Apr: The Substitute
© Jane Harvey-Berrick
Or … Teenage Boys and Other Beasts
Sweat pooled in my armpits and trickled down my back. My face glowed like a beacon, and I cleared my throat several times, but it was as dry as if I’d been chewing on chalk.
Then I uttered the scariest words known to humanity.
“Good morning, I’m your substitute teacher.”
The teenage boys sitting in front of me were unimpressed and several continued a low level conversation in the background.
I hadn’t expected to be standing in front of a class in a prestigious private boys’ school in an exclusive part of the city. And honestly, I don’t think they’d expected me either, but when the teacher they’d recruited suddenly dropped out to follow his fiancée into the Peace Corps and it was just one day until the start of the school year, they didn’t have much choice.
As for me, I’d been to seven—count them—seven job interviews and hadn’t landed any of them. I wasn’t good at interviews: I always looked rumpled, no matter how carefully I’d pressed my clothes the night before, or how much time I’d spent applying a natural-looking makeup; my crazy hair was impossible to tame, no matter how assiduously I blow-dried it. This was Atlanta, also known as Sweatlanta, and frizzy was my middle name.
I was also kind of goofy with a weird sense of humor, but I was a good teacher, I really was. I just needed a chance to prove it.
But I’d looked forward to having my own homeroom, a real job, not just two weeks as a substitute English teacher until Principal Matthews found someone better. Of course, he didn’t put it like that, being desperate and all, but I knew that’s what he meant when he looked down his long nose at me.
“And I would suggest that you dress more appropriately tomorrow,” he said, condescension oozing from his voice as he stared at my mustard yellow jacket and khaki green shirt and pants.
I was hurt: I’d made a real effort with my clothes and thought that I looked neat and professional, with just enough color to make me look confident.
But Principal Matthews made it sound as if I was wearing clown shoes and a red nose. It made me want to add a snazzy bowtie to my outfit that could spin around and spray water.
Sighing, he led me to my first class.
Fairmont Academy was one of those traditional and exclusive schools that modeled themselves on Harvard which itself was modeled on Eton or something British like that. The large, redbrick building was set against jade green grass that must have a sprinkler system to keep it looking so lush. Towering white oaks bordered the grounds, providing much needed shade against the heat of an Atlanta summer.
Boys and young men strolled the grounds as if they were auditioning for Chariots of Fire, but without the boaters, although they could have done with them.
Inside, polished wood gleamed and a fancy chandelier threw a cascade of light across the entrance. An impressively wide staircase led upwards.
“Only teachers are allowed to use the main staircase,” said Principal Matthews. “Our Head Boy also has that privilege, but no one else.”
I wondered how the students reached the upper levels; maybe they were taught to levitate in seventh grade.
“There are student staircases located at the back of the building,” he added as an afterthought.
Darn. No levitation classes.
At that moment, a man wearing a bottle green academic gown roared into view. His face was puce-going-on-purple and his ears were bright red.
“They should bring back caning!” he growled as flecks of spittle shot from his mouth.
Principal Matthews shot him an irritated look.
“Michael, we have a visitor!”
I thought that was interesting: he wasn’t being admonished for what he’d said, appaling as it was, but for saying it in front of me.
“My apologies, Principal Matthews,” the man snarled. “But those little shits glued pages of pornography into my William Wordsworth. Instead of Strange fits of passion have I known, it was filth! Pure filth! From that revolting piece of trash, Fifty Shades of Grey.”
I had to smother a giggle which turned into a coughing session, and the Principal threw me a suspicious look.
“Ahem. Well, you’ll be teaching our eighth graders,” he said, striding along the brightly lit corridor adorned with impressive student artwork. “Their previous teacher,” and his lips turned down in distaste, “had intended to start them on Macbeth. I assume you’re familiar with this tragedy?”
I wanted to ask if he meant that the teacher leaving was a tragedy or my arrival. But I managed to restrain myself, answering with a simple ‘yes’.
“Then after this class you have a double period with our Juniors. They’re studying the romantic poets this semester. I assume you have a working understanding of romance.”
“Not personally, but I can teach it,” I said with a straight face.
He frowned but didn’t slow down.
“Did the previous teacher leave any of his lesson plans?” I asked hopefully.
“No.”
“Do the kids have copies of the texts?”
“We use the term ‘students’ here,” he said stuffily. “Not ‘kids’. We expect the highest of standards from our young scholars … and our staff.”
And the prize for the stick-up-the-ass goes to…
“Noted,” I said formally. “No children here.”
He narrowed his eyes as if he suspected sarcasm, but I smiled at him with wide guileless eyes. It was the only time that having a round, plump face was useful—I was the picture of innocence.
“And to answer your previous question, yes, our students have been furnished with the appropriate texts.”
Furnished? Had these kids been upholstered, too?
He swept into the classroom, his academic gown swirling around him like a slightly more sinister Snape, and 25 teenage boys immediately rose to their feet, the silence sudden and profound.
“Quiet, boys,” he said unnecessarily as his voice echoed around the room. “This is Ms. Hamilton. You will learn what you can from her.”
And with that ringing endorsement, he flounced out of the classroom.
What a dick. And he hadn’t even bothered to get my name right. I knew that he’d left me to sink or swim. One way to find out which it was going to be.
“Good morning, I’m your substitute teacher. My name is Ms. Henderson.”
“Does that mean Principal Matthews is Big Foot?” sniggered one boy.
