Chapter 157: School

Abby did her best to push Blaise out of her mind over the next couple of months and often failed miserably. But she did become more accustomed to life here.

By accompanying Katie on all of her visits to people around town she got to know the locals fairly well. Once Nyla's son Fai was born she spent a lot of time at her house helping with the other children and keeping them out of her way.

She was reminded of her earlier idea to help implement a school and talked to Katie about it. Apparently she had tried once while teaching some of the village children to read in the library but had lacked sufficient resources to set something up permanently.

That was where Abby came in. She had been a tutor in both high school and college to earn a little extra money and had a better idea of where to start.

The first thing she had to do was come up with a curriculum by finding as many rudimentary books about math, history, literature, and geography as she could in the library. Since children typically went off to become apprentices at the age of twelve around here, she decided the school should teach children aged six to eleven.

Breaking up the curriculum into things each age could understand would be a bit more difficult but she supposed there were Montessori schools and public schools in tiny towns without enough children to break up classes back home that did the exact same thing. If they could do it, so could she.

Unfortunately, there wasn't anything like workbooks to go off of so Abby had to come up with everything on her own. After recruiting a few of the older Kanta who had been a part of the original society before the raids to help with the history and geography aspects, she decided that school couldn't possibly be more than three hours long or she would run out of material.

This world was simpler than hers. They had to take a practical approach to learning things that would be useful to their own society instead of her modern standards.

She managed to convince some of the craftsmen in town to do short demonstrations of their respective trades and teach useful skills such as how to sew on a button. Though Abby ended up in charge of the classes that were held in the library until they had their own little schoolhouse built, there were a variety of guest teachers involved.

A few women whose children were either grown or who had no children volunteered to help her teach as well. They were supportive of enhancing the minds of the younger generation.

The school helped keep her occupied so over time thoughts of Blaise became much less frequent. She was too busy functioning as the headmistress of the tiny school she had established with everyone's help.

The construction of the schoolhouse was completed before winter hit. It was a single large room filled with desks and bookshelves. A chalkboard hung on one wall and maps of Annalaias, the Kanta region, and all of the known nations in this world were on the others.

It wasn't terribly far from the playground so they were even able to institute the concept of recess so the kids could take a break halfway through the day. If she really thought about it, the program they set up wasn't terribly unlike half-day kindergarten.

The kids learned something, the parents didn't have to worry about them for a while, and everything was hunky-dory. Abby hadn't ever envisioned herself as a teacher but here she was, in another world and in charge of nearly thirty children.

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The success of the school in Ilmir led to implementing one in Raisha as well. She spent over a week helping people set things up and teaching them how she did things.

"I'm impressed," Katie told her one day as they met up at the bakery for lunch. "I never could have pulled that off. I wanted to set up a school but had no idea where to start. Now because of you there are two schools and approximately fifty students total. Way to go."

Abby grinned at her sister. "High praise, coming from you. It wasn't that big of a deal. I mostly did it to help people like Nyla who have way too many kids at home. How many do you plan on having, anyway?"

She snorted. "You still have a lot to learn about this world, sister dear. You can't plan for things like that here. If pregnancies happen, they happen. If they don't, they don't. I know some people with one child and some with seven.

"But most people get pregnant so often that they have frequent miscarriages, stillbirths, and so on. And a lot of children die from illnesses because the medicine isn't so advanced here. I've done by best to instill proper hygiene habits and that has helped quite a bit. Since we came here, only one child has died and that was from a bear attack, not illness."

Wow. Abby had never thought about anything like that being a problem. Katie was right; there was still a lot she didn't know about this world.

Hygiene was a huge deal but she sincerely hoped that somebody invented antibiotics soon. She didn't want to see anything bad happening to these people she had grown fond of. Especially her adorable nephew and whoever was currently inside her sister's very swollen belly.

"Are baby showers a thing here?" she asked out of the blue.

Abby had successfully recreated pasta in this world to help her pregnant sister and Katie had been so thrilled that she actually wept over her bowl. Al had pulled her aside later and thanked her fervently because he had wanted to help her with her craving when she was pregnant with Adam and hadn't been able to do a thing.

That was what officially won her over. She had enjoyed playing board games with her brother-in-law and watching the two of them interact because they were pretty darn cute together but that clinched it.

He cared deeply about her sister so she decided to forgive him for all the trickery and danger that happened in the novel and that she liked him after all. Al was a pretty decent guy overall and he was a doting husband and father.

Watching him play with Adam was a lot of fun. The little boy clearly looked up to his father and loved the attention. She wondered if the way he played with a daughter would be different if Katie happened to have a girl this time.

"Not in the same way they are back home," Katie said with a shrug. "Normally people each contribute an item they have lying around from their previous infants and that's the extent of it. New gifts are much more of a commodity here. Granted, Adam got a lot of new stuff people made for him specifically because everyone was thrilled at the birth of a future clan leader."

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