Isobel Asks The Internet

XXXVI - The School Trip

I was asked to chaperone a school trip and things got out of hand! Did I handle the situation(s) appropriately?

Hey everyone!

So, last week almost all of the teachers from a local secondary school were dining at a nearby Italian restaurant called Pelican Patricia's Pizza and Pasta Pitstop when the ceiling collapsed and fell on all of the diners while they were consuming or ordering their meals. Nobody died, except for 25 people, but every teacher who was at the the restaurant at the time is currently in hospital recovering from their injuries caused by the cascading rubble. The restaurant is a direct competitor to Mallory's (far superior) Italian cuisine destination, and Pelican Patricia is her sworn enemy; if you ask me, the teachers got what they deserved on account of their poor decision making.

Regardless of their culpability, this meant that there was only one teacher actively working at the school given that the rest were languishing in hospital. This was a HUGE issue, as there had been a school trip to France scheduled for a few days after the ceiling collapse, and it was too late for the school to cancel it. I was reading about this peculiar turn of events while sitting at my desk, when my phone began to ring. Gazing at the screen, I saw that it was the principle of the school in question! Due to my excellent reputation in town, she asked if I would team up with the one remaining teacher and chaperone the trip to France. I did have a few interviews that I was set to conduct with applicants for the upcoming role of "salad bar concept attendant", but I felt sure that Nigella would be able to shoulder these burdens, so I said YES.

A few days later, I arrived at the school, ready for our continental excursion and was introduced to the other teacher who would be tagging along with us. Her name was Miss Melissa, and she was a science teacher who looked to be in her mid-twenties. I felt certain that, as fellow women in STEM, we could benefit from each other's company. I asked her why she didn't go to Pelican Patricia's with the rest of the teachers, and she told me that she had been permanently banned from the restaurant for causing their ventilation units to malfunction. It was encouraging to hear of this act of honourable sabotage, presumably in support of Mallory.

There were approximately 80-90 kids that would be under our care for the duration of the trip, so it was important for us to be attentive. When everyone had been shepherded on to our tour bus, me and Miss Melissa sat together and I told her about everything that had been happening recently with Zelda-Mae, Debra and Brindie, as well as the various comings and goings of the supermarket (which she was a regular customer at). She was FASCINATED, and soon begun to regale me with tales of her own, comparatively mundane interpersonal dramas. After about 30 minutes of driving, she got up and walked slowly down the aisle of the bus. As I turned my head to see what was going on, some of the students were giving her money. A few minutes later, she sat back down next to me, and put the wad of cash in the left chamber of her brassiere.

It took us a few hours to reach the ferry terminal. Once we got there, Miss Melissa and I went straight to the duty-free retail space. I knew that I would not be purchasing any of the low-quality hardware that was being hawked on the premises, however Miss Melissa clearly had different plans, as she grabbed a basket and immediately threw 58 miniature bottles of (cheap) champagne into it. We paid and headed back out to the bus, where I was ASTONISHED to witness her handing out the bottles of champagne to some of the students! When she got back to her seat I asked her if she thought it was a good idea to be supplying alcohol to underage students, to which she responded that it was better for them to drink under our supervision than for them to be blackout paralytic on the merciless streets of France. This seemed reasonable, so I sat back and waited for us to embark the seafaring vessel.

A few hours later, we reached the hotel that we would be staying in for the duration of our trip. Me and Miss Melissa would be sharing a room, and the pupils would be staying in groups of four. When we got to the reception lobby, she turned to me and said "don't worry babes, I'll handle this" and then started SCREAMING so loud at the girl on the desk before she had even had a chance to open her mouth; she was trying to get us upgraded from a standard room to a luxury, garden-view suite with a kitchenette. I was mildly disgruntled that she hadn't asked me to try and negotiate this given my excellent language skills, and was certain that I would have had more success. The receptionist was unmoved by her screeching, so Miss Melissa used the school's credit card (that they had given to us for emergencies) to pay €950 for the upgrade.