A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Mrs Coulthard

School has always been something I had to drag myself off to in the morning. I had to learn things I already knew. I had an unimaginable thirst for knowledge that could never be quenched by the dull, monotonous things we had to memorize.

Mrs. Coulthard changed that. A sprightly blonde woman in her mid-thirties made school fun. She made every day an adventure, where we would learn something brand new. When I went home in the afternoon, I couldn't wait to go back.

However, it wasn't until the final day of school, a hot, sweaty day in late June, when Mrs. Coulthard changed my entire view of her.

The bell had just rung, and as the other kids packed up their things and left at a break-neck speed, I lingered.

My last day was gone. My last day of the second grade, with Mrs. Coulthard was officially over.

I watched as she began to pack up her big tote bag. Sensing my stare, Mrs. Coulthard looked up at me and smiled.

"Is something wrong?" She asked, her brows slightly furrowed.

"I, I just..." I paused, trying to assess exactly what was bothering me. "I guess it's that now that the year's over, I'll never see you again."

She smiled kindly, and cocked her head to the side. "Of course we'll see each other! I'm not leaving."

As she walked closer to me, I frowned. "Sure, you're not leaving, but I am. My dad got a job in New York." My voice cracked. "You're my favourite teacher! You changed school for me, and I'll never see you again."

She knelt in front of me and held my hands. "We may never see each other again, and that's a shame. But it doesn't matter, as long as our hearts are open and our aims are identical, we'll be together in our hearts." She touched her palm to the left side of my chest.

I looked at her, dead-panned. "Dumbledore said something like that, didn't he?"

She smiled, and smoothed my hair. "You saw through me, as usual."

The corners of my mouth turned up slightly. I turned back around, and resumed packing my bag.

Just then, there was a ring of a phone, but it was soon stopped. "Good Afternoon, April Coulthard speaking."

Mrs. Coulthard paused as the other person spoke.

"Yes, do you have news on her?" She paused again patiently. Desperate to leave and not listen in on the conversation, I fumbled while getting my pencils in my bag and the Polaroid camera inside fell out.

That's right! I was going to take a picture with Mrs. Coulthard to remember her by. I picked up the camera, and inspected the side that hit the floor. It was a little dented and the blue paint was scratched away to reveal the silver metal underneath.

I turned around, a huge smile on my face, excited to have this one permanent memoir of my favourite teacher.

That is, until I saw her face. Her eyes and mouth were contorted into a look of distress.

"She's what?" Mrs. Coulthard said. I could hear the bottled up tears in her voice.

"Oh my god." She mumbled, and sank to her knees. "This - this is..." She trailed off, and let the end of the sentence hang in midair. Tears slowly leaked out of her eyes, and her mouth was twisted into a shape of pure agony. She let the phone fall from its position by her ear and onto her lap, where it lay in her trembling hands.

"Mrs. Coulthard?" I asked timidly. "Are you ok?" I was still clutching the camera in my tiny hands, but now I was less inclined to use it.

She shook her head, and looked at the phone in her hands, biting her lip. She wiped the tears away from her eyes, doing her best to not smudge her makeup, but ending up looking like a raccoon anyways.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm alright." She whispered. "I'm just..." She trailed off again, unable to speak through the hyperventilating breaths.

"Just... what?" I asked, benignly ignorant. "What happened?"

"My sister, she..." her voice got cut off by the tears flowing into her mouth. "She had cancer, and now..." She cried out in pain, except it was pain I couldn't see.

With a sudden intake of breath, I understood what she was trying to say. Without thinking, I dropped to my knees as well, and hugged her from the side. I had never realized before that someone that seemed so happy could actually be so sad.

"What's that you're holding, dear?" Mrs. Coulthard asked between her uncontrollably fast inhalations, referring to the camera still held tightly in my hands.

"It's my camera." I said softly, "I was hoping we could take a picture together, but maybe we shouldn't." I stepped away from her, holding the device up to my chest.

"No, no. That's silly." She smiled weakly. "Of course we'll take a picture!"

At her change of tone, my face broke out into a smile. I handed her the camera, and she pulled me close. She held the camera out in front of the two of us, and snapped it twice in quick succession.

When the little rectangles came out, she took them both and waved them back and forth to make them develop faster. A couple seconds later, one of them was placed in my hand.

"Now, I should be going." Mrs. Coulthard said, reaching for her cardigan. "It's been a wonderful year, and I wish you the very best."

"You too!" I squeaked, distracted by what I held in my hand. Just fading into existence was a picture of me, a tiny, overexcited seven year old with my mismatched eyes, my huge smile, and my shiny black hair pinned back with pink bows. It also featured Mrs. Coulthard, the woman I adored, her blonde hair in a short ponytail, black makeup running down her cheeks, and her eyes shiny with tears..