Chapter 10
The following afternoon, Gaby made the thirty-minute walk from her aunt’s house on Foxglove Street to Hamblehurst secondary school, her heart racing with nerves every step of the way.
The sooner she got this guest talk over and done with, the sooner she could stop feeling like she might throw up.
Managing the corporate event at the Riverford Hotel had kept her busy last night just as she’d hoped, but she’d tossed and turned in bed afterwards, fretting about the talk she’d agreed to deliver.
Today, she’d spent the morning doing chores around the house for her aunt and dealing with cleaning tasks that were out of the question for Jill while her recovery continued.
Scrubbing the bathroom and the downstairs shower room and mopping the kitchen floor before hoovering every carpet in the house and dusting every surface had kept her happily occupied.
Over her aunt’s protests that she’d done enough already, she’d then dealt with a batch of laundry, washed the front windows inside and out, and refilled the bird feeders when she realised the greedy creatures had once again emptied the containers.
Jill enjoyed watching the birds from the window while her knee healed and Gaby was glad to keep the feathery visitors supplied with tasty seeds for her aunt’s entertainment.
Now as Gaby approached the school gates, the mixture of a disturbed night’s sleep and a busy morning filled with household chores left her yawning. She only hoped she didn’t look as frazzled as she felt.
The careers fair was scheduled to start at three-thirty and last for two hours.
There were other guest speakers involved so at least it wasn’t all on her to fill the time.
Peter had explained that the first ninety minutes would be for the guest speakers to give their talks followed by questions from the students, while the last half hour would be devoted to informal discussion over soft drinks.
When she reached the visitor’s entrance at the school gates, Gaby sent Peter a text message to let him know she’d arrived so he could meet her and accompany her inside. He appeared soon after, smiling as he strode towards her.
Gaby’s heart raced a little at the sight of him. He wore smart grey trousers and a dark blue shirt with a darker blue tie flecked with silvery polkadots. A pair of dark-rimmed glasses were perched on his head and he carried a thick folder beneath his arm.
The high school teacher look suited him, and Gaby found herself wondering if the teenage girls he taught had crushes on him.
Probably, she decided. He was young and gorgeous and well-groomed and it was inevitable that hormonal teenage girls would find him a little dreamy. Peter had no doubt learned how to channel those inevitable student crushes away from himself and into developing their skills and love for maths.
“Perfect timing,” Peter said when he let her through the gate. “The other speakers are already inside and the students are taking their seats in the hall.”
“Great,” she said. “You should know I’m completely terrified.”
Peter laughed and shook his head. “There’s nothing to be terrified about, I promise. The kids will love you. And they really are a nice bunch.”
She followed him through a warren of corridors.
The school bell rang, marking the end of the day, and students began pouring out of classrooms and rushing past them.
When she was almost swept away by a flood of kids who were screeching and shouting as they hurried towards the exits, Peter corralled the students and told them to calm down.
Gaby was quietly amused by the stern scolding he dispensed and when Peter insisted the kids apologise to the school visitor for their poor behaviour, she accepted their mumbled sorries with a benign smile.
After dismissing the students, Peter took Gaby’s arm and tucked her in at his side as they continued their journey through the sea of students rushing towards them.
Sticking close to him made her heart race all over again. Between the effect he was having on her and her terror about the talk she was about to give, it was a miracle she could put one foot in front of the other and keep walking.
After striding along corridors for what felt like forever, they arrived outside a large assembly hall on the other side of the school. When Peter pushed open the doors and they walked inside, the roar of teenage chatter stopped her dead in her tracks.
There had to be close to two hundred kids there, all lounging around on seats or standing in groups or darting around the space to talk to one another. The combination of teenage noise and youthful energy was nothing short of terrifying.
Peter, who’d been chattering to her about the schedule for the guest speakers as they’d walked through the school, stopped when he realised she was no longer at his side. Turning back, he gave her an encouraging smile.
“Gaby, you’re going to be great at this, trust me,” he said.
“Now that I see them in the flesh, I realise this was a terrible, terrible mistake,” she whispered. “There are too many of them. And they’re just too scary.”
Peter laughed. “They’re kids, Gaby, not rabid dogs. Come on and I’ll introduce you to the other guest speakers.”
She had no choice but to follow him into the assembly hall. Some of the kids gave her an assessing look as they passed and, just as she’d guessed, some of the girls let their gazes linger on Peter before they fell into giggling huddles.
Oh yes, there are some big crushes on this guy, she thought. Is that why this event is absolutely packed?
But there was no time to think about that.
Peter led her to the raised platform at the front of the assembly hall and introduced her to the three other guest speakers who were taking part in the careers fair.
They were all around her age or younger, in line with what Peter had told her about wanting to choose speakers young enough for the students to relate to.
The other female speaker worked in a forensic analysis laboratory and was there to talk about how her high school biology classes had led to her current career.
There were two male speakers. The first guy ran his own plumbing company and planned to explain how the business studies classes he’d taken in school had helped him become his own boss.
The second guy worked as a museum archivist and wanted to talk about how the history he’d studied in high school was the spark that set him in that direction.
Peter had put together a nice mix of careers and stories through the guest speakers he’d brought together and by the time Gaby had introduced herself to them she’d stopped shaking with nerves and pulled herself together.
Gaby took her seat on the stage alongside the other guest speakers and Peter clapped his hands and shouted to get the kids’ attention.
It took a minute for them all to settle down.
Peter welcomed everyone to the careers fair and introduced the speakers.
He was confident and relaxed in front of the large group of kids and Gaby was impressed by his ease and the way the students listened attentively—well, for the most part—while he spoke.
Gaby was third in line to speak which meant that while the first two speakers took to the stage, she sat in her chair trying to not freak out.
She listened to what the other speakers had to say and how they kept the students’ attention and thought they did a great job.
The students asked great questions too, which kept things flowing nicely.
And then Peter was introducing her and it was her turn.
Her knees shook as she rose from the chair and her hands were shaking too. The lectern helped hide the evidence of her trembling and gave her something to lean on to stop her from collapsing in a heap.
Gaby shuffled her notes and stared out at the sea of teenage faces and suddenly couldn’t find her voice. The words written on her notes might as well have been written in code for all the sense they now made.
She wanted so much to do a great job with this talk, but the hundreds of kids staring at her and waiting for her to speak kept her voice locked up. A long beat of silence passed and Gaby realised she was in serious danger of making a total mess of this.
Amid her mounting panic, her gaze found Peter who was seated to her left. He gave her a smile of encouragement that was enough to punch through her daze and when she looked back at her notes the words made sense again.
Gaby took a deep breath and started talking.
Somehow, she made it through her speech and managed to sound reasonably coherent.
When the students laughed at the light-hearted comments she’d included about her career and her experiences of working around the world, relief flooded through her along with pride that her speech had done its job.
She handled the questions at the end, all of which were thoughtful and interesting and showed the kids had been listening and wanted to know more.
After receiving a round of applause, she returned to her seat.
As she sat down, Peter smiled at her again and gave her a thumbs up before he introduced the final guest speaker.
The rest of the event went by in a blur.
When the last speaker and done their bit, Peter took to the stage to round things off with a few remarks designed to get the kids thinking about what they’d heard and how they might think differently about the subjects they were studying at school as they planned ahead to their future careers.
He asked the students to show their appreciation for the guest speakers with a round of applause and then invited everyone to enjoy the soft drinks and crisps laid on at the back of the assembly hall and to take the opportunity to chat more with the guest speakers.