Ice frozen dreams turned golden

Chapter 15

Lizzie was sitting in the school library, her head buried deep in a book. She was skipping through some passages of "Dairy of a young girl" by Anne Frank and sighed. She had read the book in German once, and now the English translation sounded weird for her.

She was looking for this one passage she wanted to quote for her essay but couldn't find it anymore.

The bell rang, and the girl sighed once again. She had spent her whole lunch break in the library, and she hadn't even gotten anything done. She looked at her book piles, and the thought of all the work she had to do made her feel nauseous.

There was the essay for her literature class, her history assignment, the book she needed to read for her Spanish class, and on top of that came all the extra work she had to do for Mrs. March. Today the teacher had decided to assign her 999 lines of the sentence:

"I will never disrespect my teacher nor question her authority ever again as she is so kind to not only teach me the depth of mathematics, but also important life lessons. I shall stop being such an annoying know-it-all and keep my mouth shut from now on."

Lizzie still cursed herself for how she had handled her math class today. But it has all been too much these past couple of weeks. Mrs. March had picked her to join her in front of the class in every single lesson they had had with the woman, and Lizzie was tired of being ridiculed and laughed at. And the most she was drained from all the extra work Mrs. March let her do. Her teacher wanted her to solve thousands of equations and be able to explain them all to her classmates. If she failed or said anything out of line, Mrs. March would make her write lines or assign even more equations.

Like today when Lizzie had failed at explaining why the new formula they had just learned was of big importance even for their future.

She had mentioned the use of it for more complicated equations they would learn when they were older, but Mrs. March had only laughed cruelly at her.

"No, no," she had said, "you don't get to mention something and then not explain it. You're being arrogant again, girl!"

So Lizzie had tried her best to explain how to use the new formula for the more complicated equations they hadn't yet learned but had failed miserably. She had barely even understood them herself - how was she supposed to teach them to her classmates?

"Did you even understand a single word of what our precious little smart-ass just said?" Mrs. March had asked the class, and Carter had shaken his head.

"No, Mrs. March. She is only trying to show off how smart she is again."

Lizzie then had bitten her lip to stop herself from saying something mean back to Carter. The boy used every single opportunity to bully her and her friends, but it was a low move for him to do it in front of their teacher.

"Then I guess Ms. genius has to do it all over again," Mrs. March had laughed, and Lizzie hadn't been able to take it anymore.

"I don't know if I'll be able to explain it any better, Mrs. March. I've only read about it briefly and I don't think we need to learn about these equations until we're in our last year of high school."

The words had just come out of Lizzie before she could've stopped them. She had wanted to take them all back when she had realized she had just questioned Mrs. March's way of teaching.

"You will stay after class, and we will discuss your attitude, young lady," Mrs. March had hissed and had continued torturing Lizzie at the blackboard.

When the bell had finally rung, and Betty and Thea had reluctantly left the classroom last, Lizzie had been really afraid of her teacher. She had stayed behind after many math classes for various reasons before, but this time she knew she had crossed a line.