Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 97337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
First Meeting
Liz couldn’t believe just how nervous she was. She didn’t remember being this nervous her first day in front of her first grade class. Then she’d been excited and rearing to go as she looked forward to shaping their young minds and having a lasting effect.
Okay she’d expected to be a bit jittery, but nothing to this extent. All day she’d been preparing herself but to no avail it seems. Now alone in the classroom where she’d shown up a little earlier than necessary, she wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt under the desk for the third or fourth time as she tried calming the nervous tremble in her knees.
She stood to her feet and wrote and erased her name from the chalkboard three times, not quite sure if this was the done thing these days. Are they still doing that in high school? She asked herself as she stood there with chalk in hand.
“Why didn’t I ask someone for pointers? Like one of the other teachers maybe.” She fretted in frustration as she replaced the chalk and walked back to her desk.
The reason she hadn’t called anyone is because she didn’t know anyone here as yet, other than a handful of teachers who taught at the grade school, and then of course there was principal Thorne who’d been the one to drag her into this mess in the first place.
She clapped her hand to her forehead, scolding herself for her oversight. Granted she didn’t want to bother the other woman any more than she already had since moving to town. But it beat sitting her feeling like a duck out of water. Whatever the case, it was too late to do anything about it now.
As the time drew near she sat behind the desk and made herself busy going over the upcoming lessons. It was a very rigorous program, one that she wasn’t sure many kids could tackle, let alone jocks.
Though not given to predisposed opinions about people she’d never met, the stuff they were about to study was pretty ambitious even for the top students of the year, let alone kids who also divided their attention with something as vigorous as a national sport.
But she looked it over, feeling a bit of excitement, as it was a vast difference from her grade school lessons and more in line with her intelligence. If she could help them with even half of it she’d be proud of herself and them.
She’d been top of her class ever since she reached first grade. It wasn’t something she’d worked overly hard at, she just happened to be born with a brilliant mind. No matter the subject, it just seemed to come naturally for her.
If not for the fact that she was a borderline introvert, she could’ve done wonders on the world stage. But for as long as she could remember, teaching had been her only dream. Teaching young children anyway.
Tonight was going to be a whole new experience for the first time teacher who hadn’t spent much time around teenagers let alone boys, not even when she was a teen herself.
That’s part of what was worrying her as she sat there looking down at the same line for the last five minutes. She hadn’t the first clue how to interact with them and was afraid of falling flat on her face and failing miserably.
That book smarts of hers had never quite made the jump over to street smarts, not even when she’d been on her own these past five years at university and her social awkwardness was very noticeable to anyone who took the time to see it. And just the memory of what teenage boys got up to when she herself was in high school was enough to make her want to run for it even if it meant disappointing her one and only friend.
As the kids started filing in, she could feel her nerves rise and fray. Just as she’d thought, they were all huge. They were noisy as well as they made their way to their seats, and not one of them had said hello, almost as though they hadn’t seen her sitting there.
That didn’t last long though. “Oh shit, the new teach is here.” One of them stood to his feet with a wide grin and the most massive arms Elizabeth had ever seen on an eighteen year old.
That’s another thing. All the boys in this class were eighteen, adults. Which made her even more nervous for some odd reason. She was even worst with grown ups truth be told. And just as she’d suspected, these boys all towered over her petite frame like mountains next to an anthill.
Now the nerves really set in and she was kicking herself for not coming up with a good enough excuse to get out of doing the job. It was a little too late now though, to finally accept that she just wasn’t cut out for it.