Proceed With Caution

Chapter 4

Everything was a blur to me. Normally, I was calm, cool and collected, and my comebacks flowed out of my mouth smoothly like melted butter spread onto a slice of bread. Nothing scared me. I was fearless.

But this teacher, a man who I did not even know existed two hours ago, was really something else. He made me stammer, he made me trip on my words. He intimidated me.

Why do I care so much? I asked myself. It's because this is the first time someone shut me down, isn't it?

I snapped back to reality and stared at the clock. Fifteen minutes left until I could escape this English-class-cum-torture-chamber. Everyone was looking down solemnly at their papers. Nobody talked. Nobody dared to talk. The silence was thick and unbearable.

My essay was three-quarters complete, and I was having major writer's block. On regular days (when Mrs Latham was here and I didn't have to deal with this kind of shit), my essays just flowed coherently from my brain, through my pen and onto the paper. But today was different, and we all know why. My eyes scanned through what I had written so far. It was complete and utter bullshit, but I was so desperate to finish my essay and leave class that I was beyond the point of caring about the quality. I willed myself to come up with another point for my last paragraph.

Think, Angie, think!

Nothing came into my head. I glanced around the classroom for inspiration. Fred Johnson was scribbling furiously on his eighth page with a dark-blue ink pen. I imagined that if he had the choice, he would iron his essay and spray it with Febreze before passing it up to Mr Harrison. And then Mr Harrison would probably give him a bored, unimpressed look and...

Goddamn it, I'm thinking about him again.

I scolded myself mentally for contaminating my thoughts with the scum that was Mr Harrison. He was rude, unkind, and he was mean to Carrie. No one I knew had the heart to be mean to Carrie. He even shut Jessica up. Twice. By my standard, that was not exactly a bad thing because Jessica annoyed me immensely. But even so, all the male teachers usually melted in her presence, and mooned over her when she flipped her golden hair. They also caved in to her every demand. She could eat in class, she could submit homework late without a punishment. But Mr Harrison did not give her the same preferential treatment. If he could be such an ass to everyone, with no exceptions... If he could make our lives so unpleasant...

Inspiration suddenly grabbed a baseball bat and whacked me over the head with it. I had come up with a perfect plan.

What if I made his life a living hell?
What if I be the worst student he's ever had?
Then I'll be known as that one bitch who isn't afraid of Mr Harrison.
And then BAM, I'll be popular instantly!

I suddenly felt excited. I sat up in my chair and grabbed my pen to continue my essay hurriedly. Since the topic was "School", I found it relatively simple to write about. Ideas flooded into my head a mile a minute.

"In addition to our schoolmates," I wrote, "our teachers make up a big part of our school lives. There are many competent teachers, but at the same time, there are also many teachers who definitely ought to be fired. For example, I recently became acquainted with an English teacher who is very unfriendly to everyone, and his classes are boring as hell. And when I say 'boring as hell', my implication is that pretending to be a donkey and crawling across a field on your hands and knees while dragging a 500-kilogram burden on your back in the hot sun is more appealing than his class. Quite frankly, nobody likes him because he acts as if  he has a 5-inch wide stick wedged right up his anal cavity." Perfect.

"Riiiiiiing!" the bell sliced through the silence. Sighs of relief echoed throughout the room and people started packing their things into their bags.