Chapter 4 #2
Piper seemed to wait for her to say more, and when she didn’t, they took a deep breath.
“Well, I have tried to take over some of Professor Herringbone’s classes.
I’m not bad at spells and spellcasting, but it isn’t exactly my forte, and to be honest, I could not make head or tail of her lesson plans.
I don’t think she really made lesson plans? Or at least I couldn’t find any.”
“No, me neither.”
They seemed relieved. “Oh good. I thought maybe I was just too dumb to figure it out. I mean not good-good, since it would be much easier if she did have a perfectly planned-out lesson for each day of the year, but to be honest, I think she was doing it all off the cuff, if you can imagine that.”
“Well, having been in her classes, I guess maybe I can imagine that. At least, it didn’t seem like she ever taught the same exact way twice in a row, though that seems rather daunting to me right now.”
“Improv all the time.” Piper crossed their legs, and tapped their knee with one thumb. “That terrifies me. Apparently, there hasn’t really been an athletics program here until this year, and it’s been a bit bumpy.”
“I wasn’t sure if I should ask. We didn’t have athletics when I went to school. What exactly are you teaching? Like … sports?”
“Well, Amelia and I spoke a lot about it over the summer before term began, and she really just wants to encourage the students to find ways of discovering their own joy in movement, whatever that joy is. And that’s led to a very relaxed, shall we say hard to grade, policy of physical education.
” Piper’s awkwardness was somehow the most endearing thing Bryn had seen since returning to the school.
“So, it’s miserable?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t say that!” They hesitated. “It’s just hard to know if I’m making a difference or doing it right, because there’s nothing to do right. It’s not like, ‘Today we’ll learn polo, here are the rules, here are the teams, here’s the equipment, and here’s how you use it.’”
“Polo? Isn’t that played in a pool?”
“No, there’s field polo too—with horses.”
“Horses?”
Piper grinned. “I guess it’s not really that big in California, but it doesn’t matter. I’m just whining. This is supposed to be about me briefing you on your classes. So, do you have any questions?”
Did she have questions? She had nothing but questions.
How were the students? Was there anyone to look out for?
Was there anyone to take care of? Were there sibling groups?
Were there bullies? Did she need to worry about substance abuse, or depression, or family troubles?
Were any of them actually good at spellcasting?
“Um. I guess I don’t really have any questions at the moment. Can I take a rain check on that?”
“Definitely,” Piper said. “I did my best, but I don’t think they’ve learned anything since the professor passed.
Honestly, it was a shock. Amelia brought in grief counselors, but I think people are still pretty upset.
” They paused. “I’m still upset, and I only knew the professor for a few months.
Some of these kids have been her students for three and a half years.
But there’s a lot of pressure right now, and of course the second-years are taking their MSEs soon, so … Do let me help if I can be of help.”
She shuddered. “How did I repress the MSEs?” The months of anxiety leading up to the annual Magical Scholarly Examinations, the spinning nausea of exam week, the stifled silence of the written tests and looming dread of the practicals.
“I know,” Piper said. “At least we don’t have to do them ourselves again.”
“Thank the gods. Though I’m not really sure how to improve the experience. There is some science about physical activity and brain activity and correlations with test scores,” she said thoughtfully.
Piper’s eyes lit up. “Oh, there’s loads of science.
It’s really fascinating. Even small amounts of consistent daily activity will increase exam scores, as well as grades, as well as quality of life—self-reported obviously, because that’s not really a metric we can track scientifically. But there are so many implications.”
This was why Amelia had hired them, Bryn realized: the excitement, the passion, the energy.
All things she did not herself have for teaching.
She set that aside. “Okay, maybe we can help each other. Maybe we can surprise the students, swap classes or something. I’m not sure, but I do think that one of the greatest gifts of Professor Herringbone’s lectures was that you were always a little bit surprised in the middle of it. You were certainly never bored.”
“Yes,” they said, “that’s good. I struggle with that, because I feel like I’m always saying the same thing, and they don’t really need to hear it again. But it’s all so interesting if I could just get them engaged.”
“I definitely get that,” Bryn said, while thinking, This is so not a job I was cut out for. She hadn’t even been good at making and keeping friends when she was younger. How the heck was she expecting to motivate a bunch of teenagers to do or think anything?
They chatted for a while longer and Piper did accept a cup of tea.
She liked them. They were excited and not that much older than her, and they didn’t scare the hell out of her, which was nice because she didn’t anticipate seeing Mr Wicks again going well.
She should be able to dodge Schneider and any other old crone who might be around, but surely some metaphorical ghosts lingered still, even if the real ones were mostly inert.
By the time Piper left, she felt … not better about teaching, but a little bit better about being at the school. Not everything was the same, and some of these changes were for the better.
That night, she dreamed that she was an excellent teacher. The dream was so vivid that for a moment, when she woke up, she felt the certainty of it lingering in her cells, like that future was at the edges of her fingertips, and all she needed to do was reach out and touch it.
In the dream, which was like many dreams—a sort of strange metaphorical playground of images and colors and emotions—she had stood on a rock in the middle of a roiling orange sea, and her students had surrounded her.
And somehow, with all of them working together, they had cast a spell that transported them back to the school.
It had been a triumph. They’d celebrated. These strange, faceless shapes of people she knew were her students, along with another figure she knew to be Amelia. The kids hugged her and thanked her for her help, and dream-Amelia kissed her in victory, which sent her stomach tumbling.
When she realized, after a few seconds of basking in this newfound glory, that it was only a dream, the disappointment ran very, very deep.
Of course, that dream figure couldn’t possibly be Bryn—dowdy, silly little Bryn, with her head in books, her mind doing anything to escape wherever she happened to be standing. She did not inspire people to new heights, like Professor Herringbone did.
She did not get kissed by Amelia Hexford.
After nearly an hour spent lying in the strange bed, she gave up and surrendered to the day.
It was just past four o’clock in the morning, her first day of teaching.
She put the kettle on and stared at her reflection in the window above the sink, wondering what she was doing with her life, and just how difficult today was going to be.