Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68066 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68066 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
***
Needless to say, I was an emotional wreck when I got to school that morning.
I’d made it just in time to walk into my classroom before the bell rang.
By the end of third period, I was tired, cranky, and ready to go check on my man.
Only, as I was gathering up my things to go, Raleigh came in like a whirlwind.
“Yo, did you see this?”
I frowned and looked up at Raleigh as she came barreling into my classroom.
“See what?” I asked.
“See the post that Nivea posted on her social media outlets.” She turned her phone to me.
I frowned at the paper that I’d literally just handed back to one of my students.
“What the fuck?” I asked. “Why does she have that posted on her page?”
It was the same test that I’d just had a not-so-great meeting with a student about who was very unhappy with her grade on said test.
“It says that the student took the test to another chemistry teacher to see if it was graded correctly since she didn’t feel like she deserved the grade,” Raleigh explained. “And I know your handwriting, so I know that you graded this. What’s it all about?”
I flipped through the various photos that Nivea had posted of the test and frowned harder with each photo.
“She fixed some of these answers,” I muttered. “Because she got a fifty on this test. Do you see these eraser lines?”
Raleigh nodded. “Yes.”
I went back to my photocopies—ones that I kept of each and every test that I graded until the end of the semester—and showed her the proof.
“This is the original,” I said.
“Huh.” She looked back at the phone. “Man, some of these comments are brutal.”
I opened up my own phone and realized that fucking Nivea had tagged me in the goddamn photo.
The bitch.
“She knew that the teacher was me,” I told her. “There’s no doubt. God, I hate her.”
“I know,” Raleigh agreed. “Did you see Carver today? Holy shit, that shiner is bad! A broken nose looks awful on him, and the bruising is so bad that I swear there’s something more wrong than just a broken nose.”
“Hmmm,” I muttered as I went through the comments. “Wow, listen to this one: this teacher needs to learn her ass from her elbow. It’s not hard to see that she clearly wrote ‘Oxygen.’”
I rolled my eyes and went to that question on the test, then pointed it out to Raleigh.
“You should probably just preemptively show this to Mrs. Sherpa. That way when this shit blows up, you’ve got your bases covered,” Raleigh concluded. “And I’ve never thought of photocopying tests before. Why did you?”
I tucked the photocopy into my bag as I said, “One of our old teachers did it. She said it was due to the likelihood of students cheating that she always wanted to have a reference to go back on. I thought it was a good idea just in case.”
Raleigh shook her head. “Did you hear from Flint today?”
I nodded, feeling a smile tug at my lips.
“They had him sitting up in a chair today,” I told her. “They took him to the new hospital, allowing him to sit up on the gurney all the way home.” She sniffled. “His new room has a balcony outside. He can see the school, he said.”
“Well then you should go to him,” Raleigh suggested. “That way when you read these, like I know you’re about to do, you will have his shoulder to cry on.”
She had no idea how right she was.
***
My heart was shattered.
You’re a fucking pitiful excuse for a teacher.
What kind of asshole person grades tests of tenth graders like this?
Why, on earth, are you a teacher? Maybe you should be a sub, that way you don’t alter the path of young minds who are bound for greatness.
Seems to me, Nivea, that you should be lead teacher and not somebody else.
And those were just the nice ones.
There were awful ones, too.
You should kill yourself.
I swallowed hard.
The more comments I read, the worse I felt.
“Had this teacher last year,” I read aloud. “She was a total bitch and I’m so glad that I got transferred to a new school.”
“Who said that?” Flint asked, sounding pissed.
He’d been pissed for a while now, but the more I read him, the worse his anger seemed to get.
“Amber Surrea,” I answered.
“She was transferred to an alternative school because I found drugs in her locker,” he explained. “Ignore her opinion. What’s the next one?”
“She was the hardest teacher that I ever had. I have never been so happy to end a school year. She was boring, hard, and never gave an inch,” I read.
“Who said that?” he asked again.
“Adam Nodd,” I muttered.
“Good kid.” He paused. “But he got his ass beat if he didn’t make honor roll. That’s probably why he doesn’t like you.”