Cerise

Cerise : Part - I

The entire story is to be read from Ruby's (our protagonist's) PoV

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"A-B-C-D-E-F-G"
(1,7,9,were jerks to me.)
"H-I-J-K-LMNOP"
(About two dozen were too 'male chauvinist pig-gy')
"LMNOP-Q-R-S-T"
(For 81 and 90,my choice of food was too oily.)
"U-V-W-X-Y-Zed"
(Most of the others, seeing me, fled.)
"X-Y-Zed, butter on your bread."
(Some so creepy, I would have been found in a ditch, dead.)
"If you don't like it better go to bed."
(112 and 119 should have been stuck in traffic instead.)
"Next Monday morning come to me, I will teach you A-B-C."
(My mom's idea of setting me up on blind dates was a bust ,I agree.)

I looked around at the three year olds in the classroom, who were totally adorable. At least when they weren't crying, fighting and relieving nature's calls in the classroom.

I had resorted to mocking my horrible social encounters via nursery rhymes. In case you haven't guessed already, those numbers were my recent date counts.

Of course I sang the part in parenthesis only in my mind. I didn't want my students to think I was crazy. At first, they were really scared of me and understandably so...but recently, they had started opening up to me. I didn't want to ward off the progress.

"Okay children, we are going to learn this rhyme today. Now I will sing it again, but after every line, you will repeat after me. Alright?"

"Yes ma'am!" , came the replies in a chorus. The rest of the session was quite uneventful, other than the usual one or two tantrums.

As soon as the class got over, I headed out of the school to a nearby cafe.

I had a lunch date today. More precisely, a blind date. A blind lunch date. I inwardly groaned at the prospect of meeting yet another shallow prick, because that really seemed to be the pattern.

I sighed, wanting to erase the day it all started.

I had come home after a really frustrating 'parent teacher interaction' meeting and my head was about to explode after all the complaints about how the children will be scarred for life if I remained their teacher.

As I settled down on the couch with cold pizza and a steaming mug of hot cocoa, I rang up my best friend to vent out.

"Hey Ruby! How did it go?" She asked cheerily.

"Terrible ,Mar."

What? She was my best friend. It was her duty to listen to all my cribbing and complaints.

"Tell me what happened."

"They asked me to wear a mask or a scarf while teaching. Apparently I am giving their kids nightmares." I spit out, sounding a little bitter.

"Don't take their words to heart. They are all just insensitive ass***es."

"Love, no bad words in front of the baby!" My brother yelled.

Don't for a second, think that my sibling is some sort of a saint. This was only because he was going to be a dad soon.

"It is not a bad word, it is a ...body part ." Mar explained and I could hear her eyeroll.

"Don't repeat it. I don't want my baby girl to learn these things." The idiot replied.

"What if it's a boy?"

"No, I know we are going to have a cute princess, who is gonna be sweet just like you."

Just when I decided that I couldn't take their nonsense anymore, I heard sounds which vaguely resembled kissing, coming from the phone.