***I really don't know if this story belongs in this category This is my best attempt to write a modern day version of TSOM the names are different, (except Maria's) and there are new characters, scenes, and situations. The story follows the basic plot of TSOM but if ya don't think it fits here, please tell me!!! So, please R/R!
Chapter 1: This is me
I was always a fan of children. I truly loved them to death.
Especially the little ones, how they always pronounce their words funny, or how they say such profound things without even knowing their true impact on those listening. What ever it was, I truly thought of them as small specks of magic in our universe. My love of children started way back when I was about 9 years old. I had loved little kids before, but this age truly made me realize how precious they really were, even though I was but a child myself. At this age, two of my aunts gave birth and brought the babies to our annual family reunion. I met them there and spent most of my time trying to convince my aunts to let me hold them or play with them. As time went by, my love of children grew. In high school I took child development and care of children classes I could
manage to cram into my already busy schedule. Knowing all this about me, it will come as no surprise to you that when I grew up I decided to become a teacher.
When I applied to become a teacher, jobs were scarce. I managed to snag a classroom in a small, private school in the middle of no where. I was 27 years old when I got the job, and worked as hard as I could for the next five years making an extremely light salary. This however didn't bother me one bit, as I loved my job and the people who were apart of it... especially the children.
The school I worked in was a small, square brick building located some where in central Pennsylvania. In the front was a small parking lot filled with older cars. In the back was a charming playground which consisted of a wooden climber, a long slide, swings, and a basket ball court. A fence surrounded the entire playground. On the outside of the fence were miles and miles of woods. My classroom was rather cozy with 17 desks, one for each child and one for me. All through out the room I had tacked up cute school pictures, education posters, and the children's artwork. This was my best attempt to hide the unpainted brick walls, which surrounded the tiny classroom, except for the two windows, located on the right wall. Other then these special qualities, the school I worked for was special in one other way... it rented out teachers. That sounds a bit strange, but that's the best way to describe it. Every now and then, a rich family would call upon the school requesting an in-house teacher. The headmaster/mistress would then pick one of the top
teachers in the school and send them off to live with the requesting family for however long that family needed an educator. One sticky summer day not long after school had ended for the year, I was called up to the headmistress's office. This is where my story really begins...
As I walked up the old cement stairs, which would take me to the head mistresses office, I really did know in the back of my mind what this visit was going to lead to. Once I reached the headmistress's door I
tapped lightly. As I waited to be called in I examined the peeling sign on the door which read: PAULA SIMMIONS, HEADMISTRESS. I heard a faint voice call from within, so I slowly pushed the heavy, old door open. On the far side of the room, an old woman sat behind a wooden desk, her white hair pulled tightly into a bun sitting near the top of her head.
She smiled at me then began to talk.
"Maria! How are you," Mrs. Simmions asked, beckoning to the chair placed in front of her desk.
"Oh, well pretty good," I smiled and walked over to the chair where I sat down; "It's sunny and warm outside so I can't complain!"
"Well," she said flipping through some papers on her desk, "I believe I have some good news for you, which should greatly improve your mood from pretty good to great. We have gotten a request from another family
for a personal educator, and I have picked you for the job! Now you know this is a great opportunity. For starters, it pays more then just working here-"
"Mrs. Simmions, I'm sure this would be a wonderful job, but I really love working here, and I'm more used to working with larger groups of children, not just one or two. Plus I-" she then cut me off.
"Not to worry! There are seven children in this family, and they're all yours," she said brightly.
"S-seven children," I stammered.
"Yes! I do hope you say yes Maria, because I've already sent the family your information."
"So, um I guess I don't really have a choice then," I asked.
"Precisely! I'm sure you'll love the job though."
"Well I guess I will. Now where is it I am to move and what is the family name?"
"You'll be moving to D.C. to work for Senator Danny Easton."
She gave me a large smile as my jaw begun to drop. Senator Easton was the most well know and adored senator in the United States. As the senator of California, he did much good for his state, and in return was graced by terrible misfortune.
Three years ago, not long after he had won election, his wife died in a car accident cause by a drunk driver. She left him with seven children and a state to take care of. It had been a rather hard time for the family, I
had read about them and their loss in the paper every day for months. As I reflect back on the situation now, I'm sure millions of Americans reading about his personal life did not help out their situation very much.
