Ask for an update, and you shall receive as soon as I am able. I think you'll be satisfied with this one, because I know I was.
Edited and enhanced: 2/1/2013.
A Magician for a Teacher?!
The door seemed to swing open in slow-motion, and just before the eraser fell, Carly was sure she saw a young boy, no more than 10 years old, walk into the room. Then the eraser seemed to strike his head dead-on with a low POOF. A thick loud of dust was kicked up by the impact, engulfing the boy entirely.
"Woo-hoo! Yeah, baby. Right on target!" Sam stood up and yelled, feeling triumphant over her apparently successful prank, unable to control herself. But then the cloud of dust began to dissipate, and the clearer things got, the wider her eyes got. There was no longer anyone there. The boy had mysteriously disappeared. Then Sam felt something settling in her hair. As she looked around, another little cloud of white dust floated down around her. "What? What happened to my hair? WHY IS THERE CHALK DUST IN MY HAIR?!"
The entire class was awestruck. Not only had Sam's prank failed, but she seemed to experience exactly what was supposed to happen to whomever walked through the door.
"What just happened?" Carly and Gibby both turned to Freddie at the same time, only to find he'd asked the same question at the same time.
As if to answer their question for them, the closet door suddenly opened, and out stepped a young man in his late-teens. "Good morning, everyone," he greeted them warmly with a smile as he crossed to the front of the room and set his briefcase on the desk. He was wearing a green suit with a red-brown tie, and had auburn hair that reminded Sam of a big meatball, as almost everything made her think of meat. There was a scar on his left cheek, but it only seemed to compliment his features. He was so handsome, and he spoke with such a charming British accent that the jaws of every girl in the room dropped. "I hope you enjoyed my little switcharoo just now."
After what seemed like several minutes of silence, Carly raised her hand and spoke. "Uh, what happened to the boy that came through the door? And how long were you in the closet?"
"Yeah, and how did all this chalk dust get in my hair?" Sam added, still trying to shake it loose.
"Oh, right," the young man said casually. "Let me help you with that." He walked over to Sam and started moving his hands around her head, as if attempting to perform some kind of pantomime routine, and then suddenly snapped his fingers and closed his hands. At the same moment, Sam started scratching her ear.
"All of a sudden, it feels like I've gone deaf in this ear," she said, trying to stick her finger in her ear to unclog it.
"Come on, Sam," Freddie said, not buying it. "We all know you're not deaf."
"No, I mean it!" she said, scratching harder, as though ready to rip her ear off. "There's something in there. I can't hear anything in that ear." But before she could say anything else, the young man put two fingers near Sam's ear and said, "Watch carefully, students. Nothing up my sleeve, and …" and with a funny sounding whistle, he pulled an extra-long piece of chalk from the speechless blonde's ear.
He was instantly met with thunderous applause from the class. The shocked Carly, Freddie and Gibby were among the loudest.
"Wait a minute," Sam interrupted. "How did that get in my ear?"
"Oh, this?" the man grinned innocently. "Ever since I entered this room, you've had it. You simply didn't realize it."
"Huh?!" Sam couldn't help but say.
"It's a pleasure to meet you all today," the man said, walking back to his new desk, tossing his piece of chalk up and down in his hand. Turning around, he put on another big smile and said, "I'm your new English teacher, Negi Springfield."
After several seconds, Sam voiced the question on everyone's minds. "What did he say? Did you hear what he said?"
"I heard what he said – I think he said he's our teacher. Did you hear that, too?" Carly said, looking at Freddie.
"I heard that too. Could he really be our teacher?" he looked at Gibby.
"It sounded like he said he was our teacher," their slightly-overweight classmate repeated.
By this time, half the class, including Negi, was in stitches. When he'd finally regained control of his laughter, the young man straightened up and said, "Yes, you didn't hear me wrong. I am your new teacher, Professor Negi Springfield. And to answer your earlier question Miss Shay, that child who walked in when the eraser fell was me."
"What?" Freddie exclaimed.
"What?!" Sam sputtered.
"What?" half the class seemed to say.
"WHAT?!" Carly practically screamed.
Professor Springfield chuckled lightly. "Principal Franklin gave a similar reaction when he interviewed me and I told him that. In reality, this form you see before you is nothing more than an illusion, produced by specially treated mirrors and a special projector hidden somewhere in this room. It is designed to be virtually invisible and will only respond to a certain verbal command."
As people started looking around the room, he chuckled again. "Try as you might, you won't find it, students. Oh, and one last thing. Sam Puckett?"
"Uh, yes?" she answered, her eyes darting from side to side.
"I think you've gotten a taste of my attitude for pranksters in my classroom."
"What? But you can't prove that I did it?" she snapped, a little preemptively.
"Oh, but I can! And not just because of that preemptive statement," he grinned mischievously. He reached into his pocket and took out a miniature tape-recorder. With the push of a button, Sam's voice shouted, "Woo-hoo! Yeah, baby. Right on target!"
"Need I say more?" Negi winked at Sam, who shrank back into her seat and laughed sheepishly.
Half of the class applauded. Sam had been a thorn in the sides of many teachers for as long as they'd known her, and probably even before, so they were really impressed to see someone get the better of her for once.
