Taming Life

Tutoring

I froze in my seat. Mrs Newman couldn't have said a worse name. I gulped, and heard footsteps behind me, accompanied with a lot of sighing, and laughter from the back. People were laughing about the fact that she was stuck sitting next to me, which didn't help the situation. I pulled the sleeves of my blazer over my hands, a nervous habit. This was bad, this was bad. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Alex sit down next to me, and resisted the urge to look at her. Steadying my breathing, I looked straight ahead without giving her my attention. She coughed, but didn't say anything. She got out her book and pencil case and put her bag underneath the desk. She stayed quiet, and somehow that made me more nervous than if she'd have been catty towards me. Mrs Newman continued to give everyone else seats until no one was left at the back anymore. I couldn't help but be envious of the girl who got my seat, the comfortable existence of the back of room 93. Calum mouthed good look to me, and I was surprised, seeing as we'd never really talked before. Smiling back at him, I was certain that I probably looked worried

"Please stop complaining about your seats, you are year 11 and you will survive being away from your friends for one hour. This will help you get the grades that you should be getting. I've graded the essays that you did before summer and I'm going to hand them out." Mrs Newman said.  She started to hand out the essays. She was doing them in alphabetical order so I wasn't going to have mine just yet. Most of the class started worrying about what grade they would get, and it sounds obnoxious but I wasn't too worried. I liked English, I was good at it. I got good grades.

"I cannot believe that I got stuck next to her. It looks like she spent about 2 seconds on her hair; maybe the weirdo should spend longer on it next time. And why doesn't she wear some makeup? She really should." Alex said, turning around to talk to one of her friends. She knew that I could hear her, and I blushed and looked at the table, somehow trying to make it look like I didn't care in the slightest. Mrs Newman came over to my desk and gave me my essay.

"Well done Hazel, I loved reading your essay." She said, and kept going. I looked down at the page and saw that she'd given me an A*. I'd gotten mostly A's throughout year 10, with a few A*'s. This made me happy. A few minutes later Alex got her essay. I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw that she got an E. Ouch, not good. Mrs Newman gave her a disappointed look. Alex looked at my essay and groaned.

"You got an A*! How did you even do that?" she asked. I shrugged, feeling incredibly nervous. Maybe I should just ignore her?

"I just like English, and I guess I'm good at it." I said quietly, looking down at the table to avoid looking at her.

"I don't know how anyone can like English; it's so dull and impossible. But I so need a tutor. The last 3 tutors that my parents have paid I've ended up staring at the entire time, but what do they expect when they hire hot 16 year old guys? Any way, they refuse to hire any more for me, said that I'll just have to learn on my own or like, whatever. Would you tutor me?" Alex asked. I felt more nervous than ever, this was going to be a very bad idea. But it would be an even worse idea not to, so I didn't exactly have a choice.

"Yes, I'll tutor you." I said, finally looking up at her.

"Good. Now this doesn't make us friends or anything, you're not going to start hanging out with me and my friends. Just come to this address tonight at 6. My number's there in case you can't find your way or whatever." She said, flipping her hair and writing on a notepad. She ripped out the page and handed it to me.

"Don't worry; I don't want to hang out with you and your friends." I said, looking her right in the eyes whilst folding the page and putting it into my pocket. She rolled her eyes and I turned to face the front. I couldn't believe that I was actually doing this, I must have gone crazy.