"Students, students please calm down." He leaned against his desk on his hands as he counted attendance. The majority of the class was already in the room. Their voices almost overpowered his, but he sighed with his eyes closed. "At least I don't need my ears to figure out who is here to start our special day." Unfortunately, one of Harold's shouts for his rubber snake from Sid shook them open again. Well, still he smiled. "Now now everyone, it's time to start the day." Mr. Simmons could feel the sweat at the back of his neck as he twisted around to collect the sheet behind him. The air conditioning was cold, so it helped with his nerves. For some reason, the man felt as if it really was going to be a special day, but for a whole new reason.
Looking back to his class as the bell rang, it was still a little loud. But the students were starting to get quiet as they waited for what would start as a typical day for them. Sometimes he had to through a little speech to them about how important it was for them to learn, more recently he had given it three times last week. Some students groaned when they heard the bell and laid their head on the desk. "Now, class. I have something very exciting to tell you today. But first," he glanced down at the paper in his hand, "let me see who's here."
Mr. Simmons really didn't need the list anymore. His class was so different and so special that he memorized who was who by heart by that point. He just used it to keep the class calmed down.
"Sheena?" The tall girl raised her hand. "Here I am Mr. Simmons." Her voice was a little high, but her happy face was cheerful. "Thank you Sheena," the man grinned graciously.
"Harold? There you are! I thought I saw you in the hall!" The boy had his lunch bag on top of his desk with his hand holding onto it. He grumbled as his other hand held his head. Mr. Simmons frowned slightly. "Harold, put your lunch down. It's class time now. You can have your lunch later." Again, as Harold set his lunch down he seemed to complain to himself. "Madame Fortress Mommy…" Robert shook his head and continued down his list.
"Brainy?" Not much more than a few shaky breaths as the pale boy waved his hand a little. "Uhh, here." The remaining students sighed at his typical answer. He never really talked. Sometimes Mr. Simmons would wonder what he was thinking because of his silence. He was probably very interesting deep down.
"Anyway, umm, are you here Lorenzo?" It wasn't hard to find him. The Latino boy always sat right in front of him, and with his laptop and cell phone in the mornings. Luckily, after having a conference with his generous mother last year, the boy was now shutting his technology. He stammered as he looked up. "Sorry Mr. Simmons. I'm here. And, and I'm putting away my stuff." Lorenzo grinned sheepishly.
"That's fine Lorenzo, as long as you're listening. Now, Curly." The black-haired boy was in the back of his classroom, staring at one of his other students, Rhonda. She was just a couple of rows in front of him. His circle glasses turned to him. "Oh I'm here Mr. Simmons. Definitely," and as quietly as he could, "for my dear Rhonda."He seemed to somehow purr.
"Um, ok Curly. As long as you're here…" he continued to look, "Sid?" His student was on his left in the middle. It was kind of weird how he stared at the wall; probably the calendar because from what Mr. Simmons overheard in the halls, Sid had made Arnold a cupcake yesterday for his birthday. He turned his head to the front. "Oh here I am Mr. Simmons..." he chuckled at being caught.
"Nadine?" She was over by the window staring down at a clear (and fortunately concealed) container of caterpillars. The girl wanted to sit where the sunlight would help her bugs. Mr. Simmons allowed that she could in fact bring her bugs to class. But the one rule he gave her was that she had to be very careful to not lose them. Nadine, who was still staring down at her insects, replied, "Here I am Mr. Simmons."
"Phoebe?" Robert grinned a bit at his intelligent student. She was always eager to participate in class. But he found it odd, as he took a good look at her, that Phoebe was leaning forward and staring at the door. She appeared anxious and worried about something. Mr. Simmons walked forward and laid a hand on her desk. "Phoebe?" He started to notice that other students were turning their attention to her. Suddenly her head shook as she stared up at him. "Y-yes Mr. Simmons?" He frowned in concern. "Are you ok? You seem upset." He could see her looking down and she quietly answered. "No, there's nothing wrong Mr. Simmons. I just didn't get much sleep last night." He wasn't going to take what she answered as the truth, but he respected her judgment. If there was something wrong she'd tell him eventually. Stepping back to his desk, "Well, that's quite alright, as long as you're ok."She didn't say anything else.