"You will arrive at their home in D.C. on August 15th," Mrs. Simmions said interrupting my thoughts.
"Oh, right," I said, mentally shaking my thoughts away.
"All the information you need in this packet," she said handing me a folder that I assumed was full of papers, "and if you have any questions feel free to call me. You will need to clean out your classroom by the end of the week."
"Yes," I began, standing up and heading for the door, "by Friday."
"Oh and Maria," Mrs. Simmions piped up, "Good luck."
That night I went home to my shabby, one bedroom apartment where I lived alone. I ate a late dinner, then settled down on my couch and turned the Tonight Show on quietly in the background. I pulled out the packet and began to read through it quickly. It turned out that there really were seven children ranging in age from five to sixteen. Next to their name and age were the grades they received in school. The oldest child was a sixteen year old girl who did okay in school, receiving mostly
B's from her teachers. Her name was Amanda and she was going into her junior year. The next age was 14 and these kids were a set of twins. One was a boy named Zach and one was a girl named Hillary. Zach got the same grades as Amanda, but Hillary got all A's and A
pluses, except for an A- in Spanish. Next came Luke at age 12 going into 7th grade followed by Julie at age 10 going into 6th. They both did well in school. The last two kids were Mimi and Audrey. Mimi was eight and going into 3rd grade and Audrey was five and going into kindergarten. Once I was done going over the packet, I decided it would be best if I went off to bed.
I fell asleep easy that night, as I did the rest of the nights that week. On Friday, my last day in my classroom, I was cleaning out the remaining items in my desk. I was sitting there trying to scrape out the
dried glue which lined the bottom of my desk drawer, when I head a knock on my already open classroom door. I looked up quickly, and
was a bit surprised to see a fellow teacher, and good friend Carl Taite. He smiled at me then walked over to my desk slowly.
"So," he began smiling down at me, "moving on then, are we?"
"I guess you could call it that," I replied with a smile.
"You excited?"
"As much as I can be, I guess."
"How could you not be? You're going to work for a great man!"
"Yes, well we'll see about that," I said softly.
"What do you mean," Carl asked.
"Some times people on TV are not all they're cracked up to be..."
Carl smiled at me as soon as I said this, then leaned down and whispered into my ear.
"Yes, and I believe that's the way the family is going to think of you once your stay is over."
With that he stood up straight, winked at me and left the room.
The summer flew by rather quickly after that. I spent most of my time at home creating lesson plans and gathering the information I would need to teach. August 14th, the day before my departure, seemed to roll around too quickly. That evening, as I was packing my stuff, I heard a knock at my door. I walked out to my living room, where my front door was located and peered through the tiny peephole. There stood Carl, his hands behind his back. I opened the door smiling.
"What are you doing here," I asked happily.
"Well, I thought it would be right to bring the traveler a parting gift," he said as he leaned over to give me a hug. He handed me a little, nicely wrapped box. It had shinny silver paper and was tied up with a pretty pink ribbon. I untied the little ribbon, and pulled off all the wrapping paper. In my hand sat a small, ivory box. I slowly pulled off the lid. I then saw the continence, and begin to laugh.
"Oh, how generous," I said jokingly, smiling up at Carl.
Inside the box sat a single, black hair band.
"Well," Carl said, "This is a gift that I got for three reasons. The first is so you will be able to keep your hair out of your eyes while chasing seven kids around an extremely large house. The second, is so that you never forget your best friend in the whole, wide world-"
"And who is that," I cut him of smiling.
"Why me of course," he exclaimed, then continued, "And the last reason is to remind you that things are not always as they seem to be. For example, you didn't think that a black hair tie is what you would find in this box, did you?"
"Well," I began, "thanks so much for the lovely..." I stopped in mid sentence as he pulled out another box. This one looked rather old and beat.
"Open it," he said.
I pulled off the rotting top, shuffled some tissue paper aside and my jaw dropped. Inside was the most beautiful necklace I had ever seen. Connected to a silver chain, was a small, deep blue, smooth
stone. The stone had specks of silver and gold in it, making it look like a painting of the night sky. I starred up at Carl, a look of awe written all over my face. He took the necklace from my hands and connected the two ends behind my neck.
