April
I won the Speech and Debate essay competition. Great! My teacher is proud, my whole class congratulates me…
I felt totally self-confident about it until Mrs. Carmen said one sentence: "And now, you get to right a speech to be performed in front of professional judges at a nation-wide competition!" The next few words were "Isn't that exciting?", but I barely heard her. I have to write a speech? In front of pros? And how am I supposed to not die doing this?
I won the Speech and Debate competition. Great.
The rest of my week was fairly boring. I believe that "School" is all I need to say.
AP consisted mostly of listening to piano, different German heavy metals, and the occasional Japanese song (both of them seemed to appreciate this one called "Marukaite Chikyuu", though each sang it differently). The other few things we actually did in that class were sleeping and listening to our so-called "teachers" argue. So it was a real surprise the next Monday when Mr. Gilbert got up to speak with the class.
"My, uh, 'associate' here told me yesterday that we ought to have a subject for this class…..I-we have decided to uhm, explain the reason for the title first."
He took off his hat to reveal a small chick-like bird perched on top of his silver-white hair It fluttered its wings for just a second before giving a loud "CHIRP" and taking off. I was actually mildly shocked the thing could even fly! It was then that I really looked at my teacher for the first time. He was sort of…..in a teachery sort of way…kind of handsome. Mr. Gilbert was pretty young. At least, so it appeared.
The gentleman on the other side of the room stood. Interrupting Mr. G, he told the class, "Ja. The title of this course is AP, which stands for Austrio-Prussian: derived from the countries Austria and Prussia. Basically, we are here to teach you history from the point of view of these countries." The little yellow fluff-ball flew over from one boy's head, where it had been calmly perched, to Mr. Rodereich's, which he proceeded to peck at. With a 'hmph,', he snapped at the albino, "Would you please control Gilbird?"
The silver-haired one shrugged. "Nah, Roddy Eidlestein. He's pecking some sense into you!"