Alice ran down the hall to her English class at 8:25, a faded yellow sticky note with a scrawled note in the receptionist's handwriting on it. She was terrified of her English teacher, Ms. Bachman. Ms. Bachman had an ability to glare students down that could rival Mother. She was a tight, stingy elderly woman with bad breath and nearly no hair at all. She always smelled of cat urine and watery tea. And because of the Teacher's Union and that damned government, she was still a teacher, even though she could barely make out whatever a student wrote. She only ever assigned two grades: an A- and an F. The A- went on the papers of the students whom she liked, and the F went on those she didn't like. Alice always scored an F.

She reached the door to her English class, Room 173, at 8:26. She prepared to hear the sharp, raspy voice of Ms. Bachman. But as she composed herself and slowed her breathing down to make it seem like she wasn't running, a very different floated from behind the door of the English classroom. The voice was male. It sounded distant, but near; it was power and command and peace and gentleness all at the same time. She could make out a few words, and the voice sounded like it had an accent, but she couldn't put her finger on where it was from. It sounded very familiar, though.

As she found out when she opened the door, the voice did belong to a man. A man who was very tall, very skinny, and had very brown hair that seemed to have a personality of its own. He was dressed in a suit of deep blue, and he was perched on the desk, reading from a book of Shakespeare. No, it was definitely not Ms. Bachman.

"Oh, hello then!" the strange man chirped brightly, smiling at Alice. "I see we have a visitor. And who might you be?"

"Um." The man's enthusiasm caught her off guard. None of the other teachers here acted this happy to see a student. Especially a late one. "I'm Alice Smith. I think I'm in the wrong classroom."

The class tittered at her statement. They stopped laughing when she glared at them.

The man pulled up a sheet from the massive pile of papers on the desk. "Uh-huh, let's see...Smith, Alice. Yep, you're in the right class. Is this your fist day here? It's my first day here. We'll be new together." He stood up and crossed over to her, holding out his hand. "I'm your new teacher, Doctor John Smith. Hey, look at that, we have the same last name."

She shook his hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Now then, you can sit, oh, how about over in that empty desk by mine?" He pointed at a lone seat in the front row in the very corner. At least there weren't many people around her. She hated the people in her English class. She handed him the sticky note and crossed the room to her intended seat. Dr. Smith pulled a pair of rectangular glasses out from inside his suit jacket, put them on, glanced at the note, and then threw the note onto his desk. She wondered how he kept things organized.

"Right then, back to the Bard," he said, returning to his perch on the desk. Alice glanced at the clock. 8:28.

He finished the section he was reading–it sounded like the last bit of a poem–and he then addressed the class. "Who can tell me what are the components of a sonnet?"

Alice knew, but she didn't want to draw any more attention to herself. She looked behind her. Five students in the middle were staring forward, their faces completely blank. Two girls whispered to each other behind their hands, occasionally giggling and batting their eyelashes at Dr. Smith. One boy had his head slumped forward onto the desk, a wet puddle collecting beneath his face. Ten people were on their phones, either messaging other students or surfing the Internet. One girl was doodling in her notebook. The other six were either looking at the floor, at the ceiling, or at nothing at all.

"No one knows? Aw, come on, this is Shakespeare we're talking about! The Bard himself! Surely you have to have at least read something of his!" Dr. Smith looked expectantly around the room.

Someone coughed. Alice raised her hand timidly.

"Yes, Miss Smith?"

"A sonnet is a fourteen line poem split into four stanzas," she said, leaning forward as she spoke. "The first three stanzas have four lines each and follow the rhyme scheme ABAB. The last two lines form a rhyming couplet as the fourth stanza. Traditionally, each line contains ten syllables, and the syllables are arranged in iambic pentameter."

Dr. Smith was busy scribbling everything she said on to the board. "And can you tell me where the sonnet originates, Miss Smith?"

"Italy, I think."

"Excellent job!" he cried, whirling to face her. He pointed at the rest of the class. "You all should take lessons from her. She actually knows what she's learning."

Alice turned to look at the class. Most of the students weren't paying attention, except for the two girls who had been whispering to each other. One had a dark auburn hair, the other looked like she was of Orient descent. Both were glaring daggers at her. The one of Orient descent pointed at the door and mouthed the words, After class.

Alice turned to look at Dr. Smith, who was now passing out a piece of paper that looked like their homework assignment. She got hers at 8:30.

"Your job is to write a sonnet for class on Monday," he said as he wove slowly between the desks. "It can be about anything you want, as long as it's interesting. You don't have to write in iambic pentameter–I expect most of you don't even know what that is–but the rhyme scheme, line count, and syllable count all have to be the same." The class gave off a collective groan. "Aw, come on, it's not that hard. I've listed some ideas on your paper. You have the rest of the class time to work." More groaning ensued.

Alice snuck a look at Dr. Smith at his desk. He wasn't like any of the other teachers at this school. He was clever, off-the-wall, and easy to talk to. Moreover, he seemed to enjoy his job. He didn't give a dry lecture on an old, forgotten concept; she felt that she was learning something from him. This was clearly a teacher to impress. So she pulled the sheet of paper in front of her and tried to work.

The problem was, she couldn't think of a topic. So she looked at the list of suggestions: a memory of your childhood, someone whom you are fond of, a time with a family member, your observations on nature. She couldn't remember most of her childhood, she'd never actually felt attracted to anyone, the only family she had were Mother and Dad, and why nature? She looked at the clock. 8:32. This was going to be a long class period.

She finally gave up and began doodling in the corner of her paper. She let her mind wander as the lines flew out from the tip of her pencil like a spider forming a web. She didn't think as she sketched shapes and figures and lines and dots in the margin of her assignment.

A cough woke her from her reverie. Dr. Smith was frowning at her. No–he was frowning at her paper. She looked down at her paper to see what she had drawn. A configuration of circles, all touching each other. Some were connected by lines, some had other shapes inside, some had bites out of them like little crescent moons. The circles were each different, each forming a piece of something greater. She didn't know what that something was, but it felt important. But it definitely wasn't something meant for an English classroom.

Face burning, Alice hid her paper with her forearm. So much for trying to impress the new teacher. Because of the stupid sketch in the corner of her paper, she was fairly certain that Dr. Smith had just added himself to the list of teachers who found her a vile, insolent, and immature child.

She looked at the clock. 8:44. One minute until the next period. She stared as the second hand slowly made its journey to the top of the white hill. Six, five, four, three, two, one...

A loud bell sounded from the intercom on the wall and echoed through the room, bouncing from wall to wall. The students all put away their assignments, picked up their books, and hurried to the door. Alice was the first one out.

"Okay, make sure you lot do your assignments tonight!" Dr. Smith yelled at the retreating students. "I expect your sonnet imitations by Monday at the latest! That's three days for you to do it!"

Alice couldn't make out what he said after that. She was running down the hall, well on her way to Physics. She dashed into Room 116 and flew into a seat in the last of the lab tables. Breathing a sigh, she reached for her Physics binder when a cold thought dripped its way into her brain. She had left her sonnet assignment back in Room 173. That meant she would have to face Dr. Smith again at lunch and ask for it back.

She sighed dramatically as she slumped back in her chair. This was not shaping out to be a glorious day.