Aurelia || SERIES ROMANA I

Chapter 1 ~ The road trip

Dresden, 13th September 2019

Pale and cold, the neon lights shone down on the heads of class 8a and bathed the classroom in their unnatural light. According to the weather forecast, the dense cloud cover would not break up until the afternoon and the sun would shine for a few hours. The class was already looking forward to this, because today was Friday and the students were longing for their weekend. The summer holidays were already a month ago and the autumn holidays were still another month away.
In the meantime, the school had resumed normal operations. But while there was lively discussion in most classrooms, there was almost absolute silence in the Latin room. For apart from the rustling of a few leaves, the familiar scratching of fountain pen tips and a few heavy breaths, there was no sound to be heard. Some smiled to themselves, others bent low over their assignment sheets. One student in the front row stared uncomprehendingly at his paper, frantically trying to remember what he had learnt the night before. Again and again, some students glanced nervously at the clock, trying to weigh up the remaining time.
But none of the students were nearly as nervous as the intern who sat at the teacher's desk supervising the class while they wrote the paper the intern had worked on over the weekend and revised according to the ideas of her mentor, the actual Latin teacher. In the far back corner, the mentor sat and watched with interest as the theory she had trained for years unfolded in practice.
Only with difficulty could the trainee prevent her fingertips from drumming nervously on the tabletop in front of her. Wild as a frightened horse, her heart galloped in her chest, the blood rushed in her ears and Aurelia was sure that the students in the front row could hear nothing but her racing heartbeat. Under no circumstances did she want her anxiety to spread to the class, so she forced herself to smile confidently, remembering a funny video she had come across on YouTube sometime in the middle of preparing for a lesson.
Checking, Aurelia's gaze flitted to the clock and was surprised to find that the last five minutes had arrived. Not wanting to disturb the class, she relayed her realisation in a quiet voice. Immediately, a student jumped up and rushed to the front to hand in her work. Only with difficulty could Aurelia prevent herself from rolling her eyes at Tabea's impatience. The girl had already asked ten minutes ago if she could hand in her solutions yet and with a sideways glance at her mentor, Aurelia had put her off. No sooner had Tabea put her collection of sheets down in front of Aurelia than three more students stood up in perfect harmony and came forward to hand in their work as well. Smiling, Aurelia accepted the papers and in one fell swoop she knew how to thank the class for their good cooperation and friendly behaviour.
Casually, Aurelia wiggled the computer's mouse and opened the internet browser. Without taking her eyes off the class, she first called up a very specific website and then typed her query into the search bar as quietly as possible. It was only four words: Ave Me Giulio Cesare. The soft clack of the keys caused heads to jerk up in the front row and curious eyes to scrutinise the intern. Smiling, Aurelia withdrew her hand and registered out of the corner of her eye that her search had been successful. Now she just had to wait patiently until the time was up for all the students.

Seven minutes later, Aurelia stowed the collected short checks in her folder and put it in her work bag. While the class quietly exchanged their solutions, she unconsciously brushed a tangled strand of blonde hair out of her dark blue eyes and tucked it behind her ear. But the very next moment she closed her bag, picked up the remote control and activated the beamer.
Suddenly the conversations fell silent and she alone had everyone's attention. Confused, her mentor frowned and took a close look at her lesson plan. But she remained silent, raised her eyes and studied the new phase of the lesson with growing interest.
Aurelia briefly checked that the sound was on, then she gave the children her friendliest smile and explained: "Now we will watch a short film clip in which a language is spoken that has developed from Latin over time. I would like you to let the scene sink in and then briefly explain to me which film the scene is from and which language is spoken.
Full of curiosity, the class watched the video and in one fell swoop the performance review was forgotten. Aurelia grinned silently as she watched the students' faces. In the first round of evaluation, the title of the film came up immediately. Then a small discussion broke out as to whether Spanish or Italian had been spoken in the scene. But at the latest when Juan rolled his eyes and explained in a few words why this language could never in a million years be Spanish, the class agreed on Italian. With a delighted nod, Aurelia confirmed the class's assumption and played the sequence one more time.
This time, most of the students took notes on a scratch sheet and wrote down the words they thought they recognised. Aurelia was no less surprised than her class at how many Italian words they could intuitively match to the corresponding Latin vocabulary. In her seat in the last row, her mentor leaned over her table with a small smile and added a small addition to her assessment.