Hi guys- just a little note; Miss Baker and I formed our student-teacher relationship because we both loved Doctor Who, not Star Trek. Just thought I'd let you know! Oh, and if you search 'Trainreq', you will get proof that I am not lying about the pictures.
G, xxx
The International Baccalaureate
Chapter Three: English
The room was quiet, especially shocking since there were more boys in English than there were in History. The teacher was a stern-looking woman, with slightly tanned skin, a bent nose which indicated a deviated septum and curly brown hair which had the faintest hint of highlights. She was young, but her angry brown eyes showed that she harboured more years of experience than everyone's ages combined.
"I'm Miss Costello." She said bluntly, moving across the front of the room. "I will be teaching you English for the next two years, and don't think that just because you are doing the International Baccalaureate, that is an excuse to act cocky and bigheaded in this classroom," she turned with deadly precision and stared at my desk, at me and Mariam sitting side-by-side. "Don't for one moment think that you can talk in my class, because I will not have it. I will have you kicked off of the Diploma, and you will do regular A-Levels instead." She kept her gaze on my table. We both looked at each other with confused faces, which only aggravated Miss Costello.
"Is there something funny, girls?" She asked acidly. Me and Mariam broke our glances and turned to the teacher.
"No, Miss Costello." We said in unison.
"Don't lie to me!" She spat, marching forward, and then she saw something which made her stop- my shirt. She mouthed the words, 'hate is not a family value', and looked into my eyes. She must have seen fear in the chameleon eyes behind golden frames. "Ah." She said at last. "You must be this 'Gavvy' Mr. Harkness has been going on about all morning."
"Huh?" Mariam said, sounding somewhat disappointed. Her confusion was reflected in my face.
"Mr. Harkness seems to really like you, 'Gav'," Miss Costello said spitefully. "He spoke very highly of your performance in his classroom this morning. He said you have the potential to be the next Einstein if you keep it up, but I don't think so, Hannah." I cringed as she said my real name with a tongue of ice. "Not in History, anyway. I've seen your grades, and I'm quite surprised- you are the only one in this class to have received two A* grades in English!" She raised her voice as she announced the last part of that sentence. I felt my face turn red and I lowered my head. I felt Miss Costello smile at my embarrassment, and she said; "I really don't think that Gavvy is a suitable nickname for you, Hannah," she said with a mocking tone. "I think, perhaps, Montana would be a better option."
Oh good god. I yelled at myself. It was quite clear that this teacher had plans to humiliate me for the next two years, and she'd only known me for four minutes! English was my best subject at secondary school, and I had taken my teacher for granted. Nobody in my GCSE English class liked Miss Baker that much, but I managed to get along with her for that one year... just about. We only managed to form some sort of student-teacher relationship since we were both Trekkies, and she even scrapped my dramatic monologue in favour of some poetry for the Original Writing section of my Literature GCSE. It was so embarrassing when she read out my poem 'The Doctor and The Captain', which was based on an idea I'd had to resurrect that sci-fi television show about the man who travels through space and time, saving different worlds. I kept begrudging myself for not writing to the BBC to bring it back, but they would never have listened to me- I would just be a 'hormonal teenager with pipe dreams' to them.
Right at that moment, I looked up at Miss Costello, seeing the red-hot anger in her eyes as she smiled with venom. Her mouth started moving, but I couldn't hear her say anything until I felt Mariam kick me, when I heard "Is that clear, Montana?" I cringed as I realised I faced the concept of two more years of people singing those dreadful, shitty Hannah Montana songs at me, asking for my 'autograph', telling me to fuck off back to Hollywood so that I could record more songs and then ordering me to take more slutty photos of myself so that they could appear on the Internet. I had suffered two years of that torment at secondary school, and I was certain that Miss Costello could see the torment of it in my eyes as I whispered; "Yes, Miss."
An hour later, after we had finished talking about the curriculum that lay ahead of us for the next two years, we were finally dismissed from the classroom. I think that everyone in the room sensed my discomfort that day, because a boy with a swept fringe ran up to me in the Grounds after the lesson and introduced himself as Luke. He smiled, and said; "Miss Costello doesn't appear to like you too much, Gav." I smiled for the first time that day when he called me by my preferred name.
"I know," I shrugged off Mariam, who was trying to pull me towards the Science Block. "But I won't let her get to me- I've mastered English, now it's just History I have to nail." We shared a laugh, and he asked where I was headed next. I said "HL Biology with Doctors Harper and Smith, a brief talk-over thing about my C.A.S. with Miss Sato, and then I have to go and see Mrs. Williams about some Debating thing."
"I've got the same!" Luke smiled, then took my hand and led me to the classroom, with Mariam tagging behind us. I looked back and mouthed "Sorry!" she mouthed "It's okay." With a laugh.
We made it to the classroom in record time. The three of us looked at the door which declared; "Dr. O. Harper & Dr J. Smith, Biology, International Baccalaureate" and stepped in to face the music.