Homo Nymphs
" ' Morning class!" Everyone halts in their tracks and rush back to their seats in a shuffle of feet and rustle of papers as chairs scrape across the floor. He waves them all to silence, foregoing pleasantries and raises a hand up for silence and attention.
"First of all, lift don't drag … your chairs."
"Second, lift don't shuffle - your feet. Walk. Shuffling is for octogenarians. Your footwear will last longer that way."
"Lastly, five minutes before I commence class, you are all to be in your places and not chewing gum, braiding your classmates' hair - especially not to the back of her chair, and hawking up spitballs halfway across the room. Have I made myself clear?"
Sunlight dapples shadows and light across the floor, highlighting the teacher's hair like the flames of autumn and his bangs cast a leafy umbrage on the patch over his right eye.
As affirmatives wave across the class, he takes a deep breath, "and another thing, speak UP!" - he instructs them. "Don't mumble, speech must be clear, otherwise no one can understand you. Got that?"
"Yes sir," the class manages as nearly one voice. He nods, as much to himself as to his students. Excellent.
"I'm returning your essays back to you from last week. The calibre of majority of the stories is high, however, many of you still require to check your work for typographical errors." He looks at each student in turn, "not because words are misspelled, but Word or the computer doesn't always catch incorrect use of vocabulary. Thus for today we will discuss the subject of 'HOMONYMS'"
"Homo nymphs sir?" someone being cheeky at the back there.
"Is that like nymphomaniac homosexuals Teach'?" a girl giggles. He expects this reaction, and hopes that little curve just to the left of his mouth does not show that he too is being infantile and he is thinking of someone specific. Somewhere across town in a high rise office, a certain Yuu Kanda sneezes.
"Oh grow up kids" that is someone from the front.
"No, Timothy, and no Anita." He acknowledges the boy in the front "and thank you Doug."
"Homonyms," he says again. "Anyone can explain to me what they are? Because really you should know." When no one ventures an answer, "well then we'll get right down to it."
He turns to the whiteboard and with a dark blue marker he writes D-E-S-E-R-T and next to that in red he writes D-E-S-S-E-R-T. He thinks for a bit, then in blue he writes below 'BARE' and in red 'BEAR'.
"Let's start with these two first as they seem to be the most common mistakes."
He then starts to draw on the board. At first it looks like two men in a pond, one has short hair, the other has long hair tied in top knot with a red hair tie and he has a definite scowl. He then encircles the two figures and when the picture is done, it looks like they are actually in a glass of jelly. "Here are our two protagonists in a dessert."
He puts up a hand when things click, fall into place and hands raise, "... and YES you are right … 'desert' as in the Sahara or the Gobi and 'dessert' are not homonyms because they are pronounced differently. STILL, you lot fall into trouble when you use the verb to 'desert'."
"Because if one of our heroes 'deserts', does the other gets his just 'desserts' when his friend leaves him to wallow in it?" He uses a finger to erase the short haired fellow out of the equation. Again he cannot help smirking to himself. Kanda shivers this time before exploding in sternutation again.
Bookman Junior then draws - what can only be loosely called - a bear, with his teeth showing and this elicits a laugh from the kids.
"This 'bear', 'bares' his canines" Lavi tells them. "Straightforward enough yes?" as nods of assent pulse through his pupils.
He rifles through the compositions on his desk and comes upon the one he's wants to put forth as an example, he reads an excerpt aloud, "I couldn't bare the thought of him in only in his bear skin just next door.." It is his turn to smile, with a gleam in his eye, at the students. A girl slopes down, with a faint flush on her cheeks. He is not cruel and doesn't name names, he's simply showing a case in point.
"Unless you are talking about bear skins of course, the two words should be swapped round. Okay?"
"To be able to 'bear' something, is to be able to take whatever life hands out to you," and he's floundering a little for another example, "and to 'bare' skin is to show unclothed flesh."
"Hey Teach' you embarrassed to say 'naked' yeah?" It is the tutor's turn to dust pink on his cheeks, as he does his best not to think of long-dark-haired-beauties he is too well acquainted with. Even as third one explodes from him, "Gesundheit!" Kanda's colleague Allen Walker yells across to him.
Lavi coughs into his balled fist, "your turn, give me some more examples of pairs of homonyms"
"'Grown' and 'groan'"
" 'Won' and 'one'"
" 'Queue' and 'cue'"
"Whoa there! Good, great!" he says clapping his hands. "You're getting the picture."
"Alright, now give me a sentence with both of the words in them, in any form."
He spots Miranda putting sort-of a hand up, as it's only right by her side, barely going past her shoulder, but he knows that she is making the effort so he calls her name.
She stands up straight and nervously starts, "Y..y..yesterday the debate team won one of the trophies in the Junior College finals." She exhales heavily and sits-falls back into her chair, like a deflated balloon.
"Very good, well done dear."
"I got one," shouts out Mahoja from the back row. "The grown man gave out a groan when the girl kicked him in the shins for making a lewd remark about her friend." She glares at the class with her arms crossed in front of her as if daring anyone to make any comments about that.
"Yes, yes, that's also good." Lavi beams at his class, "now boys c'mon, the girls have made a good effort, let's have the last pair from one of you?" He knows that the boys are less forthcoming than the girls, in English class. He does not really know why this is but that is the situation. He waits for a few moments, before he scans the class, if they don't volunteer, he'll just pick one then.
"Okay then I'll have a go," drawls the same kid who pointed out his embarrassment earlier.
"Thank you for volunteering Daisya," he gestures for him to continue.
"Uhmm… uh… yah. So …" Daisya looks round the class, then he looks behind and at the clock above Lavi's head, then gives a small smirk, boredom plain on his face.
"The recess bell was a cue for all the students to get into the queue for the canteen at lunch." Just then, the school bell timely rings to indicate that class time is over and they all - teachers included - have five minutes to get to their next class.
Lavi claps his hand for attention before general mayhem breaks out "Don't forget to pick up your essays from my desk and re-write," the slow rumbling of grumbles ripple through the class, "the piece. Try to make it better if you can, make sure you catch those mistakes and c'mon, you're college students studying creative writing. Use that wide and diverse vocabulary I know you're all hiding." He chides himself for his penchant use of run-on sentences. He feels the phone in his back pocket buzz indicating a text.
The text reads "Going home early, think I'm getting sick."
Lavi replies "K', will pick up supplies on the way back later xxx"
His phone buzzes in a quick rejoinder. "Stupid rabbit"
He knows it is Kanda-speak to mean - just come home straightaway.
The teacher smiles to his phone as he gathers his things together for his next class.
End