The Overlooked

Chapter 4: I'm in

"Your book. Hand it over. Mr. Finley," Mrs. Nanter said, standing over the poor boy in her shawl-covered glory. She was an agglomeration of various knits and fabrics in the vague shape of a woman, like a patchwork snowman or a pile of mismatched laundry with a head. Everybody knew her as 'Mrs. Twitch', due to the fact that her left eyelid spasmed tirelessly. Of course, no-one called her that to her face, partly because it was so difficult to find beneath her mass of clothing.  

Lucas Finley timidly gave her his open notebook, like a wide-eyed and unusually large rodent. Understandable, as Mrs. Twitch was surprisingly intimidating. 

She glared down at the lined page, on which Lucas had drawn a rather distasteful cartoon that vaguely resembled herself.

"You'd make a fine comedian, Mr. Finley. Or perhaps a court jester," she said, dropping the book back onto his desk loudly.

Frin flinched slightly at the sound, even from her perch in the back corner of the room. She had no particular reason for choosing that seat, other than that it was placed across from a rather s window.

Curious, because it was covered by dark drapes on the other side. 

Mrs. Nanter's English class was right in the middle of the school, which meant that having a window at all was entirely useless and illogical. Having spent nearly a week at Lanton, Frin learnt that the way the school had been built was most definitely improvised, strung together in bits and pieces by several unqualified people. 

The building had survived a considerable amount of conflict, as the History Professor loved to remind them at any opportunity.

He was impossibly old and looked like he'd personally been through a war himself. His skin was mottled with scars, hanging off his frail bones in disturbing excess. He had a white broom mustache that spanned the entire width of his face and bobbed up and down wildly as he spoke, matching the few snow-white hairs that waved lazily on his scalp as if they might've broken free at any moment.

He also constantly talked as if he were commanding troops, with unnecessary loudness and authority.

"Twice," he barked, "This bloody school has been bombed to the ground. Reduced to ashes, I tell you! 'Course it's fellas like me that had to clean up the mess."

He then tried to prop his leg up onto his desk chair, but it only went halfway and got stuck, leading to a string of elaborate almost-curses.

Every teacher at Lanton had something eccentric about them, which made learning feel like attending a rather posh circus. One in which they taught geometry instead of riding elephants.

Miss. Halbird, for instance, couldn't talk about the weather without bursting into tears about her disloyal husband (who had apparently left her for a much younger woman that ran the morning forecast). It was rather unlucky, seeing as she taught natural sciences.

Some of the teachers' quirks were more subtle, but no less unusual. Such as Mr. Griffiths, whose lessons were quickly becoming Frin's favourite.

"Algebra" he said one day, scrawling messy letters onto the blackboard, "Sounds scary, doesn't it? Like something that would creep out from beneath your bed and pull at your covers with its filthy claws."

He suddenly whipped around to face the class, one eyebrow raised. The children leaned back slightly as he did, and the glint of amusement intensified in his eyes.

His voice lowered slightly, "But it is nothing more than a story to be told."

The chalk made a rounded 'x' with two quick flicks of his wrist.

"The alphabet; one of the first journeys you embarked upon to reach the pinnacle of knowledge. You know it well, or so I'd hope. It's crevices are friendly and familiar to you," he relayed, pacing back and forth along the blackboard