Sorry the chapter is short. Have had no time to work on it today.
He was not sure whether the day went horribly or well. It had certainly started off rough, yes, but after that first class, things got better. In fact, if he were to think it, the day actually did go very well until he heard the rumor that had started because of that foolish boy needing to go to the nurse. What was his name? Charlie Resman? Something like that. Erik remembered when he first heard the rumor. It had made him stop dead in his tracks, and the people behind him who were gossiping must have realized then that he was the mentioned teacher. They had inquired (reasonably politely) how much of the rumor was true, and they proceeded to retell the tale once more as they had heard it. When they got to the part where he supposedly threw the insolent boy at the desk, he stiffened and started arguing adamantly that he had not even touched the idiot. When further asked what had actually happened, he told them what the truth was; he had no reason to with hold it from them- he did not need to hide anything. The three seemed to accept what he told them as the truth, and promised that they would spread his version around the school. And indeed, by the time he was back in his Italian classroom which he had started the day in, it seemed the entire school was abuzz with how the kid had mangled the story to suit his own needs. Erik found it truly remarkable that roughly 550 people could know the same information within fifteen minutes. Of course, they were aided by the technology now a days, which he still found truly remarkable. Just think! Wireless phone calls, made from devices smaller than his hand, which could take color pictures and go on the internet and solve math problems and answer questions and track you! Where had he been all his life?!
The bell rang once more, signaling the official end of lunch. A few of this classes students were already in the room, and more came scurrying in within seconds after it had finished sounding. Indeed, they all seemed to be talking about the latest version of the rumor in various languages. He let them talk, not feeling like he needed to stop them. After-all, they were not doing anything to harm him, now that the truth was told. He tuned in to a conversation just after the second bell.
"Yeah! Isn't this great! I hope no one dates that kid."
"He seems like a..."
"Language."
"Gah. Whatever." A slight pause happened in that conversation. "Soo... what teacher did this happen to?"
"A tall one, very pale, wearing a black suit. Wears a mask?"
"That sounds right to me." Another pause.
"Wait. How tall is the teacher in front of us?" He could feel their eyes turn on his back.
"Dunno. Tall."
"Pale?"
"Seems it."
"He's got the black suit thing."
"Cool."
"Think he has a mask?"
"... I'm not su-" Erik decided to face the class finally. "Yeah. He's got a mask."
"Oh."
And so the class went.
At what seemed like too much time and too little, he was at last at the final minutes of his final class of the day; G period (last period for everyone) Italian. He had a gap period between E and G, so he had gotten a break, but he had not been sure what to do with it. If Erik remembered correctly (which he seemed not prone to do), then he had paced the hallways for a few minutes, wandered around out side for another few minutes, visited the library, and stayed there for the rest of the period reading some old book on some odd subject. Was it astrophysics? Something like that.
And now as this class wound to a close, he wondered what he was supposed to do with the rest of his day. Certainly, there was required chapel for everyone just after this class ended, but that would only take up another half hour or so. 3:34 would be the end of the school day on Mondays. 3:34. Why such a precise and arbitrary time? Oh, wait. There were seven minutes between classes, and lunch ended at 1:00, while the next class started five minutes later. Put forty-five minutes in for each class, add seven to each break period (only two, the break between lunch and E period had already been accounted for), and multiply by three. That made sense. That was the end of classes. Add another twenty-five minutes for chapel, and the day on Mondays would actually end at 3:59. Fair enough.
"Mr. Destler?" Would the mr end? "How do you spell..." the student said one of the vocabulary words they had just gone over; he was a notetaker. Erik gave him the proper spelling and fixed his pronunciation. If the students could not even spell these simple words, how were they supposed to spell the longer, more complex words?
The bell rang, signaling the time to go to chapel, and the students filed out of his classroom like pond water. He followed them after grabbing his ipad and locking the door. Although he was curious about what it would be like, he was reasonably sure that it would not be terribly exciting. He had heard that they had a decent sized organ there though. Maybe, just maybe, he could convince the organist (Paul Keis, if he recalled properly) to let him play something. And maybe, just maybe, it might reboot his memory.