Chapter 6
EMILIA
The first day of school is nothing like the first kiss with a sexy stranger.
First kisses with sexy strangers are dazzling because they’re so unexpected.
They might lead to another kiss, a night of hot and dirty sex, an awkward morning after.
They might even lead to a few months of bliss, a lifetime of happily ever after, or an even more unexpected tango with a public toilet—followed by mild disappointment.
And then a month of hot and dirty fantasies and some very rewarding tangos with a vibrator.
But you always know the First Day of School is coming.
It’s there on your calendar and your day planner and your upcoming To-Do list and your daily/weekly worksheet, highlighted and bookmarked with a neon pink sticky note.
You plan and prepare and mentally practice your introduction and your explanation of class expectations and agreements.
You memorize the names of your students.
You get your best friend to help you decorate and organize your new classroom with inspiration, flow, safety, and practicality in mind.
Despite your best friend’s exasperation with the overuse of plastic products and rainbow colors, it turns out better than you’d imagined.
And way cuter than any of the other classrooms as far as I could tell from peeking inside—not that it’s a competition.
But no matter how much you’ve prepared, no matter how many years you’ve been teaching—if you don’t expect the unexpected, you’re basically screwed.
I always expect at least one little troublemaker amongst my new group of adorable scholars.
It’s very important that I don’t try to predict who it will be or label him or her or them right away.
Because we all have off-days. It’s not my job to judge these sweet, tiny brilliant people.
It’s my job to help them learn and grow and be.
And no matter how well it goes on that first day, you’ve got another ten months with these little boogers, so you just gotta roll with it.
I have fifteen students in my second-grade class here at Silver Lake Elementary School. There are three tables in the center of the room, with five children seated at each table. The day began at 8:15 this morning, and it will end at 12:39 pm today, for some bizarre reason.
I adore each and every one these fifteen bright young humans already.
But I’ve got my eye on Ryder Tully-Vega.
That wavy dark hair, those big hazel eyes, that mouth with the perpetual grin and all the words, words, words that keep coming out of it.
He is about four feet and fifty pounds of capital T trouble.
He’s not a bad kid by any means. But he wants my attention.
A lot of it. And if I’m being honest, I would love to give it to him.
But I need to divide my attention equally with the entire class.
After getting them settled in, giving them fun and easy activities to keep them busy, welcoming them, and introducing myself, we’ve done some ice-breaking activities and I’ve established my class rules and expectations.
I’ve given them a tour of the classroom, gotten them excited about the upcoming topics we’ll be learning about this week, and issued books.
Now there’s about ten minutes left until the final bell of this blessedly short day, so I lean against the edge of my desk.
I’m going to ask the question that launches a thousand questions, but I think it’s better to get it out of the way upfront.
“Now…do any of you have questions for me? Hands up if you do.”
Ryder’s hand immediately shoots up, but so does Poppy’s.
“Yes, Poppy?”
Ryder sighs in frustration and keeps his hand up in the air.
Poppy asks, “Are you a hard teacher or an easy one?”
“Well, I’d like to think that I’m a fair teacher.”
“But do you give a lot of homework?”
“Homework assignments for the second grade are designed to take you about twenty minutes to finish.”
“But what if it takes me longer than that?”
“Well, you can spend as much time as you need to on your homework, as long as you complete it as best as you can and turn it in when you’re supposed to.
If the homework takes anyone longer than twenty minutes, though, I would really like it if you would tell me.
Then we can talk about what I can do to help you.
And where do we turn in our written assignments? ”
More hands go up in the air, but several kids yell out, “In the Turn In box!”
“That’s right. The Turn In box.”
Ryder rolls his eyes and waves both of his arms around. “Miss Stiiiiiiles.”
“One second please, Ryder. Did I answer all of your questions, Poppy?”
She wrinkles her nose while nodding. “You sound like a hard teacher to me.”
“Well, I think I’m pretty fun, actually. You’ll see. Yes, Ryder?”
He lets his hand drop to his desktop with a dramatic thud. “Why are you Miss Stiles and not Missus Stiles?”
“Because I’m not married.”
“Are you dee-vorced?”
“No, I’ve never been married. But that’s a personal question, and I meant for you to ask me questions about the class, or what we’ll be studying, or about me as a teacher.”
