“Miss Norrel, did you hear Red Monday’s releasing a box set?” Nevaeh asked, bouncing up and down in her hand-painted Chucks.
I nodded. “Preordered it last week,” I said, giving her friend Lizzie a fist bump.
“I got you these,” Lizzie said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a little tissue paper bundle.
She pushed it into my empty hand and giggled as I peeled off the tape and unfolded the paper.
Pink hair extensions with a Hello Kitty clip to hold them in.
“I saw them on some girl at a concert and asked her where she got them,” Lizzie said as Nev tried to clip them in my long blond hair. “I told her I had a teacher who would love them.”
“Substitute,” I corrected her with a laugh, working the pink part into my own hairdo. I loved extensions, and never shied away from wearing them to work.
“Totally you,” they both said.
I nodded in agreement. “So me.” I smiled brightly at the two little misfits, in their neon socks and multibraceleted forearms.
“I wish you were our real math teacher,” Nevaeh whined. “You explain the homework better than the actual teacher.”
Lizzie nodded. “I hear Mr. Wood’s leaving to teach at SNHU—you should totally apply.”
I shook my head, feeling the artificial pink hairs dangle down my shoulders. “I’m all set. I like being free.”
“Oh I hear you—I wouldn’t want to come back to this place every day, either,” Lizzie said.
I held my hands up in protest. “It’s not like that. I enjoy high schoolers. I just like variety.”
“My friend at Londonderry High said you’re there sometimes.”
“I’m everywhere, my dear. No escaping me!”
The girls picked up their book bags and gave me a quick hug and made their way to lunch.
The rest of the day, however, dragged like RuPaul.
Today I was at Newmarket High, a place I frequently called home. One of their math teachers, Mr. Wessel, was a hypochondriac, so I got calls at least once a week here. I was basically part of the faculty. Work today was more torturous than usual—kids had nitpicky questions, the other teachers wouldn’t stop hounding me about helping plan a colleague’s baby shower, and I was literally doing equations in my head for fun to kill time until lunch.
Lunch meant a break. Lunch hopefully meant an e-mail from him—from Chilly Willy. The anticipation was killing me. I strode toward the teacher’s room purposefully, head in the clouds—or in the gutter.
“Cerise, so do you think we should go with a ducky theme or a clown theme?” Deirdre asked, trying to catch up to me. I threw up a little in my mouth at her suggestion. Maybe because I thought it was a horrible idea, or also maybe it was because Deirdre was a douche-cannon who talked down to substitutes.
“Clowns?” I asked incredulously, screeching to a halt. “Isn’t, like, ninety percent of the population terrified of clowns?”
She pursed her gross, chapped lips at me and pushed her glasses up her nose. “My dad was a clown, thankyouverymuch. I thought it might be cute to have a circus theme for the shower since Katy always does that field trip to the carnival.”
Katy was a history teacher who was eight months pregnant. Deirdre was a science teacher who kept disgusting specimens in her room on display. She even had a dog fetus she called “Pickled Poochie.” Of course she wouldn’t mind clowns, I noted.