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"I'm sorry." He said. "It's just I get that a lot. Female students asking for extra tutoring when they want me to quote romantic love poems to them really and have no interest in learning at all. Take a seat, Candy; it would appear we got off on the wrong foot, let's start again. Now, what's this about writing your own novel? What are you interested in writing about?"
Though I was annoyed that he thought I wanted him to read love poems to me, I considered the girls who had stood there before me and the fact I’d daydreamed about him and decided to move on. I pulled up a chair at the side of his desk, and he sat back down himself.
"I have a notebook at home, and I write in it often. Lots of character observations and things I find witty or interesting. I'd like to write a novel about someone who's trapped in life and wants to spread their wings. I don't have any more details at the moment. It's just been a dream. I never told anyone before. I always say I want to be an English teacher."
"So, you don't?" He asked.
I shrugged. "I think I'd be a good teacher, but my mom is an interior designer and is set on me working for her."
His face got the look everyone’s got when they realized who my mom was.
"You're Irena Appleton's daughter?"
I sighed. "Yes."
"Ah," he studied my face. "And you don't share the same ambition I take it?"
"I appreciate what my mom does, and her talent is out of this world. I'm good at art. There's no reason why I shouldn't go into the business..."
"Except your heart is in English?"
"You got it, and if writing a novel is too ambitious—and I'm not stupid I know my chances of getting a traditional deal are like identifying an individual raindrop in a puddle—then being a teacher of English would be my next dream, so I can try to get other people to see how beautiful the language is."
"Candy, you know that as a teacher, mainly you just try to get through class without students breaking out in a fight. If they open the textbook in a lesson, you think you've done well."
He looked downbeat.
"Surely it's not that bad?"
He shook his head. "It was at my last school. I'm hoping here it's going to be a little different and seeing as I already have at least one student who loves English, I guess I'm already ahead. I'll tutor you myself. That way, if no one else in the entire school likes English, at least I'll have one student I can bore with literature. Do Mondays and Thursdays straight after school fit in with your timetable?
I thought of my week. All I'd need to do was quit the senior prom committee which would be a bonus as it was another pain in my ass. As Larissa kept reminding me, I needed to get a date for it, and I didn't want one. My mom was also all prom, prom, prom as if I would be attending a royal ball not an end of school year party. ‘Oh, it's so important. I loved mine with your father’, was all I ever heard these days, well, that and my eighteenth.
"Those days would be fine. Thank you so much, Mr. Newell, and I'm sorry again, for the daydreaming. I'm a really good student usually, I promise."
He smiled, revealing a perfect set of white teeth. His lips had just the correct amount of plumpness and framed his teeth beautifully when he smiled.
I realized I was in danger of daydreaming again, so I jumped up.
"Thanks again, Mr. Newell. I'll see you after school Thursday."
And with that, I dashed from the classroom.
Larissa was hanging around outside. She usually rushed straight off to see Jeff, so she was trying to hit me up for gossip.
"So, what was that all about, Candy? Are you trying to get detention so that you can have him all to yourself?"
I gave her a nudge. "I was asking him about extra tutoring. I already told you I needed it before your new man crush arrived in class."
"You mean you don't find him attractive? Are you completely blind?"
"He's okay, I guess." I giggled.
She looked me up and down. "You can quit that innocent look. I've known you since kindergarten. You are so hot for teacher."
"Stop it. Be quiet." I hissed, looking back at the door. "He'll hear you."
"I'll be quiet if you admit the truth." She wiggled her eyebrows at me.