“My parents are dee-vorced,” he tells me, completely ignoring what I just said.
“Well, I’m very sorry to hear that, Ryder. Anyone else have a question?”
A couple of other kids mumble about having divorced parents. Not my favorite topic of conversation with my students, but if they need to talk to me about it in private—I’m here for them.
“I still have a question,” Ryder says, waving his arm around. “If my dad is Mister Vega, then how can people tell if he’s dee-vorced?”
“That is a very good question, Ryder.” They can probably tell he’s divorced because he sends rude three-word responses to very considerate emails and clearly no one would want to be married to that.
“There’s actually no way to tell that just based on the word ‘mister.’ But we’re getting a little off-topic. ”
A boy named Tyler raises his hand. “Why aren’t you married?”
“Well, like I said, that’s a personal question, and I’m only answering questions about this class or—”
“Is it because you like girls?” Tyler continues. “Because my dad says it’s cool for girls to like girls. Especially if they let you watch them kiss each other.”
Noted. Tyler’s dad might be a creep. And now the entire class is tittering.
Cheyenne with the curly blonde hair says, “Is it because you’re a cereal Monopolizer like Taylor Swift? Or are you a workerhonic, like Tony Stark?”
I can actually feel the surge of energy in the room now that the kids are thinking about Taylor Swift and Tony Stark.
“Neither, but the proper words are ‘serial monogamist’ and ‘workaholic.’ I like your creativity though, Cheyenne.”
I pick up the stack of papers from my desk and start placing a page in front of each student.
“What I’m handing out to you now is a letter to your parents!
” I explain to them in a sing-song voice.
“I want you to remember to give it to them as soon as you can, okay? Because this is a homework assignment for your parents! And your homework assignment is to make sure that your parents do this homework assignment.”
Some of the kids giggle at that idea.
“Do you have a boyfriend, though?” Ryder asks, gazing up at me as I place the letter on the table in front of him.
“Ryder, that’s a personal question. Do we all understand what personal means?
” I go over to the whiteboard and write the word personal out in blue erasable ink.
When all else fails—write something on the whiteboard.
“P-e-r-s-o-n-a-l. Personal. If you ask someone a personal question, that means it’s something private about themselves.
And it’s the kind of thing that people don’t usually talk about with someone unless they already know them really well.
It’s fine to talk about personal things, but if someone says they don’t want to talk about personal things right now, then we should listen to them.
” I continue to pass out the papers to the rest of the students.
“But how are you supposed to get to know someone really well unless you ask them about themselves?”
“Well, that is a very good point, Ryder. You’re right about that.” Your highly developed brain is going to be so much trouble for me this year. “But we’re in school right now and I’m your teacher, so we aren’t going to get to know each other quite like that, okay?”
Guidelines and boundaries.
We have to establish them at the beginning of the school year, or everything will go to shit in a rainbow-colored handbasket faster than you can say, “Good morning, class.”
Scarlett’s hand shoots up. “Oh oh oh! If you want to get a boyfriend—my mommy always makes her lips red when she wants my daddy to pay attention to her. You should do that.”
“Yes! Also?! Why don’t you dress more like the lady with the long hair on that show that my mom watches?” Chloe asks. “The one about the four friends? And they’re always eating at restaurants and shopping and talking and kissing boys and stuff?”
Noted. Chloe’s mom lets her watch Sex and the City, and I can’t decide if that’s awesome or not.
“Well, if you mean Charlotte, then I actually do kind of dress like her.”
“Not the prissy one,” Chloe says, shaking her head. “The cool one with all the shoes.”
“I think I just heard the end of day bell,” I mutter.
“No you didn’t,” Ryder says, grinning. “Two more minutes.”
I try really hard not to be judge-y in class or to have irrational thoughts or to blame my adorable students for anything, but I blame him for all of this.
“My babysitter met her boyfriend doing Pokémon Go,” says the girl whose name I still can’t pronounce properly. “You should do that.”
“I don’t do Pokémon Go.”
She looks at me like I just told her I don’t breathe or eat or pee. “Why not?”
“Okay, class.” I clap my hands together. “Why don’t you tell me more about yourselves?”