"And by the way," he told them. "Just an eraser on the head is practically the oldest rick in the book of classroom pranks. I would know, because two of the students in my first class as good as wrote the book. On my first day, it was an eraser, then a tripwire that triggered an empty-bucket-on-the-head, followed by three suction-cup arrows on the butt, finally ending with a big hit to the back when I hit the desk." At this, even he had to laugh, followed by a few others who were bold enough to follow his lead. "It was very original."
"Uh, Mr. Spri –" Freddie started to raise his hand to speak.
"No, no, no, Mr. Benson. There's no need to call me that," Negi waved his question aside. "You can call me 'Professor,' or just Negi. After all, I'm younger than you guys, actually."
Many students were surprised. "Observe," he said, spreading out his arms. "My true self. Dispulsatio!"
There was a poof of white smoke and a flash of light, and in moments, a young boy stood before them. "Nice to properly meet you all. I am Negi Springfield, your new homeroom and English teacher.
Negi walked to an empty desk and sat down. "What were you about to ask, Mr. Benson?"
"Oh – well, I was wondering, what will we be doing today?"
"Eager, aren't you? Well, I thought we could spend the rest of the class period learning more about each other. We'll each take a couple of minutes and talk about ourselves. Names, hobbies, interests, goals in life … you know, that sort of thing. Shall I start?" His question was met with a generous answer.
"Well, you know me as Negi Springfield, but please, just call me 'Negi,' or 'Professor' would be acceptable as well. Principal Franklin probably told you about my college degree despite my young age, but there is something you probably figured out about me: in addition to being a teacher, I'm also a magician."
There was a great big "WHOA!"
"That's right," he smiled. "When I was growing up, my grandfather, the Dean of an Academy of Magic in Wales, England taught me almost everything he knew about magic. I can do almost anything, as you've already seen. I can transfer myself from one place to another really fast, as I did earlier, I can even put back together dust particles and make them appear in a person's ear, my own personal touch on the old 'Quarter in the ear' illusion, with the addition of induced deafness."
"So that's what you did to me?" Sam interrupted.
"Yes, and I don't like giving out detentions on my first day, Samantha Puckett. Franklin told me all about you, but I'll go easy this time."
"Thank you," she smiled at him. "You won't regret this."
"I certainly hope not," he commented with a grin.
"Excuse me, sir?" Gibby raised his hand.
"Yes, go ahead."
"You said you had one class before us. So what happened? Did you get fired or something?"
"Why no, not at all. Actually, one week ago, my class and I were on our way back from a trip to Wales. But apparently, an emergency required I stay back and take a later flight to Japan, but obviously I took a wrong turn and got on the wrong plane. So there I was, in Seattle with no idea what to do now. Lo and behold, I find an ad in the paper for a replacement English teacher, so I figured that until I can contact Mahora Academy and book a flight back to Japan in about a month, I'd teach here."
"So what are your goals in life, Professor?" Carly asked with interest.
"To find my father. You see, my parents disappeared when I was just a baby. But when I was only a few years old, my village in Wales was attacked and burned down, and most of the villagers … were killed."
There was an audible gasp.
"And when I was about to be killed, my father suddenly appeared and saved me and my older sister, driving out all the attackers. But then he disappeared again. My goal is to travel the world, in the hopes of finding him again, even if it's just long enough to get to know him."
His class was in awe. For the rest of the period, they mostly just asked him questions about his father and his life. He didn't get a lot of time to find out about them before the bell rang.
"Well, that's it for today, everyone. Your only homework for tonight is to write me a page about you. Tell me about yourselves so I may get to know my students."
"Well, that was nice of him not to give Sam detention," Carly said as they walked out of school that afternoon.
"Yeah, now she can help us plan iCarly for tomorrow night," Freddie added.
"Oh, come on," Sam complained lazily. "I've already got homework to do for the new teacher. He doesn't like to give detention, but he's never heard of 'no homework on your first day of teaching'?"
"There's no such thing," Freddie told her.
"Whatever, Benson."
"Come on," Carly said, trying to cheer her best friend up. "Let's go to the Groovy Smoothie. Then we'll go to my place and plan for the show."
"You know, speaking of iCarly, he never mentioned the show, even though he seemed to know about us from Principal Franklin. I wonder why?" Freddie asked.
"I don't know. Maybe he's just stupid," Sam suggested.
"I don't think so, Sam," Carly smiled. "Most geniuses tend to be smart."
"Just a thought," she said, dismissing her own comment. "There was the fact that he didn't really hold class today. He just kept talking about himself."
"Well, we were all asking him questions the whole time," Freddie pointed out.
"Shut up, Fredward. Let's take the bus. My mom said she'd sooner sleep with Spenser than give us another ride home this month."
"Just as long as no one falls asleep and we end up in Vancouver like Spenser did that one time. I'm looking at you, Sam," he said.
"And I'm looking for something to hit you with," she shot back as they got on the school bus.
Well, it had to happen eventually. Sam is back to her old bully self, but it felt good to have someone stick it to her, especially since it was Negi who often been the punching bag of his class at Mahora. *coughs* Asuna! *coughs*
Anything you'd like to see when they do iCarly? Because I'm fishing around for ideas. Let me know in a review!
Any reviews would be much appreciated.
