Chapter 6 - The Teacher

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — RENN — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Hey, remember the opportunity I told you all last time?

Well today, I'm in a van along with other students. And if you're asking if I got shoved in here? No worries, I didn't get kidnapped.

But why am I here exactly? Well, it's all because of a call that happened last night.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — FLASHBACK — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

*Yesternight…*

I was ready for bed. Vance and Cherry were asleep in their rooms and now it's my turn to take a rest.

But before I could, my phone rang. I took a look and it was… Sir C? I answered his call.

"Renn, thank goodness you're still up. Listen, this is about an event." An event? Curious.

"What would that event be?" I asked.

"It's Temporary Teachers Day tomorrow. I was wondering if you'd be free tomorrow to teach other students in another school." Temporary Teachers Day is an event exclusive to Emerald Houston where junior and senior high school students volunteered to teach students in our neighboring school, Phoenix Ruby High. I began thinking if I should let myself take the place of the student that fell ill.

"Short on members, sir?" That was the only explanation I can think of. I mean, I got no other reason why he'd call me.

"Yes. We are one junior member short, and they wanted me to go look for someone who could teach." I was gonna ask why he didn't consult anyone else, but then I realized that he knows that I'm the only one who has started having teaching experience in the class thanks to Syrra and her mouth… And her brain…

"It's unexpected that I get a call this late about that, but I'll gladly accept since you know teaching is cakewalk to me." I happily got interested. It's no surprise after tutoring Syrra, but I'm going for a whole class. I better not screw this up.

"I like that confidence! Meet up with the rest of the members at 7 am tomorrow. Get to rest now!" He hung up and I set an alarm for me to wake up early.

Teaching a whole class… Shouldn't be too hard, right?

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — PRESENT DAY — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Well, it's not going to be any hard. Luckily, I'm not alone. Because I'm sitting beside Jenna Winters, Syrra's older sister. So it turns out she's a senior here.

"What a coincidence… My partner is the tutor of my young sis~" She giggled.

"At least you know I'm someone who can teach." I confidently grinned at her.

"My, such confidence. But remember, you're teaching a whole class. Can you handle it?~" She appears to be testing me. Her grin really sells it. My grin disappeared to a serious look.

"I'm confident I can. So what are we teaching today?" I asked her.

"We are assigned to teach Area and Perimeter." Geometry. 2 subtopics in Geometry I am very familiar with.

"I still got it." I confidently chuckled with a pat to myself on the shoulders.

"You're something else, huh? Who knew you could be very talented?~" She leaned closer to me, still not stopping her playful tone. Talented? Me? What's Jenna smoking?

"I hardly call that talent. If I were to be talented, I would be able to do many things that the majority of us can't." I slowly and gently pushed her away, giving myself some space. I mean, all I do is study. I can't swim, I don't dance, I don't sing. I'm doing my best in my academics to make sure I do not lose everything.

"A lot of people disagreed with me, but I know being smart is a talent in itself. A lot of people brag about being smart and actually end up being dumber than they are, but you on the other hand… You don't brag about it, you show it." I closed my eyes and went in thought about what she said. She has a point. That made me sigh and realize how true it was. While no one is like that in Emerald Houston, I can't say the same for other schools.

"You're right. Makes me wonder what they are teaching kids nowadays…" I looked out the window in thought.

"We'll never know… But while we are here, how about I give you a review?" Jenna suggested and I quickly turned to her and nodded, feeling motivated.

And I got reviewed by Jenna about what we are going to teach today while we are still on the road. Nice to have a little session on the way there.

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*40 minutes later…*

"Welcome to Phoenix Ruby High School!" The driver announced and our review came to a halt. Phoenix Ruby? I heard that this school is great… It's mainly red and white, and slightly bigger than Emerald Houston… And it's for high school students! Must be a prestigious school like ours.

But where there is a prestigious school, is where my nervousness and shy personality started showing themselves. I don't know what the students here are like, and I'm very shy when interacting with new people. I took deep breaths.

"Oh my, is someone shy?~" Here's Jenna again, grinning at me and teasing me with her playful tone. I immediately turned away with an uncomfortable look on my face.

"Sh-Shush… Give me a few minutes to get used to being here…" I took more deep breaths as she giggled at my nervousness.

