Rise Up

Lin

A/N: Welcome to my new fic! I thought we needed more Vanessa. Btw, if you haven't seen 21 Chump Street the musical go watch. Lin totally looks like a teacher and it's hot.

The microwave beeped and I carefully took out my frozen meal. My wife was constantly trying to get me to eat healthier, but she wasn't a teacher. She didn't understand that we had to practically inhale our lunches in order to get enough down to last til the end of the day. These microwavable meals were quick and hot. I still managed to burn my thumb, and I practically tossed it onto the table.

One of my coworkers, Gia Reynolds, walked in. She was one of the math teachers. Definitely not my department. She sighed heavily as she opened the fridge to look for her own lunch.

"Rough morning?" I asked as I sat down at the table.

"If Natalie Rodriguez talks back to me one more time, I swear I'm going to throttle her," she complained as she located her lunch bag. "I don't care if I lose my job."

I smirked as I carefully peeled back the plastic from the container. "She definitely has a knack for that."

"I've tried everything, Lin," she told me, walking over to the table. "I've tried killing her with kindness. I've tried calling home; having a parent/teacher conference and it makes no difference. I'm at my wit's end. What's she like in your class?"

"She can be testy," I admitted, thinking of the 15 year old freshman who I happened to have next period for English.

"She got pissed because I accidentally called her Natalie," she told me, pronouncing it the American way. Natalie was Puerto Rican, and she pronounced her name Na-TAH-lee. I'd heard a couple other people accidentally call her Natalie and she was not forgiving about it. She had a tendency to start to cuss them out in Spanish. As one of the few teachers who spoke fluent Spanish, I caught every venomous word.

Truthfully, I didn't have as many problems with Natalie, or Talie, as I called her. We seemed to have an understanding with each other. I respected her and even enjoyed debating with her. Other adults took her snarkiness for disrespect, but she liked to practice arguing her point. We seemed to match wits and she appreciated it.

I scarfed down my lunch and managed to have time to use the restroom before fifth period started. The bell rang as I got to my desk and pulled up my attendance roster on the computer. As the kids streamed in, I marked them present on my screen and greeted them. The tardy bell rang and I could see Talie wasn't there yet.

"Get out your Writer's Notebooks, please, and start on the Do Now on the board," I told my class. At this point in the year - October - I had the kids pretty well trained. Almost every day we did a writing prompt at the beginning of class to get their brains buzzing. Most of them walked in and got straight to work now, knowing it's how we always started.

Two minutes later, Talie walked in, laughing. The whole class looked up, disrupted from their thoughts. I walked over and touched her shoulder, turning her around.

"Go back out and try again," I told her. She sighed, rolled her eyes, and spun around. Her almost black hair swirled around the air and came to rest halfway down her back. As usual, she was dressed to the nines. She had designer everything and there were rumors that her dad had already bought her a car, even though she wasn't yet sixteen. Talie sighed as she turned around and walked back in quietly.

"Happy?" she asked me, snark in her voice.

"Almost," I told her. "Where were you?"

"Changing my tampon," she told me, not at all embarrassed. She loved to try to get a rise out of teachers, but I wasn't biting. I thought she would've known that by now.