Your First Day

Your first day at St Perpetua’s. One week before the students start. One week to get to know your classroom, your work colleagues and the curriculum. The bumf you received has given you a heads up, enough to get you started, but today is the real start.

You walk to the school. It’s only a 15-minute walk along the streets, or shorter if you take a shortcut through the woods. The short cut is fine on a sunny summer’s day like it is this first day, but you can imagine it’s not so pleasant during winter mornings.

The receptionist is the same as the one who had greeted you the last time, again wearing a tight white blouse, and short black skirt. She glares at you through her glasses. “Oh, it’s you,” she finally states. Points to the chairs by the side and tells you to sit there before she uses the phone to inform someone you’re here.

Five minutes later Mrs Oversight appears. She’s not as austere as she was for the interview. Her blouse beneath her suit is a bright orange which clashes with her blue eyes but does make her stand out. With her is another woman, much shorter, much younger, you’d guess mid-thirties, long brown hair down her back and intense brown eyes in the middle of a very pretty face. Her most striking attribute, though, is her large breasts. Not as large as the receptionist’s, but impressive none the less.

“Welcome, Mr Smith. This is Mrs Sorgood, the other member of the history department.”

Mrs Sorgood offers you her hand and you shake it. “Hi, good to meet you,” she says. All the while her brown eyes burn into you, studying you hard. Although the purpose of her interest is hard to tell. It’s not antipathy like the receptionist, more controlled wariness.

“Mrs Sorgood will show you to your classroom and office. There’s a staff meeting in a couple of hours, so if you could take him to that, Mrs Sorgood, that would be appreciated. In the afternoon we’ll go through the curriculum and the students.”

They lead you out of reception and into the school proper, a confusing array of corridors and stairways. The school has provided a map, and you did study it, but designs on paper can only help so much with reality. You’re soon lost. At a stairwell Mrs Oversight states this is where she must leave you. She heads down a corridor. You follow Mrs Sorgood up the stairs. You can’t help but admire her ass as you ascend to the third floor.

At the top of the stairs, she pauses. “Abigail,” she says. You look at her confused. “My name’s Abigail.”

“Oh, mine’s John”

“Well, pleased to meet you John. We can use our Firstnames when we’re like this, alone together, but Mrs Oversight insists that we use titles and surnames, so always use them when she’s around. Probably because she doesn’t like her first name, Ethel. Never refer to her with that.”

“I understand.”

She smiles. She has a very attractive smile. “This is the history wing. That is Mrs Oversight’s office.” She points to a door, which houses a plaque baring Mrs Oversight’s name and history underneath that. She carries on walking down the corridor. “These are storage cupboards, where we store textbooks and teaching aids. That’s her classroom. That’s my classroom. And this is your classroom.” The door to your classroom is opposite the door to hers. The office door was solid wood, but the classroom doors have small squares of glass in the top half, glass that is warped such that light seeps through but not meaning.

Abigail leads you into your classroom. It’s a classroom. You enter behind three rows of tables each with two chairs behind facing a large, ornate wooden desk, behind which is a wall of whiteboards. Two walls, the one with the door, and the one at the back, are smothered in history posters, a map of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent, a map of Britain showing the Heptarchy, a poster of Alfred the Great, a timeline of Roman Emperors, all posters you’re painful familiar with.

“Nice view,” you state, as you move to the opposite wall, filled with windows that look down upon the school grounds.

Directly below you is a quadrangle, surrounded by low buildings. Beyond them taller buildings hug the slope of the hill. Halfway up is a miniature tower, only a couple of stories high, with a copper dome as a roof. Its most distinctive feature, though, is that it’s a ruin, brick walls blackened, windows and doorway boarded up, the copper dome partly mottled with heat damage.

“You’ve spotted the Pepperpot,” Abigail states. “Ignore it. It was out of bounds for everybody before it caught fire in January. Now it’s completely out of bounds. Come on, I’ve got the crème de resistance. Your own office.”

The wall beside the whiteboard has a door next to the window. Abigail opens it with a flourish.

The room beyond is only slightly larger than a cubby hole. It holds a large desk, with a roomy, comfortable chair behind it and a couple smaller, wooden chairs in front. The walls are lined with half cabinets from the floor to stomach height, and primarily empty shelving above.

“Over there is a washroom and toilet,” she points to a door at the other of the office to where you entered. “Be aware that the only designated male toilets are next to the staff room. All other toilets are designated female only.”

“I suppose you don’t get much demand for male toilets, it being an all-girls school and all.”

“Correct.” She pulls out three keys. “This is the key to the washroom. It has a key inside as well, but this in case of emergencies only. This is the key to your office. It’s recommended that you keep your office locked when you’re not in it. And this is the key to the classroom. Keep them with you at all times. We don’t want the girls to get their hands on them.” She hands them over. “I gather you haven’t taught this age group before, so I’ll give you a warning. Most of the girls are well behaved, but we do have some that can’t help causing trouble. And, can I be honest with you, we don’t know how they’ll behave with a male teacher, especially one as young as you. Some of these girls are pretty naïve, their only interaction with men are fathers and brothers. So how they’ll react to you, I’m concerned.”

“You don’t agree I should be teaching here? I think the receptionist has the same opinion.”

“Layla has her issues. She was very close to Miss Wandering, your predecessor. I don’t think she understands the circumstances which **** Miss Wandering’s sacking. If she knew she’d understand. I understand the necessity of it, and I understand we are **** for her replacement. You were the best candidate but that doesn’t mean you’re the right candidate. Teaching teenage girls is hard. They’re at an age where their minds turn to sex. Putting a handsome, young male teacher in their classroom could be a recipe for disaster. I’m willing to help you wherever I can. I want to see you succeed, because I want to see these girls succeed. But if I think your presence here will hurt the girls, I will raise it.”

“Understood.” What your mind’s reeling over, though, is that she called you handsome. Abigail is the type of woman you’d have thought out of your league a few weeks ago. Classically beautiful.