My Teacher is History

Chapter 1 - New Beginnings

I had heard the stories about Mr. Harris, my new history teacher, long before I even entered Carver High School. My sister's friends would always talk about his particular weirdness whenever they would get together. His slicked-back hair, his strange clothes, and the permanent scowl that always seemed to be stuck on his face. I was looking forward to every aspect of entering ninth grade except the possibility of being in his class. I tried to push thoughts of this man out of my head as I compared the three outfits on my bed. Should I go all out on the first day, or save the mini-skirt for later on in the week?

I probably won't even see Joshua today, I thought. He always ditches the first day of school.

So I turned my attention back to the outfits and decided to go with the jeans and boots. The silver cross necklace that Dad gave me would go nice. I pulled a slick flowing blouse out of my closet and a denim vest and headed downstairs.

Mom would be downstairs, making breakfast for, like, the only time in the year. She's been okay, except a little in my business since Dad left. In fact, I was looking forward to bacon and eggs for once instead of toaster waffles. One last check of my hair in the hall mirror, and I walked into the kitchen with a flourish.

No bacon. No eggs. No Mom.

Where is she? I wondered, as I pulled the Eggo box out of the freezer. While my two waffles were in the toaster oven, I looked around. I went into Mom's room. I looked in her bathroom. I looked in the garage.

Her car was gone.

This isn't like her. Why wouldn't she be here on the first day of high school? I became a bit nervous.

When I returned to the kitchen, I finally saw the note stuck to the refrigerator. I pulled the orange juice and syrup out and looked it over.

"Honey, had to go run some errands in town. We'll talk about your first day when I get home tonight. Mom"

Wow, I thought. Chatty.

I grabbed my red backpack hanging in the front hallway and went through the kitchen into the garage. There she was. The parting gift from my father. I guess he thought it would make me not hate him. He was kind of right. This was my dream machine. A dragon red Vespa scooter. It really went well with my outfit. I would even go so far as to say I purposely picked this backpack to go with the scooter. Sadly, I wouldn't be driving her to school. I still had a little over a year before I would be able to get my license. But at least Mom let me drive it around the neighborhood sometimes. I just know I would get busted if I took it all the way to school.

But Mom wasn't there, was she? She had decided to "run errands" instead of dropping me off on the first day. Hmmm...

Nope. I decided it wasn't worth the risk. I would just drool over her every now and again and suffer through another two birthdays. I set the alarm and scooted out under the closing garage door and into the morning light.