I woke up bright and early on Wednesday morning. Too early. I had already packed my bag the night before. I opened up my phone to check my emails. Couple of ads, nothing more. I dressed in my button-down shirt and put on a blue tie. I looked smart… but not too smart. I fixed myself a cup of coffee and sat on the sofa with my school notebook on my lap, a pen in my mouth. I checked my plans for the day and double-checked my bag. I turned on the hob and cooked some eggs for myself and Laf who should have been up by now for an early training session. He emerged not long afterwards, drawn out by the smell of food.

"Here you go, sleeping beauty," I smiled.

"Thank you. And hey, good luck today with the new class, I want you to tell me about it, okay?"

"Of course."

I pulled out the notes page and leaned on the breakfast bar to make last minute adjustments. I scribbled out a few things and rewrote them. Lafayette scraped his plate and mine into the bin and washed them before he left with his gym bag over his shoulder. I called after him and chucked him his water bottle from the other end of the hall. He caught it, thanked me, and continued on his way down the stairs and out of the building. I straightened my tie in the mirror and pulled my hair back into a low ponytail. I looked neat, tidy, approachable. I poured the rest of my drink into a travel mug and pulled the straps of my school bag and laptop bag over my shoulder, locking the door behind me.

It was still hot outside and the tie was already choking me. I got the subway and walked to the school, my room being at the end of the corridor. It was cooler in the light-blue painted room than outside and I felt better. I sat my laptop on my desk and wrote my name on the board. It was so clean for once, they must have replaced them during the holidays. I smiled. It wouldn't stay like that for long.

I was way too early for the kids arriving so I opened up my documents on the rough outline of the book I had got done. It was more of an ideas page rather than actual writing. But at least I had ideas now. A notification popped up on my phone and I remembered that I needed to turn it off, the habit of not having to during the time off making me forget the rules. It was a message from John. I grinned.

Good luck today, Alex! See you at the weekend ;)

Thanks! Can't wait

It finally hit me how nervous I actually was. It wasn't like it was the first class I'd had in my time as a teacher. Why was I so nervous? Probably just excited. I wrote down a couple more ideas and clicked onto the school site for the register, leaving it open for when they arrived. I picked up a black whiteboard pen and wrote down what I had planned for the day, what was to be ideally completed by the end of it.

Seemed simple enough, right?

The clock on the wall, above the interactive board, ticked away. Second by second. Minute by minute. I heard the bell ring through the corridor and stood from my seat at the desk and waited by the door. One by one, the kids walked into the classroom and sat at the desks dotted around the room. I'd rearranged them so that it was like a horseshoe, a space in the middle so they could all see me and I could walk around easily. A few smiled at me as they walked past, others with vacant expressions on their faces, clearly not happy about having to wake up early again.

When everyone had come in, I stood at the front and greeted them all.

"Hey, welcome back, you guys. My name is Mr. Hamilton, but you can just call me sir if you want. Today's gonna be easy, I know you don't want to be back… but that doesn't mean you're all gonna get to slack off all year, hard work is rewarded and the same goes that bad behaviour isn't overlooked. Got that? … good. Okay… I promise I'm not that horrible teacher that is just… super mean and stuff. I'm nice if you're nice, that's the deal."

I delved into the lesson, starting with registration.

"Sorry if I forget your names and faces, I don't know who you all are yet so bare with me, I'll get it eventually. It's 'yes, sir' and a little wave for me so I know who's who when I call your name, please."

I called out there names with ease and looked around the room as they all smiled and waved. Most smiled and waved. Good, I think I can remember their names. Probably. Hopefully. Introductions will help.

"Okay, next up. Little introductions. Just stand up… or stay sat down if you want… and tell us two facts about yourselves. Who wants to go first?"

Nobody put their hands up. I didn't blame them in all honesty.

"That's cool, I'll go first. Okay, so: I can speak three languages fluently, so that comes in handy; I… hmm… I originally wanted to be the president when I was your age, crazy, I know, but know I get to teach you guys, which I think is way better. Okay, that's two. Boom… who's next?" I looked around at the class and landed my eyes on a boy at the back who had dark brown curls and wore a blue t-shirt, "at the back, Jake? I think? Wanna go next?"

He nodded and stood up, I liked his confidence, "hey, my name's Jake. Two facts about me: I'm from D.R. but I moved here when I was five; and I like playing soccer with my friends."

I clapped my hands, "boom, that's great, P.R myself, Jake. Okay, who else?"

A little girl to the right of the of Jake lifted up her hand hesitantly.

"Go on then… I want to say Jennifer?"

"It's Jessica, you- you were super close though."

"Ah, I apologise, Jessica. Okay, wanna tell us two things about yourself?"

She stayed sat in her seat but cleared her throat, her face growing slightly pink, "uh, my name's Jessica… I have four brothers and I, uh, I live in the Bronx, but I lived in Brooklyn..."

