melanie.
One o'clock rolls around and dread fills my stomach as I make my way up the stairs to Mr Bates' room. No ones in the corridor so I presume he's in there with the group already. I consider making a run for it but I'd look like such a wuss if I did so I trudge on ahead.
I know what I have to do. I have to be confident, because they're just a group of idiots who can't even do basic maths and if they didn't want to learn it, it was their fault and not mine. As long as I didn't show them my emotions, I'd be safe. Pretty sure that was a rule of thumb.
I open the door and there's complete silence, as if they were waiting for me.
"Lads, this is Melanie. She's going to be teaching you maths." Wow, way to sell me, Mr Bates.
They all look at me so I just lift my hand and give a wave.
He beckons me to sit down at the group table with him and the lads.
"Here." He hands me a sheet, it has the plan for the lesson on it. I had to do a double take. The lesson plan was factorising? Things we did in like Year 8. God, this bunch really were bad at maths.
"Right, I have a class to teach. I'll be off." He says, getting up. And my panic sets in again. I cannot do this. There are four boys staring at me, looking at me, wondering how I'm capable of teaching them maths. I'm wondering it too.
"Isn't there meant to be five of yous?" I blurt out, it was meant to be an internal thought though. I feel heat rush to my cheeks.
"Yeah, but Finn said he wasn't coming." A lad pipes up. I presume it's the other Year 10.
"Fair enough." I say.
"So are you really gon' ta teach us maths?" A lad asks.
"Yeah, suppose so." I say back.
"Cracking." He says.
"We thought we'd get some she beast or an Albert Einstein look alike, but thank fuck you look normal." The Year 10 chimes in, I give him a dirty look.
"That meant to be a compliment?" I question.
He shuts up.
"What you say your name was again?" A new lad pipes up. I look up and our eyes meet. He's got piercing blue eyes that stare right into my soul, I quickly redirect my gaze.
"Melanie." I say.
"Melanie." He repeats.
I spot a familiar face. Larry. I shoot him a glance.
"Nice to see you again, lass." He says. He looks taken aback, that I would be the 'maths prodigy' Mr Bates doesn't shut up about. I've been told he talks about me constantly, which is a bit weird, but I guess I don't mind it. People that have found out that I am indeed the 'maths prodigy' have been shocked too. Guess they expect me to look like a typical maths whiz, like the ones you see in the movies. This school was pretty shitty, so any parents with money sent their kids off to nicer schools and the rest of us got stuck here, hence why I'm teaching these lads maths instead of an actual teacher.
I decide it's probably time we start.
I hold up the sheet. "Alright, so the question is : Simplify this expression, 3ab plus a-squared minus 1." I say. This is too easy, surely they know how to do it.
I am met with four blank faces. They have no clue. They don't even know what I'm talking about.
"Anyone know the answer?" I ask. Actually a little bit shocked. This stuff is literally what you learn in the first month of school. How have these lads sieved without even knowing how to simplify?
A minute passes and it's the first time they've been completely silent.
"Can you tell us the answer now?" A curly haired lad asks. The rest of them sigh with relief. They really were hopeless.
"Right." I say, getting a piece of paper out to explain it better. "So if it says simplify it means you've to make it smaller, yeah?" They nod. I hope they actually understand. "So if I wanted to make this smaller I'd have to take things out by dividing them, so that the equation is them less complicated." The nod is a bit less eager, I'm starting to lose them. "In this expression, we have a in all of the terms, so the way to simplify this is just to take a out." I explain, and then write what I'm doing on the piece of paper. I finish the question and show them the answer.
"Woah." The Year 10 says. "I thought Mr Bates was joking when you came in, saying you're the 'maths prodigy' but he was fucking right." He says as if I've done something impressive. I feel a bit bad for them all, because I know how they feel. I feel utterly useless in every other subject, and that's what they must be feeling right now.
I decide it's time to take myself off the pedestal. "Lads Year 8's can do that, and maths is the only thing I'm good at." I say, they all look at me slightly differently now, as if I belong a bit more. No high achieving student has ever graced the halls of this school, they'd run a mile, it's too rough around here for the well-to-do's, so the four of them probably thought I was in the wrong school.
I show them a few more examples and it seems like they're getting the hang of it, or at least they're pretending they are. I feel kind of proud to have taught them something. Surprisingly they were all pretty decent and we had a laugh. They liked to joke about how I didn't look like a maths whiz, but I got that from everyone already so I just brushed it off. I didn't know there was a certain way I was meant to look?
I guess I'm just like them. Only I can do maths, but that suddenly puts me miles ahead of them in their eyes. But to everyone else, we were five people in the same boat. No one believed in us, except Mr Bates, who believed in everyone. But we were literally one and the same, me and those lads.
The bell goes for lunch and everyone sets off, back to their own groups. I dump my stuff in my bag and go to head out the door.
"Melanie." The blue-eyed lad calls again. I wait up.
"Come with us, yeah?" He asks, with a lot of confidence, as if he's some great lad that I'd be mad not to want to go with.
I don't say anything, I just walk with him and the two other lads from the group.
I don't know why I didn't just tell them to fuck off and go find Jay. I didn't know any of them, as the school was pretty big, but there was something about that lad, it made you want him to like you, I always wondered how people acquired a skill like that. Are you just like born with it? Does he know he's able to do that to people?
I continue to walk with them, out to the front of the school, I never usually come around here.
