Title: Learning to Teach
Author: Simple Plan Rules
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I do not own ER or any of its characters. But I do own all of Ray's class, Andy, his wife, and of course, their cat!
Author's notes on the chapter: I stole a part of this from school of rock, sort of, you know the bit where he says he has a hangover and he asks for food, well I sort of got the idea from that but don't worry, I'm not majorly ripping it off.
Thanks for the reviews, by the way, I-Love-Shane-West01, Neela and Ray will stay in touch the whole time, don't worry! Here's the next chapter!
Chapter 2: Lesson 1: Listening
"So this is the garden," Andy had been showing Ray round the house for a while now, it was a nice house, no doubt about it, the only problem was the damned cat keep following him wherever he went, he really needed to go pee but he was afraid the cat would go with him.
"So the gardener should come on Saturday, I left the money to pay with all the other money I left, is that okay?"
Ray nodded.
"Well that's about it," Andy went back to the front of house, followed by Ray, where he joined his wife who was standing by the car.
"If you need to call me I left the hotel number on the kitchen counter," again Ray nodded, "Well goodbye!" Ray waved them off and watch as the two of them drove off.
He turned back to look at the large house and the cat, "Well it looks like its just you and me!" he bent down to look at the cat's collar, "Mr. Snuggles," he laughed and strolled back inside in search of the toilet.
He went in and was about to go when he heard a scratching sound at the door, he opened it "What now?" the cat waltzed in, meowing. "Piss off," Ray motioned to the cat, but it remained still, watching him. "Shoo," it still didn't move. "Fine, if that's how you wanna do things." Ray stood there using the urinal, the whole time the cat just sat there, and starred.
A few minutes later he was about to set off for the school, Andy had lent him his second car, when he got a phone call.
"Hey it's me, Neela, I thought I call you before my shift started, see if you got there okay,"
"Hey, yer, everything's cool, except the damn cat won't let me pee on my own,"
Neela laughed, "Glad to here everything's good, I'll call you when I get back to see how your first day went, if that's okay?"
"Yer that's fine, talk to you then!"
"Bye,"
He put the phone down and went off to school.
At school
"Well Dr Barnett, I must admit your résumé is very impressive! But can I just ask you one question?"
"Sure,"
"What made you quit being a doctor and decide to teach?"
"Well," Ray was bullshitting, "it's just the satisfaction I feel you get from teaching such fascinating young individuals," in truth Ray hated kids, teaching was his nightmare job.
The woman nodded her head as if she knew what he was on about. "Well if you follow me I can take you on a tour round the school and then you can meet your class,"
Ray smiled politely and followed the woman.
Ray was sure the tour of the school would have been exciting and useful, had he bothered to listen, he was not looking forward to lunch, but he figured he could just freestyle it and just go where his instincts told him to go.
"Here's your classroom," The woman lead him into a dull grey room, where a bunch of teenagers where sitting quietly in their seats, looking like they wanted to punch him in the face. "And this is your class, class this is your substitute teacher, Dr Barnett,"
A boy up his hand, "Yes Dominic," the teacher knew what he was going to ask, " he is a real doctor who gave up medicine to teach,"
"Loser," he heard a kid with mousy brown spiky hair and ripped jeans at the back whisper under his breath to his friend.
Ray sniggered to himself, you could've mistaken the kid for him a couple of years back, not only did he look like Ray, but that's probably what Ray would've said if he'd been in that situation.
"If that's all, I'll be off," the woman walked out, all the kids turned there attention to Ray, they were dead silent.
"Does anyone have a smoke?" the class looked shocked, "I'm not like a chain smoker or anything but I could really do with a smoke right now,"
No one moved, they appeared to still be in shock. "You," Ray pointed at the mini Ray, "You got any?"
"Yer," the boy hesitated as he walked up to the front and gave Ray a cigarette.
"Thanks," Ray got out his lighter, flicked it open and lit his fag, "What's your name kiddo?"
"Jake," the kid replied.
"Jake," Ray smiled as he exhaled the smoke, "You just earned yourself a gold star or whatever it is now days," the class started to laugh.
The same boy that had put his hand up before, put his hand up again, "Dr Barnett, I'm afraid its school policy that smoking is forbidden on school grounds,"
"Shut up Dominic," Jake replied and everyone laughed.
"Hey, hey, Dominic's got a point, trust me, when you go to med school, you learn about all the crap smoking does for your body and it totally put you off smoking, well, at least off chain smoking but every now and then, that's okay,"
The class laughed again, "So what now?" Ray asked, "do I like take the register or something?"
"Dr Barnett, I thought you where a teacher, surely all teacher's know that the register is taken at the beginning of class," Dominic piped up again.
"Is he always like this?" Ray asked the rest of the class, they nodded.
Ray picked up the register, "Err, well is anyone not here?"
"Everyone's here," a pretty blonde girl, who was sitting next Jake, informed him.
"Great," said Ray snapping the register shut, "so no need to bother,"
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dominic's hand go up, again. He ignored it.
Jake, unlike Dominic, didn't bother to put up his hand he just address Ray like a friend, "You play the guitar?"
Ray nodded; it was kind of obvious seeing as he'd brought his guitar to the lesson.
"I play guitar," Jake said, looking proud that he was like the cool new teacher.
"Does anyone else play any instruments?" Ray asked hopefully, everyone in the class put up their hands.
"Any bass players?" a few put up their hands, "Any drummers?" Only one person put up their hand, it was the blonde girl. "Only one drummer? And it's a girl? Guy's I'm ashamed of you!"
This comment seemed to tick off most of the girls but the blonde girl didn't seem to take any offense to it.
"So, does everyone like, well, do you all like good music you know like Green Day, Incubus, Weezer, Good Charlotte, The Chilies..." Everyone was nodding, well except Dominic.
"Great, then today's lesson is to learn how to play your favorite music on the instrument you play, those of you who play guitar can ask me if you want to know any tabs or stuff like that, but I don't know how to play any other instruments so you guys will just have to guess! Okay?"
Everyone went off to go get there instruments, by the sounds of things they liked the idea of this lesson.
At the end of the lesson after everyone had left, well except the blonde girl, Ray was clearing up his stuff.
"Excuse me," Ray looked up, it was the blonde girl, who had turned out to be really good at the drums.
"Yes?"
"I just wanted to tell you I think you're an excellent teacher and that your really good at the guitar," She stood there batting her eyelids and smiling as sweetly as possible.
"Thanks, err,"
"Katie," she'd guessed he'd forgotten her name, "Do you need any help?"
Ray was beginning to worry a bit, was this girl flirting with him? I mean she what like 17? Ray didn't want to lead her on but he could really do with another tour of the school, so he could listen next time.
"So it's like lunch now right?"
The girl nodded.
"So what do you do at lunch?"
"Dr Barnett!" she pretended to be shocked, "are you asking me out to lunch?"
Ray felt a bit stuck, if he said 'no', Katie would be crushed and he would have to wonder around like an idiot looking for the place where you get lunch or he could say 'yes' which would make Katie think he liked her too, but it would mean he would get lunch and avoid looking like an idiot. Damn you Ray, why can't you just learn to listen to people?
"Yes," Ray said trying to sound normal.
"Okay then," and off the two of them went to lunch.
As they walked Ray laughed to himself, the next two weeks were bound to be a crash course in teaching. Well he'd learnt his first lesson, always listen, no matter how boring the person is, even Dominic!
That's the end of Chapter 2, I won't be able to update for 2 weeks cause I'm in China! When I get back I will update asap!