"Whatever you say, Sir Alrose~" I glared at her as she kept giggling. She's seriously something else…

As the vans stopped at the parking, we all went down. I even saw the principal with us today.

"Alright, student teachers! Fall in line, and I'll give you a card assigning you to your rooms today! Be sure to act professional, as this event brings Emerald Houston and Phoenix Ruby together as partners!" We all then formed a single line receiving a card from the principal. I wonder what class we are assigned to…

As I picked our card and we walked to the school lobby, I looked at the label:

B-3

Based on the letter, we are teaching to 8th graders. Suddenly the lessons assigned to Jenna made even more sense now.

"I had a feeling we'd be assigned to the 8th graders, but to expect from the 3rd section…" Jenna had a face of disappointment, thinking that the students from the 1st and 2nd sections can already handle the lessons, anything behind those two tends to be either a hit or a miss.

"You never know, they could be participative." Meanwhile I just smiled confidently, having faith and not underestimating the lower sections, they're probably as good as the first two sections.

"Your confidence surely is something else…" She looked like she's worried about me expecting the opposite.

"Looks like that evens things between us. Let's head there." I went ahead. Jenna quickly followed. We headed to the third floor, where all of the classrooms have the letter "B" on them.

We went to classroom B-3, and I once again took a deep breath.

"Be professional, Renn Alrose…" I looked at Jenna as she gestured to me to knock. And I knocked as loud but polite as I could.

And a person opened the door, surprised to see us.

"My, are you both 5 minutes early! Student teachers from Emerald Houston?" Oh god… I'm getting close to snapping while trying to keep this smile on my face. Will the world stop telling me how early I am?! I already know I'm cursed with "Erliberdyitis" (Early-birdy-itis)...

"Yes, ma'am." We both bowed to the teacher.

"Hold on, I'll be announcing something to my class for a bit." She closed the door as we waited for a bit.

"Are you gonna discuss Area?" Jenna asked me.

"Leave that one to me, you'll discuss Perimeter." I answered.

"Great! I was thinking if I'll do Area instead but you're pretty okay with it, so I'll let you teach that." Finding the Area is slightly harder than finding the Perimeter so I took on that one. Glad Jenna trusts me on that.

The classroom door opened once again as the teacher gestured to us to come in.

"Sorry for the wait. Come in, you two!" Jenna went ahead inside and I followed behind her. I took a good look at the class.

But I happened to see someone. Someone I never thought I'd see…

It's the depressed girl from the park a few days back.

"(Oh no... It's her... Stay calm... You are here to teach... Not help her...)" I took a deep breath and tried to focus on the class. This is going to be tough, but I then calmed down, smiled and got ready to teach.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — DEPRESSED GIRL — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Just my luck. Just when my day couldn't get any worse, one of the student teachers from Emerald University today is that guy who suddenly approached me with annoying questions at the park.

"Good morning, everyone!" They both greeted the class.

Everyone except me stood up, greeted the both of them, then sat back down.

"Call me Ms. Winters. The young man over here is Sir. Alrose." Both of them have noble names. People like them have high expectations in life, probably like my family.

"So today, I'll be discussing to you about finding the Area of shapes! But before that, I'd like to give you a review. Give me an example of a shape!" Literally everyone knows about shapes… Why is that even a question.

"Circles!" "Squares!" "Rectangles!" "Triangles!"

"Very good!" My classmates answered the question, Sir. Alrose seems to be impressed. I don't know why he is here, but I don't even care. He's just here to stay for a day and then he's gone the next.

"So I'll be discussing finding the area of those today! Make sure to take notes!" He's basically like other teachers, pretending to be enthusiastic about teaching. I literally just looked at the window, not giving a single care.

My family and "friends" made me stop caring for anything. My family enforced their ideals onto me without even asking if I wanted them, and my "friends" back-stabbed me. One time I was kicked out for being lazy even though I did all of the work and my group did nothing. People only care about being selfish. They're all the same to me, and I wish I wasn't born in it.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — FLASHBACK — — — — — — — — — — — — —

"LOOK AT YOUR GRADES! ARE YOU EVEN EXERTING ANY EFFORT?!"