"Um, ok, where was I?" He stared down at the paper, losing his place with the sudden confusion. Scrolling up the list he found where he left off. "Eugene?" Eugene was sitting by Sheena, obviously unaware of what went on a few minutes ago because he must have been talking to her. With a cast on his leg from another bicycle accident yesterday after school, it seemed that Sheena had offered to take care of him again. The boy waved. "Hi Mr. Simmons! Sorry I broke my leg again." His grin was from ear to ear. It amazed him that Eugene could seemingly handle any injury apparently. "It's quite alright Eugene," the teacher replied happily in return.
"Gerald?" Gerald was also in the front row, leaning back in his chair. He looked pretty relaxed today with his eyes closed. "Here I am Mr. Simmons. How ya doing?" He smirked a little, which didn't go unnoticed. He popped a piece a bubblegum into his mouth that he must have stashed in his red sweatshirt. "I'm fine Gerald. But could you please throw out your gum? And also leave the rest of it on my desk. You can have it after class is over." The class laughed for a minute as Gerald grumbled his way over to the trash can and back (but not before laying his classroom snack on the teacher's desk).
Luckily, it stopped when he sat down. Mr. Simmons shook his head and sighed. "Ok, um Rhonda. I see you, "and stopping to check that Curly was still staring at her, "Do you want me to switch your seat with someone else after school?" She was sinking into her desk as she shouted a little, "Yes! Get him away from me! Please!" Rhonda was quite upset over her dilemma. But apparently Curly kept on passing her air kisses. In most cases Mr. Simmons would have thought it was sweet that the boy cared about her so much. But he understood why Rhonda would be upset. "Um, yes. Curly please leave Rhonda alone."
"Why bother Simmons? He's just going to do it again anyway."
The door slammed shut, having the teacher turn to her. Mr. Simmons heard his students all gasp at who had entered the classroom obviously late. He smiled in understanding. Helga sometimes would be late to class because of the things that went on at her home. Her parents weren't that easy to deal with. So within reason, he would let it slide. Especially today, with the way her classmates kept staring at her, because she looked somewhat different. It was a good kind of different that made Mr. Simmons both smile and feel puzzled at the same time.
Ever since Mr. Simmons had started to teach her, Helga never had put her hair in a ponytail before – and not wearing her bow no less. Those were a couple of things that made her special to everyone. She arched a brow. "What? What are you staring at you chuckleheads?" Stinky had raised his hand. "Why does your hair look all different?" The other students were murmuring the same thing.
Helga walked over to her desk by the boy and set her books on the surface. "Because you morons, I sleep with my hair down and the next thing I'm missing my stupid bow and one of my hair ties in the morning! Sheesh! what is this? The Spanish Inquisition?" No one bothered to even try and answer obviously not wanting to anger her. Sitting down finally, Helga kicked her bag under her chair. She shrugged. "Anyway, it seems I made it in time for roll call Mr. Simmons. Are you going to give me a tardy or what?" She also leaned back in her chair like Gerald did a few minutes ago.
He stammered, but still grinning no less. "Yes, unfortunately I will. But I'm very glad you came today because," after noticing that Stinky, Lila, and Arnold were all present as well, "it seems that everyone is here today and we all are doing something different. And I think your hair looks nice today Helga." The girl hardly received any compliments from him other than her writing. Helga was a very gifted writer with a passionate heart the way she formed her words. Just another thing he enjoyed about teaching students – he got to learn so much about all of them.
Helga blushed slightly, but not enough for everyone to notice. "Yeah, well…what are you going on about today for? Aren't we having another standard school day or are we all going to have a school carnival day again?" This got the other students cheering as she smirked. Mr. Simmons narrowed his eyes at the blonde, knowing that she did this on purpose. He knew he had to shout now before they all ran for the door.
"No, we are not having a school carnival day!" And even though there were few that he could actually hear, there were a series of complaints in the classroom. "Instead," he lowered his voice as the class calmed down with grumbles, "we will only have three classes today! Isn't that great everyone?"
There was silence – enough to hear a cricket chirp. And the students' faces were indifferent as they were all staring at him with half-lidded eyes.
Robert pulled at his green sweater, feeling hot even in the cold air. "Yes, well." He went back to the chalk board to write down the schedule. And this entire time he spoke, "We will have no science, history, or math courses today. The school had decided to do a test run for a "block schedule". This means that," the chalk squeaked a bit on the board, "we will only have certain classes a day and tomorrow we'll have the classes we didn't have today. The school thought it would help you feel less stressed with schoolwork if you had two nights to work on it instead of one. Grades have been slipping in some classes, so they want to see if stress has anything to do with it." He set down the chalk and turned to the students while pointing to the day's plans.