I clapped my hands again, "that's great! Well done for volunteering. Four brothers, huh? I've got just the one. And the Bronx? That's cool, okay, anyone else?"

Gradually more people began to volunteer before I had gotten all twenty-four responses from the class. Last thing before break, expectations.

"Just one last thing before break, expectations in class. I have no doubt that I don't need to tell you these and you're probably a super great class but I have to say them anyway…" I listed off a couple of the rules on the interactive board and clicked off of the slide, "now, last thing I promise. Something I believe that all of my students should ask themselves is: what do I aspire to be? It's an important question, we should always be asking it to ourselves. What do we want to achieve and how do we get there?"

Jake shouted out, "what do you aspire to be, sir?"

It caught me off guard, "me? I… uh, I guess that… I aspire to make a difference. I want to leave this world better off than when I found it. Create something that inspire the best in people."

"That's deep," the kid replied.

I chuckled, "I guess it is, yeah."

The bell rang and I dismissed the class. They ran out in groups, the little girl, Jessica, walking behind everyone. She turned to me and said, "I think that's an amazing thing to aspire to do."

I smiled at her, "thank you, yeah. It would be pretty cool, right?"

"I think you could do it."

"We can only hope."

She waved and walked out of the door; I shut it behind her. I set out new exercise books and a couple of pens and rulers in each place for their return. I put up the slide about biography and autobiography writing and sipped from my travel mug. It was just about warm, nowhere near as hot as I liked it, but warm nonetheless.

There was a knock on my door. I looked through the glass and saw a tall, muscled man stood at the other side. I opened it.

"Mulligan! Good to see you!" I patted him on the back, our usual greeting.

"Hamilton, I feel like I haven't seen you in weeks."

I rolled my eyes, "that's because you haven't. Just sit on one of the desks, it's fine."

He sat on the table at the end of the horseshoe after moving the books and stationary out of the way, "so… how are the little devils?"

"They seem nice this year, actually. Why do you always say they're horrible, I never get the horrible classes, they're so good and talented?"

"You don't teach gym class… they're evil, I swear."

"They're kids, Herc. Leave them be. You just gotta show them that you aren't gonna take their crap but you're still a nice guy."

He blew out a long breath, "I have the younger ones now, we're doing circuits. Why didn't I go down the personal training path? Teaching kids isn't my thing."

"I think I have a friend who could help you with that if you wanted a sudden change in the career area."

"That would be… fantastic."

I checked the clock on the wall. Few more minutes.

"Come down at the end of the day if you remember and I'll try and arrange something."

He straightened the bandana around his head and smiled, "thank you."

"Anytime. Now go, you have circuits to build. The hula-hoops won't set up themselves."

He laughed as he walked back to the gym to prepare for his next lesson. I double-checked the slide presentation and moved the books and pens back in their place on the desks.

The kids filled the seats after the bell again and I stood in the middle of the room in the space I had left. They settled down when I cleared my throat and started to speak. I hoped that they'd stay this polite.

"That was good, coming in and getting focused. Good start. Okay, so, biographies. Can anybody tell me what a biography is?" I asked.

I young boy in a red shirt put his hand up.

"Yeah, Michael, was it?"

"Yeah."

"See? I'm getting better. Okay, go ahead, Michael. What is a biography? Big loud voice."

"It's like a story about your life, written by someone else."

I clicked the button on the slide, showing the correct definition, "very good. That's a perfect answer, well done, Michael. A biography, like Michael said, is an account of someone's life written by someone else. Now, if that's what a biography is, what do we think an autobiography might be? Maddie? Any ideas?"

A short girl with two long braids smiled at me and answered, "yeah, if that's what a biography is. Is an autobiography, like, I dunno… automatically written about a person. Like wikipedia or something?"

I side-smirked, "not quite, fairly close. A good try, and good job for trying to pick up on the 'auto'. Can anybody help Maddie out?"

Jessica put her hand up after looking around to see that nobody else was going to, "uh, an autobiography is an account of a person's life written by that person."

"Correctamundo! A word I have never used… and hopefully never will again," I received a few laughs for that one, "alright, so, autobiographies. For the first couple of weeks that's what we'll be focusing on. If you can, I'd like you to start your own autobiography. This is just to see how well you're doing and where you are up to in terms of the topic. I've got some sentence starters on the board if you need them. Write what you can, and we'll see where we can go from there. Off you go! First page in your new yellow books. Date and title is on the board, can we underline them please? Thanks."

