Prologue
"There a zoo," the plump lady at the desk in the schools office had told me, as I handed in my forms for my first day of being a teacher at Manhattan Regional High School. In my head, I had heard the same voice, in which my own voice had been telling me. I wouldn't admit that though, especially, since it was Daz who had talked me into this.
"I'll be their zoo keeper," I tell her, as I sign my last signature, and she still looks at me as though she doesn't believe that Hero is really my first name, and I didn't really want to go into detail as to why my name was what it is.
"Good luck with that. You'll need it," she tells me, before she goes back to typing on her computer, as she was doing before I had even come in. I sigh, thinking to myself as to how this school was already stereotyping students, in which, I didn't think was fair to the students, and then leave the office, and head towards the area I would be in.
"Hello, you must be the new Literature teacher," I hear a male with an Irish accent announce, as I had found the wing, and my room number.
"Hello. Yes, that's me. Hero Smith," I tell him with confidence, as I continue to stand outside my door.
"I'm sure you heard about that bunch. The class of fourteen teens, who will not want to hear about how Romeo and Juliet. Well anyways, I'm Miles Davis. Freshman accounting teacher," he tells me happily, as I make a mental note that when he asks me out on a date, I would have to break his heart and tell him that I already have a boyfriend.
"Well Mr. Davis, it was nice meeting you, but I have a zoo to tend to in less than a half an hour, and I would really love to prepare for it," I tell Miles, as I hope that I don't sound bad-mannered, and turn to enter my classroom.
"You as well Ms. Smith, and good luck. Oh, and for starters, don't start out with Shakespeare," he adds, as I finally head into the classroom. If I was going to start off the school year with kids who obviously weren't going to be looked at without stereotyping, then I would have to think hard.
A bit later, as the bell went off, and students started piling in, I had come in with my last minute plan, and I waited until everyone was in that would be a part of the class, if they had chose, and technically, I couldn't stop them if they didn't want to be here. Then my idea had come into effect.
Has anyone ever read a book called 'My Posse Don't Do Homework'"? I asked the group of teenagers sitting and pretending that they had interest. I wasn't surprised when no one had raised their hand. The book would be outdated, and it would have been a miracle had they heard of it. The only thing that they may have heard of would be how phenomenal Michelle Phiefer was in the movie.
"Are we going to learn anything here today, or are we going to talk about shit that no one cares about? This is the twenty first century, not the stone age," a student in back had announced, and the rest of the classroom had broken out in laughter.
Then something had come to mind. "Okay, if no one has read that, then who can tell me what these three titles have in common," I announce as I turn around and write what they were on the whiteboard. "If anyone gets it right, no homework will be given out. Now for the catch," I announce, as I look around, and hope that this is a challenge for them. I could see that they were thinking, and I wasn't about to give them the answer.
"You get it wrong, we start with Romeo and Juliet, and an eight paragraph essay about you wished it could be modernized, or you get to join the community show choir," I announce proudly, as I was sure that this would give them some motivation.
"Honestly, no one gives a shit about this. You're just a teacher, who is waiting for us to fail every week," a male student spoke up, as the bell rang announcing the end of class. I hadn't erased the whiteboard, as I had left the clues up. I wanted them to have motivation, and if that took three songs written about Lord of the Rings which had become famous by Led Zeppelin, then so be it. One way or another, I was going to tame this zoo, even if music had to be involved.
I can honestly say, that it hadn't worked out right, and I wasn't about to give up on these kids, as other teachers in this school system had, and I could recall being in their shoes, but I pushed that aside. I knew this wasn't going to be easy, but hell, it was worth a short, and in nine months from now, these kids would be better than just a zoo, but the words that haunted me the most was the boy who had said those words before class left. Hell, maybe, I could even get him to look at colleges. Who knew? I knew I didn't, and I knew that there was something else I could do, and I would have to call him at lunch time, and that person, was someone I knew I could call for anything. My step-brother, Brady.
Okay, so this is a different SYOC, and I'm not even sure as to how this is going to work, but hey, it's a shot. I'm accepting 12 more students, being as I have two already in the story (one my own character, and the other belonging to Linneagb). For more about Hero and Daz, I would recommend reading my story New Year, New Directions.