had great grades and he usually was quick to understand new notions, apart from English. The teacher had met his parents a while ago, for an unformal meeting to discuss about Patrick's difficulties in English. They had agreed on checking the little boy up with a speech therapist and came back with no probing result. He was fine, he just couldn't grasp the concept of grammar. So far, Patrick was in difficulty with a major part of the English curriculum but he managed to balance his GPA with his excellent grades in maths. His parents helped him as much as possible and asked to meet the teacher once again to check the little dude's progress so far. They had hired an English lit student to come to their house and help him with new exercises and different lessons. He had progressed, for sure, but still didn't catch up with the rest of the class and it was getting frustrating for both parties. Patrick was a perfectionist and getting bad grades usually sent him into the poorest mood for the rest of the day. The teacher, on her side, had to take him on the side to revise the different notions while the others worked on worksheets but she had twenty kids under her watch and they all had to come at some point to get clarifications and help on some exercises. She had trouble balance everything out and sometimes, the poor Patrick ended up sitting next to her and waiting for all of the others to go back to their desks, only to hear "I'm sorry, but we have to move on to another subject now… I'll explain everything to you later, okay?" and all he could do was nod. It was heart-breaking to see a little boy like him struggle and get mad at himself over stupid stuff like grammar. Sure, it was damn important but the kid knew how to talk properly and how to count, he knew how to behave and what he shouldn't do. He shouldn't be put under so much pressure over when to put a comma in a sentence.
To see him so alive with his brother was amazing and something she wished she could see more often. The fact that she didn’t see him like that all the time made her feel like she was failing as a teacher, in a way.
The teacher gained back her classroom, sighing when she saw the general state the kids left the room behind. There were pieces of paper everywhere, scraps of eraser on every desk and one of the kids left their pencil case on their desk. Patiently, she grabbed every pen and pencil, put them back into the case and zipped it closed before tucking it inside the desk. She gathered the notebooks she needed to correct and grade, the worksheets she had to take a look on and carefully placed everything in her tote bag. She smiled at the memory of Patrick and his big brother, shook her head to focus and took another pile of books to correct them. It took her about half an hour to get through everything and when she was finally done, she sighed another time, putting back the pile on her desk, where they'll have to wait for Monday to get back to their kids. She grabbed her tote bag, her school bag (paid by her mother has a gift when she became a teacher) and her set of keys, before turning every light off and locking the door.
She wished her colleagues a nice weekend, escaped the principal by taking a detour and not walking in front of her office and finally breathed a big gulp of fresh air as she stepped outside of the school for the first time since 7am. Saying that she was exhausted would be underrating her state. She felt like the twenty little monsters she had as pupils had all took a bite off of her body and she was left with a cheese kind of structure. She could feel her legs heavy and her arms ached from all the writing and carrying books she had done in the day. Yawning in the street, she approached her car, unlocked it, loaded her bags on the back seat and finally sat in her tiny vehicle, ready to head back home. The day had been too long for her to just sit on her couch and watch a movie. Exhausted, the young woman made a beeline to her bathroom and started running a bath where she dropped a piece of a bubble bar from the local Lush shop in town. She dragged her feet all the way to her bedroom where she grabbed a book and finally stripped to let the hot water soothe her achy legs and sore back. Relieved by the warmness and the smell of the bubbles, she opened her book back to where she stopped it and finally forgot about her pupils.
Sometimes, it was nice to remember she wasn’t just a teacher.