Six Ways to One Day

Chapter 1

BRRRRRRIIIIIIIIG!

The sound of the final dismissal bell for this academic year rings through your classroom, like it has for the past one hundred and eighty school days. You have to give it to the young people's physical response time, because the microsecond that the bell rings, all 22 students, mostly juniors, all get up simultaneously and practically trample each other to run out of the two classroom exits. You shout over the excited din of student chatter, "Have a great summer, young people. See you in September."

Majority of the kids pay you no mind, but a few, turn to give you a half-hearted wave and a smile before they make their exit. When all the students have emptied out into the hallway, you walk to your classroom doors and close them shut. Even through the closed doors, you can hear shouts and laughter coming from the hallway.

Walking back to your desk in the back corner of your classroom, you let out a heavy sigh. Plopping down on the chair, you allow the chair to lean back as far as it will go and stare up at the white ceiling tiles. You think, "Another school year over."

Sitting back up straight, you give your desk chair a few spins and watch the sight of your empty classroom, rush by your line of vision. Even though you want to join the students in dashing out of this place to enjoy the summer, you still have things that you need to take care of before you can leave for the summer.

You stop your spinning chair by scraping the toe of your ballet flats on the linoleum floor. Letting out another sigh, you place both hands, palms down, on the desk and stand up. Perhaps you overestimated your prowess in office chair spinning, because when you stand up, you feel lightheaded and find yourself needing to lean forward on your hands on your desk to brace yourself.

As the darkening edges of your vision starts to clear, you hear someone bursting through one of your classroom doors, shouting, "We are free! FREE!"

You look up to see one of your best friends, Judy Lange, doing a little happy dance as she walks towards you. Judy says, "Let's get the hell out of here, Missy! We need to go out and celebrate the end of our temporary freedom."

You reply, "Good Lord, you're worse than the students."

"Yes. Of course! Those brats didn't have to teach chemistry and physics to a bunch of obnoxious teenagers, six hours a day, five days a week, for the past ten months. I swear, it's a miracle that I hung on this long. You have no idea how many times a day I thought about following my brother's footsteps and leaving teaching to do something completely different."

Judy's brother, Christopher Lange, had once been your colleague at Roosevelt High school. But after three years in the trenches, he called it quits and left the profession to become a cop, of all things. The man had weighed his options between dealing with a hundred students every day in a classroom setting, where the most dangerous thing he had to deal with, on a daily basis, was a papercut, vs. running into death-defying situations, where his life was literally in jeopardy, and chose the latter option.

You and Chris were hired the same year. Both of you were hired by the school's English department, after a pair of English teachers, who were married to each other, had decided to retire at the same time, leaving two tenure track vacancies. Your classrooms were adjacent to each other, and your class prep time and lunch break fell on the same periods as his, so the two of you became friendly. Just friendly... nothing else, which was to your great chagrin. You two would have lunch together a couple times a week and talk, but Chris never seemed to show any interest in you beyond that and you were fine with it.

Who are you kidding? You had the biggest hots for the tall and well-built man, with an easy smile and a sweet countenance. His dirty blonde hair was cut short on the sides, but the top was left a bit longish. He wasn't one of those muscle-bound bulky men by any means, but lean and long. With broad shoulders and a flat belly, the man could fill out a pair of khakis like nobody's business. Oh, and the ass... Mother of all that is holy, the man's ass was nothing short of spectacular.