A couple of weeks had passed as the two discussed potential times for tutoring. Miss Isles had stepped into an acting head of Histories role since one of the other teacher had to take some leave, and this made her schedule a little more hectic than usual. Jane on the other hand, whilst her schedule had remained pretty much the same, there was still the matter of dealing with her family's … restrictions on her lifestyle, as she thought of it.

To: jane. .

Subject: Tutoring

Good afternoon Jane,

Thank you for supplying me with your timetable, once again.
I notice that you have a free period 2 on Thursday of Week A. If it suits, perhaps this would be an appropriate time to schedule a tutoring session.

I realise that this would indeed mean that you would have History period 2 and then a review of it period 3 the same day. If this is a problem, please let me know.

Regards,

Miss Isles

Jane didn't get around to reading this until after dinner that evening. This particular time of night was referred to as 'the calm' she would joke to herself. The boys and her dad would be watching something on the t.v and her mum was busily moving around the kitchen clearing the dining room table and doing the dishes. She would help with the dishes every second night, as negotiated when she began year 12. She had argued that it was so she could study more, of which she did have the intention. More so though, it was so she could have at least some time to herself.

Tomorrow was the Thursday to which Miss Isles was referring, but she was pretty sure they probably wouldn't be doing anything tomorrow. There was no guarantee that Jane would even have read the e-mail by that point. Regardless, she sent a reply, and went back to scrolling through Facebook and looking over the study notes she'd been making for some of her classes.

•••

As Jane packed up her books along with the other students, she was interrupted by a somewhat confused but always authoritative Miss Isles. "Miss Rizzoli," she paused.

Frost and Korsak both let out girl-ish squeals as they began to mock. "Jane's in trouble, Jane's in trouble." They practically sang the words.

"Oh shut up," she said, playfully nudging them both away. "I'll meet you at the lockers."

The two just laughed as they exited the classroom.

"Yep, Miss," she said casually.

"I realise we at no point discussed a location to study," she said relatively formally.

"Oh," Jane said, a little surprised.

"The library had come to mind, however I wasn't sure if you would find it a suitable place to concentrate," she continued on, quite unfazed. "This brought me to Mrs Villa's office." This was the office that Maura had been using since she became the acting head.

Jane, to her surprise, let out a small gulp at the proximity this would put the two in. Although, she certainly preferred that to the library where all the other students to see and know what was going on. "Ah, sure," she said with a forced smile. "That should be fine."

"Okay then," she remarked quite professionally. "Then I shall see you after recess. Are you aware of where her office is located?" She asked courteously.

"Yeah, I ah, oh," she paused without control. "I didn't think we'd be doing anything today."

Miss Isles seemed unchanged by this response. "If you would like, we can begin next cycle?"

Jane swears that she saw the slightest bit of hurt in her teacher's eyes. "No, no, it's fine," she tried to say reassuringly. "Next period is fine." She smiled contently whilst trying to convey the same feeling to Miss Isles.

She just smiled small, and nodded in acknowledgement. "We can discuss a plan then."

Hey eyes were kind again. "Sure. See ya then… then," she essentially stuttered.

Recess passed at its usual speed, and Jane began to make her way to Mrs Villa's office.
The door to her office was a light brown wooden one with a large glass window in the top half. As she got closer, she noticed that the door was open a little bit, but couldn't see Miss Isles. Not wanting to intrude, she decided to wait in the corridor.

It wasn't long before Miss Isles arrived with a cup of tea in one hand and a large binder of work in the other. She greeted Jane with an apologetic smile. "My apologies, I was caught up in the staffroom."

Jane simply smiled casually and said, "No worries. I literally just got here anyway." She hoped her words would reassure the woman. She wasn't sure why, but whenever she was with Miss Isles, she felt the need to act in a way that would give her no reason to doubt herself. It seemed that Miss Isles was somewhat more fragile than she looked… She could relate to that.

She returned a grateful smile before leading the way into the office and having a seat behind her desk.

Jane stepped into the room cautiously and noted the two chairs on the 'visitors' side of the desk. Choosing to sit seemed like a simply decision, but it was suddenly quite an overwhelming one.

"Please, sit," she said with an outstretched arm.

She felt a moment of relief as Miss Isles essentially made the decision for her. She placed her backpack down on the seat next to her and sat patiently.

Maura looked at her with a slightly obscure expression. "Would you like to retrieve your books?" She said more as an instruction than a request.

"Oh," she said stupidly. "Duh." And so, she did. Pulling out her textbook, workbook and her small pencil case, she placed them on her lap and once again waited. Jane wasn't usually the nervous type, but this situation felt unfamiliar and, since she wasn't entirely sure what drew her to even arrange these sessions in the first place, she tread carefully.

Proceeding professionally, Miss Isles asked, "How did you find this morning's work?"

"Yeah, it was alright," she paused to think. "I mean, I'd like to do some more studying to find out a little bit more about it so I have a fuller picture but, I mean, I get it."

Miss Isles was impressed. She loved to see her students curious. Curiosity, whilst it may have killed the cat (which she doesn't believe happened anyway), was the path to knowledge and that was certainly something she appreciated. She found herself smiling almost involuntarily. "Okay," she said with an acknowledging nod. "If I can be of any assistance on your quest for information, please don't hesitate to ask. I may not know all there is to know, but I do know quite a lot and that is what I am here for." Always modest.

"Cool, thanks," she smiled. "Let me do the homework reading, and I'll come back to you."

She simply smiled pleasantly in acknowledgement. "Was there any work in particular that you were find challenging to grasp or that you wished to review?"

"Ah…" She looked down to her books, opening her workbook and flicking through the pages to see if there was anything she had found challenging.

"What is that?" She enquired.

A little confused, Jane said, "My workbook?"

"No, Jane, a few pages back," she said, eyebrows slightly furrowed.

Still unsure of what she was referring to, Jane began to turn back the pages one by one.

"That one," Miss Isles said as she once again saw the page with only a single line of writing on it.

"Oh," now there was concern in her voice. "It's the essay task you set for us last week," she said hesitantly.

With professional concern, she asked, "Is there a reason you haven't completed it?"

"Ah… no," Jane said, trying not to arouse suspicion. "Must've just had lots of homework or something."

Miss Isles pursed her lips a little in slight disbelief of her student's words, but didn't want to push. Trying to be constructive, she asked, "How about we work on that a little bit then?"

Jane nodded with relief.

Instead of writing the essay in full, they worked on making notes to be including and worked on the structure of it.

When the bell rang for period 4, Jane collected her books and thanked Miss Isles for her time, to which she responded, "You're welcome. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail them to me. Even if I don't get a chance to reply to them right away, we can discuss them next time." She smiled caringly yet professionally.

"Thanks."

As Jane walked into the corridor and to her next class, a thought crossed her mind that she would have to be extra careful with Miss Isles. She was noticing more than Jane was used to and she was unsure of how to respond. She took a deep breath, put on her game face and continued on with her day.

Hey guys!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading. I really hope you're enjoying the story so far!
Please feel free to leave a comment with feedback, prompts or anything else. Good or bad, I'd really love to hear it.

Also, if you have an idea of where you want this story to go, please let me know.

Hope you're all happy and well.

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