A Daddy for Christmas 2: River

Yeah, I got it. It sucked when your favorite teacher retired. I’d been faced with that myself during my junior year of high school, after being fortunate enough to have Mrs. Stimple as my art teacher, and favorite teacher out of all the instructors I’d ever taken a class with, from kindergarten until the year before I graduated. I’d even begged her to wait two years, just two, and when she’d smiled and shaken her head at me, I’d gotten desperate.

Could you teach part time maybe, just my class? Please.

I’d begged.

And whined.

And drew something for her every day for the last two weeks before school let out for summer vacation.

The whole break, all I could think about was how much art class was going to suck when I got back to school, which was why I’d marched myself into the guidance counselor’s office on the first day after break and begged to be transferred to machine shop instead. It hadn’t been the same type of creation, but I’d learned a great deal about the maintenance and upkeep of my car.

Several people scrambled to back away from the wrestling students while others crowded around them. In this tight space it was hard to push in between bodies without risking injury to anyone, especially when they weren’t paying any attention to my instructions to move aside.

Dimy, I was aware of another disturbance on the other side of the room, but at this point I’d deal with that after I dealt with this bit of calamity. For fuck’s sake, I’d already been looking forward to winter break and spending it setting up my house so I could finally stop living out of boxes. It was never easy starting at a new school, but starting in the middle of a quarter, after a beloved teacher suffered a massive health crisis in the same year as another beloved teacher was on the mend following a hit and run was just not fair. Talk about starting behind the eight ball, but at least it had finally allowed me to get my foot through the door of a school system as something other than just a long-term substitute.

Thinking about setting up my apartment and my own room next year wasn’t going to help me with the current disaster going on in this one. I was finally able to nudge my way between the boys and get them pried apart, narrowly missing an elbow to the face in the process. Kickboxing had kept my reflexes honed, not that I’d ever had cause to use my training for anything but pummeling the heavy bag and the occasional bout of point sparring.

Keeping my body between the boys proved a bit challenging, even with my height, when one kept trying to get around me to get to the other. Maybe if I’d had more mass to go with the inches, I wouldn’t have to work so hard to keep them separated, but I’d always had too high of a metabolism to pack on much weight. It was a good thing too, with as much of a foodie as I was. Otherwise, instead of spending what little free time I had working on a series of drawings for my webcomic, I’d have needed to be on my bike, peddling off the meals I loved to make for myself. Would be easier not to overindulge if I had someone to share them with, but now that Frida had developed a love of trying out the recipes she encountered on her Tik-Tok feed, I’d wound up bringing home just as much food as I dropped off when I visited her.

Fortunately, the one in the blue shirt, damn it all when would I learn these children’s names, finally stopped struggling to get around me and stood with a hand pressed to his nose and blood running between his fingers, while the other stood glaring, fists clenched and muttered threats and profanity beneath his breath.

“Go to the nurses office,” I snapped at the bleeding student before he could take offense at what the other boy was saying and restart the battle. “And then go directly to the principal’s office.”

“Go ahead and take Josh to Mrs. Onisha,” Mr. St. George declared. “Bells about to ring. I’ll see about getting these guys to help pick up the worse of the mess and get their supplies put away.

When the man had stepped into the room I didn’t know, but it felt good to know that other teachers would have my back if things got out of hand. With Joshua, that’s what the hell the boy’s name was, stalking along beside me, we made our way towards the principal’s office, a sense of dread washing over me like I was the one in trouble.

Gods but I hoped I wasn’t. They still hadn’t voted on whether to extend my contract past the end of the year, the other reason I hadn’t been in that big of a hurry to finish cleaning. I knew there was a likelihood that they’d open the listening up in the hopes of finding a more experienced teacher, and if they found one, then I didn’t know how long I’d be able to afford to stay in Foggy Basin unless I found another source of employment. Somehow, I doubted there was much available for a failed art teacher with little skills aside from my ability to create goofy images and moderately passable stories. I’d already learned the hard way that subscriptions to my webcomics and the handful of matted prints and t-shirts I sold each month wouldn’t support me.