Flowers in the Window || W2S

2

The English classroom was cold. Freezing, even. And it was supposed to be the end of May, for god's sake.

Thankfully, you were leaving now, your lesson over. You were still hungry despite it only being an hour since lunch, probably because you hadn't eaten much on account of not having enough money in your purse at that moment. Which was why you had no choice but to be eternally grateful when Wes pulled out a giant bag of Oreos from his backpack, tore it open, and pressed two into the palm of your open hand.

He winked. "I'll meet you in maths. You can have the whole bag after school if you want. You look fucking starving."

You grinned. "You're not half wrong there."

He left quickly, leaving you to perch on the closest table and wait. Miss Leslie-your English teacher for the last three years-had pulled you aside at the beginning of the lesson and asked you to wait behind-she had an 'interesting proposition' for you. You'd been intrigued enough to comply-you had a free period now anyway. And a snack. Thank the distant heavens for Wes.

Miss Leslie emerged from her storage cupboard-which appeared to better resemble a festering bomb site-and smiled warmly, shutting the door behind her. "Glad you stayed."

You smiled back. It was very easy to like Miss Leslie-she was young, but not cringy, pretty, but not a predator, and more relaxed than other teachers, while still managing to make sure that everyone she taught did the work.

She cracked her knuckles and sat down on her own desk, crossing her legs. "I've got a new student coming into this class."

You blinked. "Cool?"

"He's failing a lot of subjects," she continued. "Really good at maths and science-his physics tests are incredible. But he's really not achieving grades as high as he should be in any other subject."

"Okay," you replied. "Sorry, why are you telling me this?"

She leaned forward, uncrossing her legs and clasping her hands over her knees. "Well, his old English teacher doesn't think he's in any way prepared to move classes in any subject-never mind top set English. So I was brainstorming ways to help this boy. And I got to thinking-what if I gave him a tutor? A student tutor-someone who understands the work, explains it in a way that he can understand? From the perspective of someone who's doing the exact same study as him? So I made a list of all the students in this class who I thought would be good enough for that. And guess whose name stood out?"

The Oreos nearly fell out of your hand. "You want me..to tutor someone?" You could barely talk to your own uncle-how were you supposed to teach an entire book and a whole creative writing unit to someone while you were still learning it yourself?

She smiled wryly. "You tutored Margot when she was in top set for year 10. She only got an A on that exam because you sat down with her and carefully explained the whole plot of In Cold Blood until she grasped it. She swears it up and down any time anyone ever mentions that book."

Maybe it was a good thing you hadn't started to eat your snacks yet, because the sight of your mouth hanging open as it was now definitely would not have been pretty if you had.

Margot really said that about you?

Miss Leslie smiled at your dumbfounded expression and continued. "Your writing pieces are brilliant as well. I've told you that, right? That assignment you did on the stars and the souls and the child looking for her mother among them..I teared up. It was beautiful. Especially for a student." She paused, then looked at you again, having broken the eye contact somewhere in the conversation. "He's supposed to start on Friday. Please consider it, at least."