I sat back down at my desk and added the note of underlining the date and title to the slide, something I had just remembered they wanted us to do now. I heard the quiet muttering of the students discussing what games they were playing at break, and the scratching of pens on the paper. I looked up to see that most of them were on task, all of them had at least written the first few lines, which in itself was a good start considering they hadn't done this before. They needed to keep up the pace so that I could mark them by the end of the week. I would have marked them for the following day, but I could tell from the noise levels rising that it was unlikely that they would all finish. After about ten minutes I started to walk around the classroom, answering questions and taking a look at their work. A small group of boys sat in the corner were all talking about their summer and I recognised a few of them who I had seen engaging in intense water gun fights. I moved over in there direction, they talking getting quieter when they saw me approaching.

"What are we writing about so far boys?" I asked.

Jake, who was among the boys, answered first, "I've written about my life back in D.R. and what we do now."

"That sounds good so far, can I have a look?"

He slid the book across the desk to me and I read from it. He had written a somewhat decent amount in the time given, I skimmed through it, not wanting to read too much until I marked it.

"Very good, keep it up," I walked away from them and glanced around the class again.

I noticed that Jessica hadn't taken her eyes off of her book yet and was writing very quickly. She had written almost two pages already. I smiled to myself… I was like that. After half an hour we paused and went over what everyone had done so far, some kids read sections of their autobiographies to the class. They continued, more focused than before. I sat on the edge of my desk and disconnected my laptop from the big screen and opened up a fresh document to write a brief autobiography of my own to use as an example.I left out the major details. The bell for lunch rang.

"Sorry, didn't realise what time it was. I'll clear up, you can go. Have a good lunch!"

They ran out in groups again, clutching their bags which probably had their food in them. Jessica stood up, still scribbling onto the paper. She handed me her book when I was collecting everyone else's.

"I… I finished it, sir," she stuttered.

"Really? That's great! I'm impressed. Don't you have lunch to eat, Jessica?"

She shrugged, "you can call me Jess, that's fine, too. It's easier."

I nodded, "m'kay, Jess. Well, I'll see you after lunch. We're doing math and then some science, sound good to you?"

She nodded, "yeah, but English is the best."

"That's what I think, but I unfortunately have to teach you the other stuff, too."

She went off again after saying goodbye and I locked my classroom door behind me as I made my way to the staff room. Herc was in there along with some other teachers. I grabbed my lunch from the fridge and refilled my travel mug with hot coffee, sitting next to my gym teacher friend. He took a piece of cold pasta from my tub and I scowled at him. He shrugged and drank from his own mug of coffee. I ate half of the pasta and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Here, have the rest."

"Really? Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure. I made too much, have the rest. It'll only go to waste."

I drank from the travel mug, burning my lips and throat. That's better. I pulled out my notebook and looked through the notes for multiplication and division.

"Why would they change math?" I grumbled.

"Beats me, but then I never did well in math."

"Oh, before I forget, here."

I gave him Lafayette's number and told him to put it into his phone.

"I'll tell him about you when I get home. Don't call him till I've told him. Wait till tomorrow."

He nodded and thanked me. After the hour long lunch break ended, I dished out the dark blue square-paper books to the individual students along with some pencils. They immediately copied out the date and title, underlining both, as instructed. I explained the different techniques and methods to find the answers to both multiplication questions and division questions. Most picked up well, and I went around to help those who struggled. I put up some practise questions on the board to see if they understood thoroughly. I was pleased to see that they were soaring through them. Not much work needed there. I decided that we could probably start on the circuits earlier considering they had practically nailed the math lesson. I took away their math books and gave out the green science books. On my desk, I set out the red and black wires, batteries and lamps. I showed them all what each item was and told them to sketch the circuit diagram shown on the board into their books.

"Okay, working with the people next to you, decide who is gonna be person A, B and C. So that's, you three… you three…" I told them who would be working with who as they looked confused. It was a nice number, dividing into eight even groups.

"Person A, can you collect three wires? Person B, two lamps, and person C, two batteries. Can anybody tell me why I'm telling you to get this much stuff when the diagram uses less? Yeah, Maddie?"

"Because if one is faulty, you can have a backup and test it."

"Exactly right! Right, off you go, tell me if you need some help."

They worked together, much louder than before, and seemed to figure the circuits out relatively quickly. Another one I wouldn't have to go over much. Before we knew it, we were packing up our experiments and getting ready to go home. I collected their books and put them on my desk, telling them to put up their chairs on the tables and to stand in their places. The bell rang and I dismissed them all without delay. I had three piles of books on my desks already and slipped them into a carrier bag I had brought. Might as well have had a little look through them when I got home.

I grabbed all of my stuff and headed for the subway, taking it back and walking down to my apartment. Damn, my room was cooler in comparison to the outside weather. I was still smiling despite the overwhelming heat which made the clothing I was wearing very uncomfortable. Today was a good day. I didn't know why I was worried. God, I loved my job. I opened the door to see Laf drinking some weird concoction.

"Welcome home, mon ami! How was it?" He asked.

"Great. Really great. The kids are awesome, they did the work… it was amazing."