The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 34: In Which I Become a Schoolmistress

My career as a schoolmistress lasted exactly three days.

In my defense, I tried.

I even came up with detailed lesson plans, cobbled together from what I remembered of the princes' and princesses' education and my own long-ago school days. (And by "long ago," I mean a couple millennia ago. You can't blame me if my memory was a little fuzzy.)

Anyway, every morning, while I recovered from a night of re-energizing partying followed by the Dawn and Chicken Dances, I'd test the Jeks on material I'd taught the previous day. I'd rattle off vocab and basic sentences for them to scrawl in the dirt, and call out simple arithmetic problems. They were supposed to write down the answers so they could also practice their numbers. After the test, I'd give a lecture on etiquette and deportment, which was also something I could do with a muzzy brain.

At midday, Mistress Jek always insisted on a recess so they could eat lunch and clean up. I'd use that break to soak in Caltrop Pond. No more accidental dehydration deaths for me!

After we reconvened in the early afternoon, I'd teach the three R's all the way until sundown, when I'd release them to go cook supper and feed the farm animals or whatever. Since it was winter, it wasn't nearly as long of a class as it could have been.

In short, I was running a cram school, like the ones that the Imperial Mages reminisced over with such a mixture of nostalgia and loathing. And it was working too. After three days, I noticed substantial improvement in the manners of Master and Mistress Jek, who were determined to do everything they could to please Heaven and protect their daughter; the youngest boy, Nailus, who found aping the mannerisms of his betters hilarious; and Taila, who was young enough to be malleable.

And by "substantial improvement," I meant that their behavior hurt my eyes and ears less. Master Jek and Nailus no longer ate standing up with one mud-encrusted boot propped on the bench. Taila knelt on the ground instead of squatting with her thighs and all her undergarments showing. And Mistress Jek now bellowed AT THIS VOLUME instead of AT THIS ONE.

However, the oldest boy, Ailus, was a simpleton who only cared about farming. No matter how many times I corrected his stride, he showed no motivation to learn how to walk right. And the middle boy, Cailus – well, it wasn't so much that he wasn't interested in any of the subjects as that he couldn't sit still long enough to listen to the whole lecture. It was aggravating! He had the mental capacity to learn. I could tell he did. He just refused to exploit it!

I was starting to understand why the Imperial tutors got so crotchety when I pulled Cassia Quarta out of class. Because it's impossible to teach someone the passive periphrastic when he keeps running off to chase sparrows. (Apparently, the Jeks supplemented their mostly vegetarian diet with small birds.)

But while Etiquette and Deportment 101 were heading in the right direction, or at least weaving drunkenly that way, the three R's were not. The Jeks learned so slowly! It took them hours to memorize how to write a character – and by test time the next morning, they'd have forgotten it again.

No, no, no! I'd exclaim, exasperated, for the thousandth time. You can't let this line cross that one! If you do, it turns into a totally different character! It doesn't say "up" anymore. It says "earth" or "soil"!

At which Ailus would mutter, "But saying 'soil' is a lot more important than saying 'up'."

At which I'd have to summon Bobo from doing Mistress Jek's chores to hit his hand with a stick.

Math wasn't going well either. For the life of me, I could not understand what was so hard about remembering to carry the one. And the times tables! What, pray tell me, is so hard about memorizing the times tables?!