Chapter 113: Day 112

Day 112,

Perhaps dealing with unseen monsters isn’t so bad by comparison.  

I jest.  Mostly.  Teaching is hard and kids are tiring.  Or maybe I’ve just gotten used to being alone and not doing much most of the time.  

But, to chronological order.  

Maiko was already up and about when I woke.  Told me she’d taken a look outside.  The grass was torn up in a muddy mess out front and there were scratch marks under my bedroom window.  No tracks or blood though.  

Taking in her report with early morning drowsiness I suddenly snapped awake as I noticed how bright it was outside and remembered what day it was.  As I rushed to get my clothes changed and out the door I gave Maiko a hasty explanation of where I needed to be, thanked her again for last night, apologized for abruptly running out on her, and mentioned I might not be back for a couple days.  

Checking the bracelet I could tell Cass was drawing near, so presumably it wasn’t so late that James had already driven on by toward the Village.  It took practically sprinting, but I managed to get out to the road without keeping them waiting too long.  Although still long enough that Cass had just climbed off the wagon to go check on me when I arrived.  

I apologized to everyone, saying that there’d been strangeness with the nature sprite last night but everything was fine now.  I wound up needing to reassure Cass about that last part a few times on the way.  After we got to the Village and departed from her family she confided in me that she’d felt I was in trouble through the bracelet last night but by the time she got caught sneaking out the feeling had gone away.

Hopefully this day of going from librarian’s assistant to teacher’s assistant helped to take her mind off the matter and any residual guilt that I told her she needn’t concern herself with.  

At any rate, it kept me busy enough not to think about last night for most of the day and Cass’s help proved invaluable.

The first of the kids was already waiting when we arrived.  A small and nervous little thing.  It seems he only lives a street away so his parents figured he’d be fine going on his own for his first day.  We let him in, tried to put him at ease, letting him hold the ragged doll from Priscilla’s that Cass had suggested bringing out and telling him he’d get first pick on where to sit.

I wasn’t too keen yet on the idea of gathering potentially more children than I could rein in at once in the archive proper, so for now we’ve converted the entry chamber into the schoolroom.  Probably good to let the kids see the sun anyway.  To my surprise and dismay we don’t have desks or even chairs for this.  Instead we have a bunch of floormats that I pulled out of a storage closet this past week.  Still iffy on how many kids would be showing up I just put as many out as we had wax tablet to put in front of them and arranged them all to face toward the table with the request box that I’d repurposed into the teacher’s desk.  A desk I expect I’ll rarely be sitting behind.

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Over the next hour the rest of the children arrived; the younger ones typically accompanied by a parent or older sibling (in two cases that sibling being another student) and the older ones showing up on their own or in small friend groups of their peers.  Nineteen children between the ages of five and ten, all told.  Cass mentioned this is on the smaller end of the typical class size for a season.

Once it both looked like no one else was showing up and late enough to be what I’d been informed was a normal starting time we began with introductions, and then with the students, asking them one at a time to give their name, age, and how good they believed themselves to be at that classic trilogy of reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Not that I expected those self estimates to be accurate, but it at least gave me a very rough estimate of what I had to work with in trying to teach a mixed class like this.

The rest of the day was spent following advice I’d gotten from Pat when Cass and I had gone to talk to him a while back about this.  For this first day, that entailed a combination of reading to them, giving exercises to more accurately gauge where they all stood, and trying to generally get them comfortable with being here and with me as a teacher.  And Cass as my assistant.  Fortunately, when you’re that young, even a two year age gap seems a world of difference, especially when combined with her typical attitude and deputization by an adult.

We eventually wound up roughly dividing the work into her organizing the older kids since she’d been in their place not too long ago while I focused on the younger ones (while occasionally going over to check on her and supervise, of course).  Cass was also right about the doll being a hit.  For whatever reason, the kids all seem to love it (even the older ones who pretend to be too mature for it), especially after finding out where it’s from.  Getting to hold the doll wound up being a reward for good behavior.  Or getting something right.  Or trying at all for the kids who were really unsure of themselves and scared of messing up (or just seemed uninterested).

We took a recess for lunch.  Thankfully all of them brought their own from their parents.  Less thankfully I found myself keenly wanting a bell of some kind when their collective return wound up slow, staggered, and disorganized.  Hopefully the long-term plan of getting the oldest kids to help teach the younger ones (learning by teaching and all that) will help with that as well.

Another story after lunch, more lessons, and then the end of the first day was heralded by the first parent arriving.  Not long after that the last of the children had departed, leaving me and Cass to clean up and prepare for tomorrow.  

We were in the middle of discussing what, if anything, to do to celebrate our first day of teaching when Vernon arrived, and then Lin not ten minutes later.  As I’d sort of guessed upon seeing them, they’d felt the bracelet danger warning last night and wanted to check on me.  They’d both been by earlier in the day at different times but had looked in the window, seen the class in session, and not wanted to interrupt.  Or scare the kids with talk of using artifacts to sense I was in danger.

I explained what happened last night as best as I could, and finished by reiterating that I was fine now and adding that I suspect the situation is resolved.  For the time being at least.  And anyway, I’m not expecting to leave the Village for the next few days with the first week of teaching.  That led to them asking how the first day went, which led to the consideration of celebrating being mentioned, which in turn led to Vernon offering to host us all for dinner.

After the usual polite back and forth of “you don’t need to do that”s and “but I want to and it’s no trouble”s we all wound up at his place.  It was a good time.  Vernon didn’t try talking and cooking simultaneously so nothing got burnt.  I’d go on more, but I’m starting to have trouble keeping my eyes open and I need to do this all over again in the morning.

Suffice to say, it was a hectic day that ended well.

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