Chapter One
Joey
Didn’t his mother teach him manners?
You’ve got this.
“Grady, have I sufficiently explained why it’s not a good idea to take dick selfies and share it with your friends?”
The fifteen-year-old boy sits slumped in his chair, hands crossed over his skin and bones chest - a combination of embarrassment and teen angst emanating from his pout.
I tap his phone in my hand trying to buy myself a bit more time as I try to figure out how to handle this. And trying not to laugh out loud.
I could take it to the principal, but she’s such an old hag, it would only make it worse. Or, I can explain as best I can how doing stupid things will give him stupid results.
Grady mumbles, “Yes, Miss Hughes.”
“Just promise me next time, when and if you get a chub in class, go take care of it discreetly in the boy’s restroom. And keep your phone in your pants. Got it?”
“Yeah,” he replies. “Okay.”
I heave a sigh and hand back the phone to my student, making mental note to thoroughly sanitize my hands after this incident. Who knows what kind of stickiness covers his screen.
“Okay, you’re excused. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”
He practically jumps from his chair and runs out the door, where I hear chuckles and laughter from his friends waiting outside in the busy hallway. Picking up my laptop and materials, I head out the same door, shaking my head and trying to stave off the laughter that’s about to burst from my chest.
Only twelve more school days until summer break. I’ve got this, I repeat to myself. It’s the only mantra that works this close to the end of the school year. Especially when I have huge dose of teenagers to manage every day.
I guess if I have to keep reassuring myself that I’ll be out of this hell hole in less than two-weeks, it’s likely not my true calling. The teaching gig was my mother’s idea and the only way she’d pay for my college education. So until I figure out another career and plan for my life, I’m stuck here.
But I can last another twelve, nerve-racking days with these stinky, bratty, annoying-as-hell, nose-in-their-phones high schoolers.
No problem. It just calls for copious amounts of wine to do it.
Taking a fortifying breath, I head into the teacher’s lounge. This room is meant to be a heavenly oasis away from the sea of raging teen hormones and bad hygiene. Instead, it’s a jungle of awkward adults who smell like bologna and cheap aftershave.
I glance around the room and see that it’s the usual suspects. As I walk over to my cubby to grab my sack lunch, Howard Peters greets me with his amused coffee-stained smile.
“Well, if it’s not our own Joey Kangaroo,” he chirps, his handlebar mustache doing a weird dance across his mouth.
I cringe at the stupid nickname he’s given me, as well as the idea that this guy gets laid on the regular with that thing on his lips. The dude is weird with a Capital Strange.
“Hey, Howard the Duck. How’s it going?”
At least I can hit him back with an equally embarrassing nickname.
He waggles his bushy eyebrows. “Another day, another phone confiscated.”
Howard is one of the sophomore science and biology teachers and is notorious for seizing the phones of his students who blatantly disregard his rules for no phones in his classroom. He pockets them for the entirety of the day, in hopes it will teach the kids a lesson in respect. I’m not necessarily a proponent of this method, but to each his or her own, I guess.
I think most of my peers think I’m a pushover and too lax with my students – thereby creating my own set of classroom problems like what occurred today with Grady.
But generally speaking, the kids are respectful and I give them just enough latitude that they feel like I respect them. Plus, I’m also closer to my students’ ages than the other faculty, and I have other means of gaining their respect and attention.
Some of the older teachers, like Dolores Conk, frown upon my technique. But whatever. I’m not here to win her approval.
But somedays are harder than others and I often wonder why I’m even here at all.