"Again, things are not always as they appear." he said with a soft smile.
"Now, where's all the packing?" He said in a louder voice.
There was a quick pause before I could think to answer.
"Oh right," I began, "Well, as you know I sold mostly everything, except my clothes, but Goodwill will be able to make good use of them. After all, I'm going to be provide room and board at this place."
"Right... and Goodwill is coming to pick up your stuff tomorrow morning before you leave?" Carl asked.
"Yep," I said cheerfully.
"Well," he began, "I brought our favorite movie, and I thought it might be nice to give it one last watch before you leave?"
I gave a cry of delight as he pulled out THE SOUND OF MUSIC and a bag of microwave popcorn.
"How about you go set up the movie, while I go make some popcorn," he said as he handed me the movie, then walked off to the kitchen. As I sat, fast-forwarding through the previews, I enjoyed my time listening to
the soft pop pop pop of the popcorn and a happy Carl humming a song that sounded a lot like Do-Re-Mi. He came back into the room and I pushed the Play button on the remote and we began to watch our movie together for the last time.
Sadly, I was a bit tired when the movie began. Halfway through, I got too tired to keep my eyes open. I fell asleep on Carl's shoulder and barely
remembered him leaving. All I can remember is he giving me a light kiss on the forehead, then saying goodbye and then leaving my apartment quietly.
The next thing I knew, I heard a loud knocking on my door. I opened my eyes slowly. Sunlight was streaming through my living room windows and I was still lying on my couch in yesterday's clothes. The
knocking came again.
I got up and walked over to the door, glancing at the clock as I crossed the room. It read 9:35am so I knew the Goodwill people were here to pick up my stuff. I opened the door slowly, and saw two men in blue uniforms with nametags that read Bill and Sanders.
"Hello, Miss," the one named Bill said, "We're here to pick up your stuff," he finished smiling.
"Yes," I began, "Everything in here you can take... just not the suitcases in the bed room... but the bed in that room is all yours."
Seeing as I had hardly any stuff, it took but half an hour to clean out the apartment. During that time, I loaded all the stuff I was keeping into the back seat of my old car.
"Thanks Miss. Your check for all this stuff will be sent to your new residence," Bill said.
"Thanks." I said smiling.
Bill tipped his old baseball cap and climbed into the drivers seat, next to
Sanders. He then turned on the engine, and drove off.
I walked back up to my apartment, where I walked around one more time. I felt sad knowing I was leaving the home I had known for so many years, but in some strange way I also felt happy. I felt happy because I was turning a new page in my book, beginning a new adventure. I closed and locked my apartment door behind me for the
last time, then walked down to the realtor's office where I turned in my key. I stepped into the blinding sunlight after leaving my apartment building for the last time. I smiled to myself as I walked over to my maroon car. I climbed in, and drove four buildings down the street to the local gas station called Al's. I pulled up to the closest pump, rolled down my window, then turned off my car. A few seconds later, old mister Al came hobbling out to my car, wearing his usual red checkered shirt under beat up old denim overalls.
"Hello, Maria," he greeted me cheerfully, "So, uh today's the day?" he said as he began to fill my tank. I had been a frequent customer, and therefore he knew the type of gas my car took.
"Yeah."
"Bet you're excited."
"Well..."
"Oh come now, it's a new opportunity! I'm sure you'll love it!"
"I hope your right," I said, giving him a big smile.
"Oh you know me," he said closing up the tank, "I'm always right."
He then gave me a quick wink, smiled, then continued on.
"Since it's your last day here... my goodbye present to you will be a tank of free gas... it's not much I know, especially for a good friend, but it's the best I can do."
"Oh no! You can't do that!"
"I can and I will!" he said smiling again, "Now, you be on your way... and best of luck to ya!" he said as I turned on the cars engine.
"Thanks Al," I said sticking my hand out the car window and putting a 20-dollar bill in his front pocket, "It's not much, but it will have to do."
With that I smiled and drove out of the station. I drove onto the highway and picked up speed, heading off for Washington D.C. At this point, I had no idea what was about to happen, but I felt confident and ready to face it.