The mild and tender autumn wind hasn’t yet turned into a penetrating and icy one. Air petted face and touched it as carefully and softly as if it was afraid of frightening it. Every next morning seemed to be nicer and more charming than the previous one, and Andrey Ivanovich was fascinated with «the golden days’ of that autumn. At the very least in the mornings on his way from home to the local school he has just begun to work for as an English teacher. As soon as he stepped across the school’s threshold his mood has changed dramatically. Two months have passed and more or less the pupils got used to him and his requirements. But, half of them didn’t want to learn, no matter what he did.
Young Larisa Ivlev burst into blossom much earlier than any of the other eighth form girls. Meeting her in the street, all ’made up’ in an abundance of «paint and feathers’, he’d hardly recognize her as one of his pupils. Now, dressed up in some fashionable but cheap clothes like a young starlet she raised her brows high and her hair almost hid them. Her eyes, wide-open, were naive and sincere. If he hadn’t known this girl before, he’d say she was a Virgin Mary’s sister or her sister-in-law at the very least. She zipped her jacket down a little so that zip-fastener stopped fifteen centimeters below collarbones. Until she stood straight, it was OK. Meanwhile Larisa leaned forward and planted her elbows on the desk. Her chin rested cosily in her palms. He was sitting at the desk and filling in the class register. The girls and the boys stopped chatting and watched her out of the corner of their eyes; heads forward, idiotic look on their faces, hoodies and headsets in the ears. He shook his head thinking his view was one-sided.
«Andrey Ivanovich,» she half-whispered half-curred in a seductive voice. «You know, I have to admit…» she made a short pause like a good actress and went on, «I haven’t done my home work, unfortunately.» The last word was pronounced with so low and mourning voice that it took him all his power to stop laughing. He pulled himself up, anyway, and looked up.
«That’s really a very deplorable fact,» he copied her intonation. «My condolences… But let me ask, Ms. Ivlev why did you fail to do it?» he exuded charm.
«Oh, that was a very sad story. But in short, I was at a hospital.»
«Sorry. And how long did it take you?» He was as kind and caring as her own father couldn’t be at that moment.
«Half a day. Why are you questioning about that? Did you see me somewhere?», she smiled with a silly smile many young girls used to thinking it makes them look more irresistible and intriguing.
«No, I didn’t. So, you were back in the afternoon, weren’t you?», he raised his brows and she let hers down.
«Yes, I was. I don’t remember exactly… But you’re right. Sort of.»
«Did you have dinner yesterday or did you miss it because of this unpleasant visit, Ms. Ivlev?», he asked with sympathy.
«Yes, I did. No problem,» she leaned her head down to a shoulder a little bit.
«Did you have your supper as well?», he kept asking.
«Yes, I did, Andrey Ivanovich. What are you implying? That I should be on a diet?», she pushed out her lower lip and gave a disgusted laugh.
«No, not at all. But let me ask you the last question. Did you get to bed on time?»
«Oh, now I see what you’re getting at,» she smiled openly. «Yes, I did. Alone and happy. I dreamt wonderful dreams,» she began to whisper again. «And I even dreamt about you. Imagine that..?»
«I’d rather not,» he narrowed his eyes and whispered in return. «I can’t find any excuse for you being so unprepared, Ms. Ivlev. «I don’t want to hear about your nice, long dreams. If you had time for sleep, you had plenty of time to do your homework beforehand. Give me your assignment book, please.»
«Maybe we can talk about English in another way? Why don’t you call me Larisa?», she did not give up. She threw back her shoulders and a thin line between two sides of her zip opened up much wider than necessary. She arched her back and looked at him, raised her shoe-heel up waving it as a banner over her skirt-tightened buttocks.
«Hardly we can’, he said sharply and moved his head forward as if he wanted to look into her eyes deeper.
«Why are you looking at me like that?», she was embarrassed, obviously. She blushed but came back fast. The girl had too far gone to be brought back that easily. «What can you see in my eyes, Andrey Ivanovich?»
«Nothing, unfortunately. However, let me have another look,» he furrowed his brow, looking like he really wanted to find something good in there. Then a previously unseen taste for sarcasm overcame him. «Yes, I can. I can see the back of your skull and nothing else. Do I make myself clear, Ms. Ivlev?»
«You are humiliating me!», she yielded. «You are traumatizing my soul!.. You are trying to psyche me out!…
«Wow! You know such words! It’s praiseworthy,» he smiled.
«I’m telling my mother and our form mistress!»
«It’s up to you. You may report to the Prime Minister or the President, if you like, but your assignment book should be on my desk right now. This morning I saw you smoking with your classmates around the corner. One of them was Alex from the tenth form. He swigged from a bottle of beer.»
«So what? It’s none of your business!», she spoke out of turn. He just gave a «who-cares’ kind of shrug.
«Sure. However it confirms the fact you weren’t short of time yesterday, or today. You should either get up earlier or go to bed later. And you’d be better off studying than smoking, you know. So, there’s no excuse. No mitigating circumstances.» At that moment the headteacher came up to the door and asked to talk to him. He went out. The girls and boys didn’t think he was close to the door, so, they couldn’t hear him coming back after his talk with the headteacher. But he could hear them.
«He must be crazy. He talks too much. I know what to do myself. He’d be better off not teaching me. You smoke, you don’t study, you can’t read. Who cares what I do? I’m not his daughter. What the hell does he want?», this girl was bursting with anger.
