Excuse Me, Miss Mills?

Chapter One

*Guys remember this is not my work!*
I just repost stories that are not on Wattpad and for you guys to read! Pls if this is yours tell me!! Or you ppl don't hate on me! TYSM!!!HAVE A GREAT ENJOY THIS FIRST CHAPTER

I was in my office when she came by. I had a set of freshman essays to wade through and a mug of coffee to help me wade through it and the rest of my day. I'd been putting off grading the freshman papers in favor of my senior level class's work--the seniors wrote more intelligently and their essays tended to follow the proper formats that made them easier to read. I'd passed the senior level class their papers back the class directly before then and had no more excuses to avoid the freshman papers.

I heard a knock on my open door and a questioning voice ask, "Excuse me, Miss Mills?"

Glancing up I saw Emma Swan, one of the seniors I had just seen in my last class. Her paper was clutched in her hand, the red ink of my pen scrawled over most of it. Emma was one of my better students, so this paper had been a disappointment.

"Miss Swan," I said by way of greeting. "Is there something I can do for you?"

She nodded, her free hand coming up to run through her long blonde hair. It was loose and it nearly glowed. I had to force myself not to get distracted by the way her fingers twisted in her hair on the way down and stopped near the ends of her hair to play with the loose strands.

She stepped into my office and shut the door.

"I just have to know," she said as she plopped down in the chair across the desk from mine. She set her paper down on the surface over one of the freshman papers. "What did I do wrong? I thought that I made some good points in this one."

"You made good points but they have nothing to do with the prompt I gave you all," I countered. "The question was of Hamlet and Ophelia and whether he ever actually loved her, with your argument supported by textual evidence. Your paper was about how Hamlet loved Horatio. And while I appreciate that there was plenty of evidence in support of your findings, that's not the question I asked."

"But it's still about love," she protested. "And I backed up all my claims with evidence from the play."

"But you didn't respond to the prompt," I said firmly. "The question was about Ophelia, not about love as a general topic."

"He didn't love her," she scoffed. "Any idiot could tell you that. He was using her to make his point. That's not even an exciting topic. Looking into his relationship with Horatio and seeing how that plays out is ten times more exciting."

I arched a brow as she went on and on. I had to admit I liked seeing a student get wrapped up in the works we read. It was just a shame she wasn't following the prompts that I laid out.

"Like I said, I appreciated your topic for what it was, but it didn't respond to the question I asked the class," I said.

She frowned deeply.

"Ruby got a B+ on hers and she didn't even use evidence," she said.

"Your classmate's work is not in question here," I reminded her.

She nearly pouted she looked so surly now. She sighed.

"Fine," she said. "Can I redo this then? I can't keep an F."

"If you'd like," I said with a nod. "If you have it back on my desk by Friday I can grade it and have it back to you by Monday, but I won't accept it after that."

"Okay," she said. She took the paper off the desk and stood up with a heavy sigh. "Thanks, Miss Mills."

"I'll see you in class, Emma," I said.