Lorna's Classroom

Lorna walked through the hallway of the Demonds Junior High School to her first math class of the day. This year she’d finally scored the classroom with the windows that looked out onto the courtyard where there was a Japanese style garden. Until Al Harcourt had retired, she’d spent the last eight years teaching in the other designated math class room that abutted the school gymnasium and had no windows. Al had constantly complained that he suffered allergies from the garden, but he wouldn’t for the slightest moment entertain the notion of switching classsrooms.

Gregory Hansen was the new math teacher and the first time she’d met him, Lorna felt her knees were going to fold under her. The man was drop-dead gorgeous, and what a physique. How did he end up being a math teacher and not a gym teacher, let alone a model. She herself had too much of a severe look, to be attractive though many people said she was in a nerdy way.

She arrived at her classroom fifteen minutes early as usual, to set up the room and to get herself into the head space for teaching her classes.  What was Gregory doing in there, sitting at her desk, chewing on an apple? Her heart fluttered as she looked down from his face to his brown faux leather bag lay on her oak finish desk top. A drop of spittle from his gnawing jaws fell onto her desk.

He looked up and a lock of dark hair drifted over his forehead. “Ms. Stanley, can I help you?” 

“Er…Mr. Hansen …you’re in my classroom.” She bit her lip, and directed her gaze just below his chin. He mustn’t see the flush she felt blooming on her cheeks. 

He held up one hand for her to wait, while he chomped down his apple. Then when he finished, he held up the core in one hand. She shuddered. He wasn’t going to throw that core across six rows of desks and expect to hit the garbage bin near the door where she was standing. But he was. His face lit up when they both heard the apple core bonk the bottom of the bin.  

She knew it. He’s really a gym teacher, not a math teacher at all.  

“If you’ll take a look, you’ll see the sign up on the door,” he said, opening up his brown case and taking out a math text book, which she recognized as one of the school’s current ones and a few manilla folders. Was he trying to suppress a grin?

The door was open so that any notices on the outside were hidden from view.  Who did he think he was. Just because he put a notice up, didn’t entitle him to her classroom.

“I’m not moving. I don’t know what gave you the idea that you could waltz in and take over my classroom, but now you’ll have to leave.” She was still focussing on his chin. In another situation, she may well concede to him, but not at this time.

He stood up, and her heart started beating quickly as he walked towards her. She felt spacey and short of breath. Breathe, she told herself, breathe.

“Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not all right. You’re in my classroom. Now if you’ll please leave and take your apple core with you. I don’t want your rotting core stinking up my room.”

“But I cleared it with Chelsey and she agreed that we should be sharing the classroom.”

“Ms. Bransen didn’t clear anything with me.” Chelsey Bransen, the new vice principal, all bounce and pink fluff like an outdated cheerleader. She could imagine Chelsey with her bubblegum glossy lips saying to Gregory, ‘Oh Lorna, she won’t mind at all. She’s always very amenable’. If Gregory thought he could team up with Chelsey against her, he’d just downgraded himself.  

Ugh, speaking of that vamp, Lorna stifled a gagging gesture as Chelsey minced by on clattery heels, proceeded by her sickly sweet perfume. Gregory had retaken the chair and now he shifted back in it.

“Yoo hoo, Gregory, just checking you’re settling well into your classroom. Anything I can help you with?” Chelsey said, stopping at the desk and leaning down to face him. More likely drooping her bouncies in his face, but he seemed to be leaning his body away from the woman.

Lorna’s hands formed fists at her side. Chelsey wasn’t bypassing her.

Gregory’s eyes widened, as Lorna strode into the classroom and slammed her own navy blue case down on the desktop. Then they darted in bewilderment when she swooped his things off her desk and disposed of them into his hands. She about turned and faced off against the vice principal with her arms folded.  “Chelsey, you’re going against protocol. This is my classroom.”  

“Lorna,” Chelsey dragged out her name, and then smiled at Gregory, still seated with the chair now backed against the wall. “Gregory and I discussed the issue and I told him at Desmonds Junior High we treat all our staff fairly.”  She reached out to put her hand on his forearm but he flinched away.

In an abrupt move, he stood up and moved the chair between them. Chelsey withdrew her hand and ran her fingers through her own loosened tresses of blonde hair.

 “Lorna, if you’re going to be insubordinate, I’ll text Mr. Mayes.” She pulled out her phone, of course it had a glitzy cover. “He won’t be happy…,” she said, frowning at a broken fingernail.

The nerve of that woman, figured she had the principal wrapped around her little finger.  

Lorna often looked out at the courtyard garden for inspiration, and now she focused on the bonsai tree. In a funny way it reminded her of Al Harcourt, not just because of it’s gnarled limbs. She shouldn’t smile. She may well have the same fate before she retired. But he’d had a way of fitting the environment to himself.  

Putting on her best ‘good teacher’ smile, she held up her own grey dinged up cell phone, and spoke up brightly, “Before you do, you might want to check out the ratified by-laws. As it so happens I’ve scanned the current version to my phone, and I believe I can air play it on the big screen fory you.” In moments she had the bylaw magnified in front of them. Chelsey’s groan and expletive delighted her ears. She didn’t know what to make of Gregory’s drawn out “Aha”.

Before her time, Al Harcourt had finangled the ‘classroom assignment as per seniority’ into the bylaws and it had blazed right across the unseeing eyes of the assenters. During Lorna’s time, Al’s rebuttals against her challenges had been insurmountable.  

Lorna lifted her gaze saw and saw bemusement in Gregory’s blue eyes, but there was something else. His eyes were soft and he was looking at her.  Well, she hadn’t expected this. Still, being an effective teacher, she regarded him with gravity, and then nodded at the bin.  His shoulders slumped but then lifted and he smiled. “I’ll be off. So sorry for the mix-up.” On his way to the door, he dipped his hand into the bin and fished out his apple core.  

“I’m still talking to Mr. Mayes…” Chelsey said, following Gregory into the hallway.

Lorna grinned as she tore off the change of classroom notice from the door, and ripped it into pieces and dropped them into the bin. She took her seat at her desk and surveyed her classroom and the view out the window and smiled. If Gregory had any interest in her, he’d better improve his suit. She was afterall, a nerd.