«Maybe he’s a sort of do-gooder?», another one asked.
«What? Bollocks! Tell it to my old aunt Fanny! There are no saints in this world, my mother says. And she really knows such kind of things, believe me!», she couldn’t calm down.
«Of course, she does! We’ve heard all about her. She’s living with her nephew now, right?», the latter one said with a poisonous tone.
«I’ll kill you, you bitch!», the first girl screamed.
«Spare yourself, stupid. Kill your Mom first and kiss my arse!», the other girl seemed so self confident. Andrey Ivanovich guessed who was who. Then the bell rang.
«Hey, you, both, stop that! Right, what’s the next lesson?», someone else stepped in to interrupt.
«Biology.»
«Shit. We’ve got to hurry. Come on, let’s get out of here!»
A dozen of pupils swept away from the class and disappeared down the stairs. Andrey Ivanovich looked at the quiet classroom and began to prepare to the next lesson. The sixth form was supposed to be there in ten minutes.
It was a remarkable day.
The sixth form guys were very excited with some PE exercises and could not calm down for a long time. When they did, he sighed and repeated his standard phrase «Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen!..» In vain. «Ladies and Gentlemen!» he increased his own volume: «Good MO-OR-NING! Cut the noise and let’s begin our wonderful journey. Who is on duty today?»
One more lesson has begun. It was little different to his previous lessons but there seemed to be no sign of improvement either. «So, my friends, how’s things? Where have you been? What have you seen?», half of class began to shout loudly and he could not recognize a word. «Let’s begin’ with «oysters’, so to speak,» he smiled. «Ms. Loginov, how are you?»
«I’m fine. Thank you. And you?», a chubby girl answered quickly. She got her face made up and a thick layer of Mascara rested on her eyelids even though she was twelve.
«I’m fine too. Thanks. Tell us what your rest was like?», he wondered.
«Pardon?», she asked in Russian. He had to repeat the sentence more slowly, «Have you had any rest?»
«What Everest, Andrey Ivanovich?», the girl was completely confused. «I was at dacha. Are you joking? I’ve got no money for Everest!», she chuckled and he looked up expecting a loud laugh but nobody even smiled. «My God,» he thought, «how can I go on? And they are in the sixth form now…»
«Ms. Loginov, not «Everest’ but «any rest’. Got it?», he tried to explain her mistake with a sad smile. Only then some of her friends laughed a little. He shrugged.
Half of the lesson has passed by and Yuriy Ilyasov, a quiet and an industrious pupil with thick-lens glasses, was desperately fighting against the army of unknown words in his text book. He joined this class last year and had studied in another city until his parents moved to Moscow. Andrey Ivanovich patiently waited for him to make mistakes and then corrected him. He turned his eyes for a second but still kept listening to the pupil’s reading and translating. Suddenly a word grated on his ears. He turned around and asked him to repeat.
«Lord Baron,» Yuriy said blinking his eyes.
«What?», Andrey Ivanovich was surprised.
«Lord Baron!», Yuriy repeated in an injured voice. «Can’t you see, Andrey Ivanovich, it is written is the text. I’m reading it as it is!», he pointed out down to the page with his finger. Andrey Ivanovich began to laugh and the laugh turned into dry cough with tears on his eyes.
«Yuriy, my dear friend,» he whispered hoarsely, «it’s «Lord Byron’. Haven’t you ever heard of him?»
The boy shook his head. Andrey Ivanovich looked around the room. The guys and girls looked puzzled. He felt perplexed as well.
«Hey, little monsters, no ideas?!», he raised his brows and waited. No-one replied. He nodded and sighed. «OK, just for your information «Lord Baron’ as you said,» he pointed out to Yuriy, «or Lord Byron was the greatest English poet.» He shrugged in disbelief and asked the next boy to go on with the text. A quiet voice began to read the next sentence, and he sat listening to it. Ten minutes left before the bell rang but «that was not the half of the story’, though. The pupil read the sentence a bit disconnectedly and finally has begun to translate. He was slow but OK. The first half of the sentence took him two or three minutes and the second part was supposed to kill the rest of the lesson time. The boy mumbled to himself before speaking loudly… and finally said, «The Queen Charlatan was presented,» he sat thinking about something nobody but him could know about. Andrey Ivanovich opened his mouth thunderstruck with the translation and asked «What? What did you say?»
«Queen Charlatan was presented,» the boy was embarrassed but he could not understand his mistake «What’s wrong?», he asked in an offended voice again.
«Buddy, it’s written «Charlotte’. Can you pronounce in Russian «Sharlotta’? Hey, you, class, have you heard the name before?!», he looked at them. No one nodded.
«Andrey Ivanovich, is that different to say «Sharlotta’ or «Charlatan’?», the «offended boy’ wondered. «It sounds very similar.» He was quiet and sincere. There was no joking in his voice.
«Not that much indeed,» Andrey Ivanovich smiled. «Charlatan, shalopay, scapegrace, who cares? It’s similar to sharmanka and sharlatanka. Right?» The class burst into laughter. «OK, guys and girls, not much time left. Let’s sort out homework.» He could not stand it anymore. But he had to. Life was supposed to go on.
December saw the first meeting with parents at school and it wasn’t easy. Not for the parents but for him. He had been told the pupils’ parents mostly considered a school as a temporary shelter, a lodge for their children from 8.30 a.m. till 2.00 p.m. Pure and simple. He thought, however, that some may feel differently and have an understanding of what he did.
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