Family is Forever

Chapter 81-school will be waiting

Things were going well. Ali was eating and happy, although Zosia was plagued with morning sickness, she knew that was normal. Ali was getting more and more excited about going to Poland. She was counting down the days.
"I just can't do it!" Elsie whined. "Yeah you can. You just need to learn them I'll test you!" Ali told Elsie, she was helping her with French "I go"
"Je vais"
"Très bon," Ali smiled "he is?"
"On est"
"Fantastique! I went?"
"J'ai aller?"
"Nearly, it's je suis allé"
"See I can't do it." Elsie continued to whine
"Course you can. I will be?"
"Oh I know this one, je Serai."
"Just what I love to hear! Français!" Agata Yates said stepping into the room. "Hi Natalia, Elsie, Ollie sent me to the kitchen. I have some work for you Ali.
"Bonjour madam Yates, I mean Agata." Elsie smiled awkwardly.
"Aga, can you please tell Elsie that she CAN do French."
"Of course she can, and so can you! An A on your French and all of your polish of course."
"How can you speak two languages fluently Ali. And you like 10 miss...Agata."
"For Me, I had to. I grew up speaking Polish then came here and had to speak English to get by," Ali smiled.
"I just liked it, languages were my thing. And the more you learn the easier they get!" Agata smiled. "You know more than you think Elsie. You're doing a lot better than most of your class, despite missing so much school!"
Elsie rolled her eyes "I know I did work when I was off but I have so much to catch up on. Year 11's really hard."
"Everyone says that." Agata said "what subjects are you doing Elsie?"
"Obviously Maths, English and RS, although I already got a B in RS. I took it last year, then triple science, geography, French, obviously and art."
"You already have a humanity, We could ask Mr Bridgewood, the head of geography if you could drop that?" Aga suggested.
"Thanks miss...I mean Aga, but geography's my best. I want to take it for A-level! Plus Miss Herbert is my teacher. Not mr Bridgewood."
"C'mon Els." Ali interjected "you only have 4 months before study leave. You've got this."
Elsie smiled back at Ali, "I guess and I've done all my coursework and controlled assessments in English, Sciences, art and geography. So I'm already part way there."
" and you already did your French speaking and writing. I'm not allowed to tell you results until their properly moderated and stuff, but between you and me, I think you'll be pretty pleased Elsie, I'm proud of you! And if you wanted to take French for A-Level, I'd support that."
"No thanks, I want to take English, Art and geography like I said, and maybe general studies."
"Talking of A-levels." The teacher started looking at Ali "I was thinking of what you might want to do next year Ali, you'll be back at school well before then I'm sure, obviously you'll have the second half of biology as well as the second half of French. I was wondering if you might want to take Year 12 and 13 geography at the same time?" She looked at Ali and continued "you will have general studies and Polish already of course but some unis and employers don't count general studies and I'm sure some people will think Polish is almost an 'cheat a-level'" Agata made inverted commas with her fingers. "When they look at your name it's not too difficult to work out that Polish might be your first language."
"Sounds good." Ali smiled.
"Any clue when you'll be back at school Natalia?"
"Not sure right now. Soon hopefully. I've been in day treatment for over 4 months."
"Concentrate on you health Natalia, school will always be waiting." Agata gently squeezed Ali's arm.