Julia Lelieveld and the fifth element

~15~

I first walked past the school nurse to have my wrist checked, after all, I had promised Tim.

The school nurse also concluded that my wrist was not broken, but badly bruised. I got a stretch bandage to support me and made my way to the last lesson. Luckily I was able to use my wrist's excuse for being late.

I entered the biology classroom and everyone was staring at me. How I hated this. I walked softly to my table when the teacher called me back. "Mrs. Lelieveld, aren't you forgetting something?" he said diplomatically, holding up a yellow note. Jesus, did they never have mercy here? I walked to the desk and automatically took the note with my left hand. He glanced at my bandaged wrist. I glared at him and walked to my desk without saying a word. Eva who sat at the front of the class looked at me questioningly and Bas who sat two tables next to me also looked at me for a moment. I shrugged and rolled my eyes and gestured that I would explain it to them later. Sandra was also in the front of the class, close to the teacher, but she didn't look up, she looked very interested in her textbook.

"Okay students, like I said before." And he looked annoyed at me, I think I looked back even more annoyed. I really had to try to calm down again. "You will have a guest teacher today. He will give a lesson about his profession. He's a newly graduated police officer and wants you to stay on the straight and narrow." On that last sentence, he winked at us and laughed at himself, as if he were really, really funny. I was curious who it was, probably a colleague of Dad's. The door opened and a young officer in a uniform walked in. He turned to the class and looked at us. Oh no, that could also be added. It was the young cop who was at the front desk when I went to visit Dad at the station. Agent Jerry, and I probably got him in trouble, but then again, he had acted like an asshole.

He introduced himself and walked over to each student. When he came to me, his eyes rested for a moment and then said, "As I see some in this class have already met the police." He seemed to smile sarcastically at me and continued. I saw that some students looked surprised in my direction. Well, he had his way, probably after this lesson the story would go around that I was some dangerous criminal.

His lesson was mainly about how to avoid the danger and that we should not use alcohol and drugs. That we should not be tempted to do wrong things. He had brought pictures and videos to give us a fright how things can turn out if you don't follow the rules. I saw some of the students grimacing and Officer Jerry started laughing again and starting to act like a smartass.

If I had known in advance that he was coming, I would have gone straight home. I heaved a deep sigh and rested my head on my hands. I was glad we could go home after this.

Jerry was doing his closing talk. "Okay kids, I hope you've learned something from this and that I don't run into you when I'm on duty. As I said before, be careful with alcohol and drugs. Try not to get into dangerous situations and always keep your wits about you. There are also gangs around here, don't make them angry, because they will hit you back three times as hard.' As he said that, he looked back at me. Again with that smug smile. My heart skipped a beat, did he really say this? I lifted my head and looked at him confused and questioning. How could he say this? He certainly had a professional secret! What an asshole to say this in a full class, hopefully the other students hadn't made the connection, but I sure did. I was again flooded with sadness and anger, and this is not the first time today. I got so tired of it. The whole accident was the fault of such a rotten gang. And now he was joking about it? I would have rated a police officer more highly. What he said next I didn't hear anymore, I only heard the blood racing through my head with anger. I wanted to confront him about it, but of course I couldn't. Or could I?

Suddenly everyone got up and grabbed their bag and went out of the room, busy talking, celebrating the weekend. Jerry was talking to the teacher. "Julia, are you coming with me?" Eva called, Bas was standing next to her. "Yes, you go ahead, I'll be right there, I still have to do something." She looked at me questioningly, but shrugged and walked away. When everyone was out of the class I walked forward to Jerry. I stood next to him and he looked at me questioningly. "What did that mean?" I said angrily to him. He looked at me questioningly. "Sorry, I don't know what you mean," he said hypocritically. "You know damn well what I mean", I said to him, without noticing I pointed my finger in his direction.