As a teacher, it’s an art to know when to pretend not to hear some comments, and if they were kids, um, students that I knew, I’d have let it go. But there was a reason that one experienced teacher had said to me, “Never smile before Christmas.” It didn’t work if you tried to be pals with students from the off—they had to respect you first; friendship could come later. But if you let them walk all over you on day one, you might never be able to claw back any respect. Besides, these ‘boys’ were 12 years old, hormones surging with testosterone—or ‘full of piss and vinegar’ as Grandma Barclay used to say—and quite a few of these ‘boys’ were already taller than me.
“I think I laughed at that joke the first time I heard it in grade school … wait, no, not even then. Would you like to repeat that comment to Principal Matthews?”
I stared at a group of boys sitting at the back, fairly sure the comment had come from them.
Utter silence met my words.
Good.
“So, this semester we’re going to be studying one of Shakespeare’s most violent and morally corrupt characters, the Scottish soldier Macbeth,” and I quoted from memory:
For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),
Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valor’s minion, carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops,
And fixed his head upon our battlements.
O valiant cousin, worthy gentlemen…
I eyed their surprised faces and one of them whispered, “Cool!”
Not sure if he was commenting on my memory or the fact that the start of the play was so grisly with a body being slit open and the head placed on a spike. I’d take either.
And people think Warcraft is violent.
But I’d gotten them interested. I let a fraction of the tension I’d been holding onto lessen and ninety minutes raced by.
Then it was a sprint to the other side of the school to meet my Juniors, and I’d have to wing it again. I hated not being prepared: I was a planner and took meticulous notes; my lesson plans were a thing of beauty. I’d figured out early on that the more prepared I was, the more open I could be to following interesting segues because I could always get back on track later.
That’s not what happened with my next class. The room was hot and stuffy and if there was any air-conditioning, it certainly wasn’t working. The boys were almost all hulking young men of 16 and 17, who loomed over me, unimpressed with my five foot and a bit stature. I tasked two of them to open the windows, but it made no difference.
Sweating and uncomfortable, I gazed out longingly at the shade of old oaks ringing the green grass of the football field, and I made an executive decision.
“Okay, guys. This is crazy hot—we’ll fry our brains in here. So pick up your things—we’re going to take this lesson outside.”
Their eyes lit up, and as I led them outside, I told them a little about Lord Byron, the dashing, charming, attractive and brooding hero who became the model for tall, dark and silent ever since. But when I reached the giant oak, I turned to look at the students and my mouth dropped open. They’d all taken off their shirts and were lounging in the sun as if they were on Spring break.
With so much young, tan flesh on display, I didn’t know where to look, and I didn’t know how to take control of the situation. So I slipped on my sunglasses, hiding my confusion as best I could and continued the lesson somewhat breathlessly.
Of course, what I should have done is tell them to put their shirts on but I was too inexperienced and too flustered. I have no idea what I taught them that lesson, but I think Byron would have been amused, after all, he was the original ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’.
I staggered to the staffroom, desperate for a reprieve from the heat, the sun and the students.
There was only one other woman in the room, and she was serving tea and coffee to the teachers.
I fell into an overstuffed armchair and dropped my head in my hands.
“Rough morning?”
I opened one eye and squinted up at a pair of laughing brown eyes.
“No. I always hide under the desk during first period.”
The man grinned, a perfect toothpaste-ad smile.
“I’m Jason Masterson: Biology and Civics.”
He held out a large, tanned hand and I shook it weakly.
“Rachel Henderson: Humility and Chagrin.”
He laughed out loud. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”
I sighed and sat up straighter. “No, not really. No lives were lost, just several degrees of dignity.”
He stretched out in the armchair next to me, his long legs taking up most of the space between us.
“On my first day, the kids took turns to cough every two minutes for the whole lesson, and even after I’d figured out what they were doing, I didn’t know how to stop them. So I sent one of them out of the class, but I was so tied in knots, I forgot he was there and he stood outside my classroom for 85 minutes. He was so worried, I never had any trouble from him again.”
I met his smile.
“Really? I might have to borrow that trick.”
“Feel free. I’ve had my desk drawers super-glued shut and all my pens glued to the top of the desk, and then there was the class where the kids asked for left-handed pencils and I nearly fell for that.”
I started to laugh. “They get points for inventiveness! I heard someone glued scenes from Fifty Shades of Grey inside this teacher’s copy of Wordsworth.”
“Really? Who was that?”
“A really angry guy in a green academic gown.”
Jason grinned and said he’d have to remember that one, then he filled me in on the other members of staff, and which kids I’d have to watch.
By the end of lunchbreak, I was feeling much more confident and like I might even make it to the end of my first day, when he glanced up from his phone.
“Hey, did you know you’ve gotten a write-up on the student message board?”
I groaned. “What already? Do I want to know? No, I’m sure I don’t. Please don’t tell me.”
Jason laughed. “No, it’s good. Take a look.”
Opening one eye, I peered at his phone.
I think Ms Henderson should come back to teach us next semester. She’s cool.
Warmth and happiness filled my heart. Acceptance. I was odd and kooky and a huge nerd, but the kids liked me and they’d learned from me.
I really was a teacher.
I hope you enjoyed this light-hearted story. Some of these things really did happen to me when I was a trainee teacher.
If you like books about teachers, you might enjoy my novella Behind the Wall about a young guy in prison who’s trying to get his GED, and the teacher who gets too close to him.
