Strict love

1

"Oh no..." "What?" "Look!" Nicole looked at her friend's phone. They recently got a new roster for school. "We got Mr. Jones for social studies!" Nicole looked confused at her best friend. "What's wrong with Mr. Jones?" "Oh please!" Emma sighed deeply. "He's horrible! He's strict!" Emma laid down on her bed whining into her pillow. "Is being strict the only thing that's bothering you?" Nicole looked at her phone, trying to scan for new teachers but no luck. "Yeah! How can you go out and meet people and you get asked 'Hey! What do you do for your job?' And you say... 'Oh I like to torture kids by being mean to them!' Yeah, surely he's the favorite person at the party!" Emma complained and Nicole looked at her, she's laying on the bed, hands up to the ceiling, looking at them. "We'll see if he's that terrible." Nicole says and lays down on the bed as well. 

The next morning. 

Nicole was the first one at the classroom, looking left and right to see if the teacher is going to come around the corner, in her head she's making up on what he might look like. A man comes around the corner, carrying a briefcase. He looks at her, up and down. "Good morning." He says and opens the door. "Good morning." Nicole responded. He opens the classroom door and walks inside, Nicole waddles after him. "Where is everyone else?" He asks as he places his laptop and papers on the desk. "They are usually 10 minutes late." Nicole sits near the back row of the class. "Why are you sitting all the way back there?" The teacher asks. "I don't bite." He laughs, Nicole thinks that Emma is over exaggerating with how strict he actually is and moves to the row of tables right in front of his desk. "And now you're very close, I can see you better this way." He says as he's starting up his laptop. "What's your name?" "Nicole." He types something on his laptop. "I'm Connor Jones, but please call me Mr. Jones." He says and Nicole nods her head shyly. Mr. Jones starts asking her questions about her school and what she's studying along with what her hobbies are. Basic questions. 

"So what do you like doing in your free time? Do you have a job?" "Yeah I work in a flower shop." He nods his head slowly. "And hobbies?" "Ehh, reading? Crochet? I don't know I don't do a lot after school." "No parties?" "Eh no, they're too loud and too crowded, I get anxious in those areas." After 10 minutes the class starts to fill up. "You're all late!" Mr. Jones shouts at the class. "All of you are counted as absent!" The class sighs and grunts in annoyance. "Too bad. Should've been on time." Her friend sighs and sits next to her, Emma looks at her in annoyance. "Why did you decide to sit in the very front? I hate this spot." She starts to unpack her bag. "Because I was the only one in the class and I didn't want to be rude and sit in the very back." Nicole responds, the teacher waits until everyone is done unpacking their stuff and starting up their laptops. He sits down and looks at Nicole and Emma. The two girls are in a discussion. "So if someone were to sit between someone on the bus. Like in the middle, and one on the side leaves, would you move to the side to make place or would you stay in that seat?" "I'd move!" "Why?" "To make it less uncomfortable for them." "Exactly!"

Mr. Jones sees that the entire class is done. "Alright! Everyone please pay attention!" He shouts and he starts teaching, every time that a student tries to gain contact with their neighbours, the teacher writes down their name on the board. Once their name is written on the board, that's their first warning. If they try to seek contact again, they'll be send to the principal's office and will be given detention. Nicole stayed quiet, but Emma's name was already written on the board for trying to get Nicole's attention. "Nicole." Emma whispered, Nicole looks at her. "27?" She whispers to her and Nicole looks at her notebook to see if she has written the answer down already, she has the answer. "Uhm..." She moves her notebook towards Emma so she can copy her work. Mr. Jones looks at the two ladies in the front row. He walks towards the board, picks up the marker and writes down a stripe next to Emma's name. "You can leave the classroom, Miss Carter." He says and Emma looks in pure confusion at the teacher. "What?!" She shouts at him. "Leave, Miss Carter!" Emma grabs her bag and shoves her stuff agressively into her bag. A heavy sigh of annoyance and frustration escapes her mouth. 

Nicole watched Emma storm out of the classroom. She looked at Mr. Jones who wasn't done writing onto the board. Once he sat down again, Nicole noticed her name on the board. It felt like her heart got ripped out of her chest. Never in her entire life, has she been written on the board for being a bad student. She looks at her name in the same confusion Emma had when she heard that she had to leave the class. Mr. Jones saw the shock on Nicole's face. She then decided maybe she could change his mind by showing what a good student she actually is by finishing the work on time. She focused onto her school work and finished it before the other students did. "I finished my school work, sir." She says with full pride in her words. Mr. Jones looked at her, rather annoyed by her sudden notification that she was finished with her school work. "Do you not know that you're supposed to raise your hand?" He grabs the marker and gets up from his chair, turning to the board. "Well, yeah I know that but I thought because you're so closeby I could just say it." The teacher shook his head and wrote a stripe in front of Nicole's name. "Please leave the classroom Miss Johnston." Nicole felt her heart sink into her stomach, even deeper than when she saw her name on the board. "B-But uhh.. Why sir?" She asked stuttering all over the place due to the knot in her throat. 

"You clearly don't know the rules, now go, please." He sits back down. Instead of Emma's actions, Nicole packed her bag quietly to not cause another scene in the classroom, she slowly walks out of the classroom feeling like throwing up due to the anxiety. Once she reaches the principal's office, she was stunned by how many students were actually send out of the class. How did that go unnoticed? She sat next to Emma and let out a soft sigh. Emma looked at the person sitting next to her. "Wh- YOU?! NICOLE?! YOU?!" She shouts in pure disbelief. "How?! Why?! This is madness!" Nicole let out a soft laugh due to her friend's reaction. "This is abnormal! You?! Nicole Johnston?! Best behaved student in the entire world?! Got send out of the classroom?!" Nicole tried to calm her best friend down to not keep causing scenes. "This is crazy. He's crazy! I told you! He should be fired! No, put into a mental hospital! This is crazy!" Emma finally calmed down and sat on her seat again.