Mia
SOUTH brONX CLASSICAL
Monday
“Are you excited?” Lilly asked as she looked around the smallest—and oldest—classroom in our school.
The room was the size of a shoebox, with exposed red-brown brick walls and an electricity-sparking brown carpet.
On one side of the room, there was a single whiteboard, an overhead projector, and a blocky wooden desk.
The rest of the room was taken up by student desks, all bundled together in the usual U shape.
They pointed toward the whiteboard in that typical way that meant I would be their central focus for the next fifty minutes.
It was hideous. It was perfect.
“I’m nervous.” And it was true. I’d taken it for granted that Lilly needed me to do this, but now that I was here, I was afraid I’d screw it up.
Lilly tilted her head at me, which made her mousy-brown bangs tangle with her absurdly long lashes. Her green eyes flickered over my face.
“You don’t get nervous.”
“I know.” I put a hand to my chest and felt my heart pounding away in there. “Is this what you have to put up with?”
She barked out a laugh. “Constantly. I still feel like I might throw up every time Shawn looks at me.”
Ah yes, Shawn.
Lilly’s tall, smoldering, education-mastermind boyfriend. I was glad he wasn’t around. He’d tease me about this for weeks.
Lilly handed me the takeout coffee she’d been carrying, gripped my shoulders, and turned me to face her.
“You’re going to get those spots.”
“But what if I don’t?”
“Then you don’t.”
“Lilly,” I groaned. “What if Rutton takes your promotion away? What if I ruin this for you? I know what this job means to you.”
After everything Lilly had been through, she more than deserved this job.
When her mom died, Lilly threw herself into following in her footsteps. Her goal was to teach at her mom’s school and to make the same impact she had.
Here, Lilly felt connected to her mom, and now she could make a difference too.
So of course I couldn’t stomach the thought of this opportunity being ripped from her because of me.
But Lilly wouldn’t see it that way.
And just like I knew she would, she raised a brow. It was just visible under her bangs, and I almost smiled at the look on her face.
“Then we’ll put on our big boy pants and figure it out. Right?”
I breathed in and held it. Put on our big boy pants. She was right. I’d taught hundreds–thousands–of classes over my career. I could do this for her, and I could do it well.
Air rushed out of me as I said the same thing to her that I’d been telling myself for days. “I’m going to teach the shit out of this class.”
Those adorable freckles of hers wrinkled as she smiled and said, “Yeah, you are.”
She squeezed my shoulders one more time, then took back her coffee, leaving me to set up.
Not too long later, a familiar scratchy voice floated into the room.
“Miss Walker? Holy shit, are you our teacher?”
Diago walked in with Miles shuffling along behind him. They were the only boys scheduled to be in my class.
When I read Miles’s name on my attendance sheet, I wasn’t surprised.
He was one of my favorite students, and yet, he was surprisingly easy to overlook for someone so broad.
Tall and slightly hunched, with thick black-framed glasses covering his brown eyes, his stubble was half-formed, barely covering his jawline, and that floppy hair of his looked like it hadn’t been washed in a week.
But he was a quiet achiever, and every one of his marks made him the ideal candidate for an opportunity like this one.
Diago was a surprise, though. He was loud and funny. The last thing he took seriously was a potato-marijuana experiment he submitted for a tenth-grade science class. I had to wonder if his rich-investor father had something to do with him being here.
“Hi, Miss,” Miles greeted before taking a seat.
I looked squarely at Diago and waited. His smile slipped. “I can’t swear?”
“Have you ever been allowed to swear in class?”
He rolled his eyes and joined Miles as two more students filed in: Amber and Natasha. Both were nice enough, but I had, at times, caught them acting like they were running a gossip ring in our hallways.
“Oh em gee, Miss Walker?” Amber gushed. “You’re our teacher?”
I almost rolled my eyes. “Why is everyone so excited about me being here? Yes, I’m your teacher.”
Natasha pouted. “I thought we were going to get Mr Jackson.”
I sighed. What teenage girl in this school didn’t drool over the infamous Shawn Jackson? It was a bloody epidemic.
“Nope, you’ve got me. Oh for cripes’ sake, Natasha, don’t look at me like I’ve kicked your puppy.”
The girls chose seats directly opposite the two boys, and they stared at each other with a mixture of repulsion and fascination. Diago tried his winning smile on Natasha, and she scoffed like it was the most disgusting thing she’d ever seen.
I hoped Diago’s ego could handle it.
“Okay.” I clapped my hands and gestured to the four books resting on my giant blockish desk. “Here’s the deal. You’re here because you’ve applied for advanced placement–”
I was cut off by a faint knock on the door. Every pair of eyes swung toward the girl standing at its entrance. Her blue eyes were bright but wary, her caramel-blonde hair was pulled into a tight ponytail, and she shuffled in on coltishly long legs as she stared around the small, outdated classroom.
“You must be Kira. Come in.”
I gestured for her to find a seat as Diago muttered under his breath, and Miles stared at her with the entire force of his black-rimmed glasses. Amber and Natasha swapped suspicious looks as Kira walked by.
With the other seats taken, Kira had no choice but to sit in the curve of our U-shaped setup. It meant that she had to stare directly at me. I hoped that wasn’t unnerving for her.
I made a face as I picked up my stack of books and handed them out. “I only have enough for four of you. Maybe two of you could share until I find another copy? This book is sold out almost everywhere.”
Kira’s hand went up, and it trembled in the air just as a knock sounded on my door.
“Actually, Miss Walker, we have to talk to you about that.” I turned to the sound of Principal Rutton’s voice, and almost jolted back into Amber’s desk.
Rutton was shaped like an apple. She was short but wide; a powerhouse of a principal. She knew how to take up space. But with Theo Hudson standing behind her, she looked teeny.
I almost blurted, “What are you doing here?” but caught myself in time.
Theo clearly didn’t have the same idea. His voice was low and outraged as he said, “You’re the one teaching this class?”
From where I was standing, it looked like the vein on his tattooed neck might burst.
I gestured for them to wait outside as I said, “Class, I’ll be right back. Have a flip through the book while you wait.”