A new student, Stella transferred to the school. She was pretty and rather nice in the beginning. I was never one to fawn over new students but she had a calm aura about her which I liked immediately. I said hi to her and she responded politely. I went back to my seat as others bombarded her with questions of all sorts. There was no need to clamour around her in my opinion. We’d know her soon enough.
But even as I had already thought to keep her at arm’s length or at least classmate-length, the class teacher had something else planned as he called me to his desk after school.
“Stella would have issues adapting and as per her entrance exam, she is not so great at English and Math.” He paused and I held my breath. I already saw where this was going and I didn’t like it.
“I don’t want her to feel like we think she’s not great that’s why I didn’t bring different people to enlighten her on the different subjects. You happen to be good at both so I leave you in charge of her.”
I knew it. “Mr. Sam, I honestly wish I could but I’d hoped-”
“Please, there’s no one I can think of that would be patient enough.” He implored.
I knew I shouldn’t have accepted it even then but I liked the fact that my teacher trusted me enough to give me that responsibility so I nodded, howbeit reluctantly and went home.
The next day I came to school ready to be friends with Stella and help with everything she needed. She had her nose buried in a note she was copying so I had to call her name twice for her to notice me.
“Oh. It’s Tess, right? Nice to meet you again.” She smiled. And I smiled back. Maybe this was going to go easier than I thought. I placed my books on my desk which the teacher had moved from the back so that I could be close to her. She frowned immediately. But I didn’t notice till I brought out the Math past questions for us to solve.
“So, you’re here to teach me?” She asked quietly.
I smiled at her like she was being ridiculous. “Of course not, I just want us to solve past questions together. We’re now friends, right? Friends do that.”
“Well, I don’t want to do that. Friends gist about stuff too. And I’m already beginning to notice-”
I chuckled. There’s no way we were gossiping when there was a lot at stake. Mr. Sam had already said she was on probation. She needed to get her grades up at the end of the term or she’d be demoted to the class below. “Let’s do it like this. We solve some questions for about thirty minutes and then we can talk a bit. Is that okay?”
She looked unconvinced and let me know that with a glare but she relented. After a while, I noticed something. Stella refused to learn and when I tried correcting her, she got all mean. I gave up after a while and thought to try the next day but it was worse. I thought switching to something less intimidating like English would help situations, but there was no difference and to make matters worse, she became mean even without my bringing up studying.
I didn’t want to complain to the teacher and thought to keep trying even though I was nearing the end of my patience. Then, one day, the unbelievable happened. Mr. Sam who was the English teacher asked Stella a question and when she couldn’t answer it, he asked why. And I heard unexpected words.
“I don’t know Sir. Tess never teaches me. We just talk instead.”
It was at that moment that I remembered all the cartoons I’d watched where the character would be seeing red to show how angry he was. That’s what happened. I became so numb. And to cap it all, Mr. Sam grew furious and motioned me to the front of the class where he intended to use the cane on me.
I knew that any wrong word against a teacher could lead to expulsion in my school but I couldn’t bear to get the needle for a false accusation. I raved about the dilemma I’d been in and how uncooperative she was from the onset. He turned to her and I guess she must have made puppy dog eyes, I’m not sure but he turned back to me with angry eyes and said in rather mean words that I should do better.
I felt sad and disappointed with how things turned out. And the fact that even after that I was constantly taking the needle for her, even with her lack of cooperation. Not turning in assignments on time. Failing a test. Everything. In the end, I couldn’t take it anymore and firmly said that I wouldn’t be coerced any longer to teach her. It should have been a messy situation but I came out unscathed.
Jhymiđź–¤
Image is mine.