The Phantom School - 98 Vol 3 Troubles of the Evening

I heard someone running behind me in the hallway. With a folder in my hand, I wished the best for myself; that this sound wouldn’t bother me in the near future. I just had to get to the teachers’ room as soon as possible and make it out of here.

“Teacher! Teacher!”

The sound was getting closer. My heartbeats were getting faster, eventually syncronising with the footsteps. I simply kept walking, pretending I didn’t hear anything. It was possible that the word ‘teacher’ wasn’t used to address me, there was more than a single teacher in this school. My hope was that there were more than one in the hallway as well, even though my short term memory told me there weren’t any.

“Teacher!”

This… This couldn’t be happening. Just when I thought I was done with everything… She was just behind me already.

“Kenan teacher!”

There was no escape anymore.

“What is it, m’lady?” I turned around to face my annoying student who had found me just when the school was about to end. Even though I was tired, it wasn’t her fault. These people, my students… As a teacher, they were what I was living for; and I had to give my best efforts to be as helpful as I could.

The girl had a book and a pencil in her hands. She got closer to my side and raised the book a little for me to see.

“The fourth question.” she said. “I think the anode and cathode labels are placed incorrectly. In this state, the voltage is negative.”

I looked at the question she was talking about.

“May I have the… the, umm…”

“Here.” she gave me her pencil. Turning the pencil in my hand, I started thinking. It was a weird habit of mine: I could only concentrate if I had a pencil in my hand.

“Yeah.” I eventually said and looked at her. “There is something wrong with this one. You can skip this for now, I will have another look tomorrow.”

But instead of listening to me, she was focused on the spinning pencil in my hand. From her expression, I couldn’t understand if she was worried about her pencil or impressed by the rate at which the pencil was spinning.

In her hypnotised moment, I softly pushed her book back to her.

“Okay?” I said. She stared at the book in confusion for a brief moment, and replied.

“Okay, thanks.” she said. Of course she didn’t have the courage to ask me to explain things again after spacing out in mere seconds. I looked after her as she walked downstairs, defeated by her spinning pencil.

“I should stop doing the pencil thing.” I said to myself. It was being distractive more than helpful. Moreover, it had some addictive effects on me. I would feel an emptiness in me if I didn’t hold a pencil in my hand constantly.

Fighting with my own thoughts on the way, I came to the teachers’ room. A lot of people had already left the school by now. There was only one teacher in the room when I entered; another chemistry teacher named Yasin.

He was the only person in this school that I actually hated. Our mutual hatred was mostly based upon our attitude towards students and our methods of dealing with problems in the school. I would often critisize his cold attitude towards students, his strict and traditional teaching style and his sympathy for corporal punishment; while he would accuse me of being a laid back teacher and an ‘a radical, lawless anarchist; a failure of the system’, as he liked to describe it. Other teachers, even though they had their own views, would try to avoid getting involved in this everlasting fight of ours.

As soon as I saw him, I averted my gaze. I didn’t want to get caught staring at him. Even that could be a reason to get our guns out. As I was tidying up my locker, he silently got his belongings and left the room, like he was afraid of making any noise that could disturb me. At least we had one good thing in common; we both didn’t enjoy fighting.

As he walked out of the door, I sighed in relief. It was another successful, eventless day. At least that’s what I had thought for that moment.

He stopped walking just after he got out, and spoke with his back turned to me.

“The lab isn’t your property.” he said.

I looked at him. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I knew he could hold me responsible for any trouble he was having in the school. ‘Perhaps he just didn’t have such a nice day.’ I thought.

“Mind your own business.” I replied, praying that this wouldn’t start a heated argument just when I thought I was free to go.

He didn’t even turn back to look at my face. He stopped there, in front of the door, for a few seconds. He didn’t reply to me. It looked like he had something to say, but he didn’t want to. After this short silence, he simply walked away and out of the school.

“Schizophrenic rat.” I said under my breath and closed my locker. With slow and short steps, I got out of the school without encountering Yasin on my way out. I was almost sure he was trying his best to increase the distance between us, just like me.

If I had the power and influence, I would get him out of this school as soon as possible. To hell with it… If I had the power, I wouldn’t let him be a teacher in the first place. Someone like him didn’t deserve to be in an education center.

I got to my car waiting for me just outside the woodland surrounding the school. A little, dark blue Lada. There was no telling how old that car was, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was older than me.

“Okay, this day wasn’t that bad so far, so don’t start acting up!” I muttered as I sat in the driver’s seat. I inserted the key and tried to start the engine. The result was amazing, it had worked the first time!

“Off we go!” I said with a childish joy in my heart. The only thing that could make me sad today was the unlikely event of the engine stalling while I was driving… which eventually happened.