Any form of effort I did is always disregarded, mom… Did you even ask what happened? Did you even look at my classmates and think maybe they're the ones who took them all away from me?

"Thanks to you, we've made it. We have no use for a pathetic insect like you anymore. Get lost."

The laughs of those good-for-nothing lowlife classmates… How I hated seeing them treat me like trash. Their existence brought nothing more than to push and shove people down.

"IT'S YOUR THINGS! YOU SHOULD TAKE BETTER CARE OF THEM! THIS IS WHY YOU CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!"

And then my siblings. My sister blamed me for my broken stuff when I didn't even break them. I never misplaced them. She never asked my brother or my mother if she borrowed them, it's always about me.

They all think I'm just someone to push away. I'd rather get pushed off a cliff… They think everything I do is wrong without considering everything else. They have no brains, they're just people who makes the world worse every passing second.

"I'll give a principal a word about your recent behavior, Ms. Myers. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Taking all that misinformation and straight up lecturing me without proof? What professionalism. What integrity.

I want to die. Every thing and every one is driving me down to a path that hurts me, a path that I didn't choose.

The path that never defined me.

"Ms. Myers?"

Good thing I'm not who I was back then. I used to be vulnerable. I used to let people into my life only to shove me and judge me even if I did nothing wrong to them.

I can't deal with this anymore... I want to jump off a balcony... Or off a rooftop...

— — — — — — — — — — — — — PRESENT DAY — — — — — — — — — — — —

"Ms. Myers?" I was pulled out of my thoughts and was looking at the student teacher, Sir Alrose.

"I've been calling you to find the area of the rectangle on the board." He pointed at the board as I looked at it, and there was a rectangle with 2 numbers in it. What's even happening?

Well, since he called me… I had no choice but to stand up and try to solve it.

Only… I don't know what to do… I have a feeling I'm going to be sent back to my seat by Sir. Alrose. Like I said, every teacher's the same to me. I can feel his footsteps approaching my way.

But what happened next was something I did not expect, he took another marker from the teacher's desk and drew the same rectangle with 2 numbers on it.

My eyes widened slightly and my expression was like:

"What is he doing? Is he not gonna call someone else? Why is he drawing another rectangle?"

"I'll explain what to do to find the area on this rectangle. Listen well and do what I do, Ms. Myers." That… Was unheard of. Confusion struck me like a truck. I don't understand what he is doing but I just nodded and tried to pay attention and follow his steps.

I listened attentively to him and followed his way of solving this.

As I was done, I looked at my answer. It's the final correct answer. Sir. Alrose wrote his answer to be the same as mine to prove that it is.

Something about his action just left me very confused. I remember him being at the park yesterday and I was annoyed by him pestering me about my life. I don't know if he called me for the sake of helping me or what...

I don't trust what he is doing, and I don't buy his excuse for calling me here.

"Wasn't so hard, was it? You even solved it before I revealed the final answer! Well done." But looking at my work, I really did end up understanding his simple process on finding the... Area... of sorts...

I just turned to him with the same eyes I showed him yesterday before going back to my seat. I slowly took notes of my work just for the sake of it.

"Alright! For the next shape, it'll be a triangle!" He continued teaching. He knows nothing about me and I won't let myself be close to someone like him. After all, he has a noble name...

Why should I care for someone like him?

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — RENN — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

*3 hours later…*

After all that lecture on Area, Jenna and I went out of the class for lunch.

"Told you I can handle it, Jenna." I fixed my uniform.

"You did, and I'm impressed! You could be a teacher in the future." Jenna complimented me.

"As a 2nd career? Maybe." As we were walking, I slowly looked down. I remembered when I solved the problem, she turned to me with the same eyes she showed back at the park. I was initially scared when I saw them, but now... I wanted to dig deeper. I wanted to know why she was acting that way.

But with those eyes, I can never get through her.

I felt several pats on my shoulder, I looked at Jenna smiling at me.

"Hey, be proud! You managed to teach the whole class with the Area of shapes." I smiled slightly, but still feeling distressed.

"It's not that, Jenna..." I looked down, tugging my arm. I feel upset.

"What is it then? Care to share what's suddenly been bothering you?" She was curious.

"It's... Complicated..." I left it at that. My mind's stuck with a repeating thought:

"(What can I do?)"

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