"First, we will have Music class, then Art, and finally English. In Music," his smile widened at what would happen, "you all will practice one of your three songs that were given to you by the type of music. Now, no one has known what kind of music you were given or what lyrics you have. So I think it will be very interesting and special to hear your pieces."
Harold banged his fist on his desk. "Aw man! That was due today! I don't want to perform in front of everybody! I don't even know how to sing right!" Mr. Simmons still smiled nonetheless. He clapped his hands together. "Well, Harold, I know that I said that classes will be longer than normal but-"
"But what? I stink and we all know it!" Helga smirked. She murmured, "Got that right Pink Boy!" The teacher narrowed his eyes again. "Helga…" The girl still was leaning back in her seat. Her hands lifted in question. "What?" she asked innocently," I was just making an observation." Not all of the others laughed again, but still….
"Well Helga, do you want to go first to present what you had been working on all year so far? Because I'll be happy to let you do it."
The class was silent as they watched the girl turn red in the face. Mr. Simmons wouldn't stoop to this level normally. But in truth he had wanted her to go first. Helga, from what he knew of her, wrote amazing poetry, could obviously act well on stage, and even directed a play before he starting teaching at P.S. 118! She would be a great example for the rest of the class. And it might also help her feel more comfortable.
Her head was still in shock at his suggestion. "What, what? No. No. Why-why would I want to? Can't someone else go?" She kept shaking her head as confirmation that she didn't want to do it. "Why not Harold or Gerald? I mean Pink Boy deserves punishment for not-not finishing it and admitting it before class started and Tall Hair Boy already has-has a decent voice. Why not let them do it?" She balanced her chair upright to prevent her from falling over.
Gerald turned his attention to the blonde as he spoke. "Yeah well, Helga, why are you so scared? Do you have a bad voice or something? I mean you'll only be performing for a few minutes. And you wouldn't mind it if you had some singing talent." He wiggled his eye brows as Mr. Simmons himself started to sweat drop. "Students settle down." Robert knew things were only going to get worse if Helga was provoked in any way. Sad to say, his attempt had been too quiet for Helga's questioning.
"Who says I can't sing Tall Hair Boy!" she stood up and pointed a finger at him, "I bet I can sing better than all of you weirdos!" She glared at him menacingly.
After that, it was a lost fight for Mr. Simmons. At this rate he knew that all of them would go to the auditorium. "Why fight it? At least we'll get there on time."
"I'd pay fifty cents - no a dollar to see that happen!" Harold shouted. But Curly stood on his desk. "We'll I'll bet two dollars out of my allowance to see that Helga can sing! Hahaha!"
"Who in the world would give you allowance Curly? The zoo keeper?" Sid asked with a laugh.
"Aw, pipe down you nimrods! Let's just get to the auditorium to prove to you all that I am the best!" Helga raced with Gerald and Harold as everyone else walked out the door.
Mr. Simmons was about to follow them out with his briefcase in hand when he glanced and saw that Phoebe was standing at her desk. He set his stuff down by the doorway and went to the girl. "Phoebe?" It looked like she was biting her lip as she would not look up at him. She quietly squeaked, "Yes, Mr. Simmons?" She sounded unsure too, like she didn't want to go to class to support Helga. They were best friends, so this confused him a bit at why she wasn't following the rest of her classmates. He kneeled down to her level and lifted her chin. There were tears in her eyes that just wanted to run down her face. "Phoebe, is there anything wrong?" He spoke carefully, not wanting to hurt the poor girl.
"Well, um," she started, "It's just that, well, Helga wasn't having a good day yesterday because of a surprise appointment with a doctor. I wanted, I wanted to ask her but she hasn't told me yet what's going on. I was worried. But, but with the way she's acting today, I'm happy that she seems to be doing well. So I guess that I must have gotten a little teary eyed huh?" She giggled, making it sound easy. He patted her on the shoulder with a smile. "So I guess you're ok now? That was what's been bothering you?" He was glad she opened up to him. It just made him as a teacher feel very special.
"Yes. Now let's go support everyone. I'm sure that all of them will need it Mr. Simmons, since like you said we want it to be special."
He smiled. "Yes, Phoebe. I think today will be very special." Mr. Simmons stood up on his feet as Phoebe made her way to the door. And he followed behind with good thoughts all the way to the rest of his students.
"Well, this day should have been on the documentary. That's for sure. And it's only the beginning too."