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The school year had yet to start for Kadic Acdemy, but the classroom was bustling with activity. Well, more so chattiness.
There was a new teacher this year and a few of the staff members wanted to greet her and make sure she was prepared for the school year ahead.
“You said this is your first teaching job,” Principal Delmas stated, brow raised. “Are you certain you will be alright once your students arrive?”
“Yes, sir,” the blonde nodded, pushing up her glasses. “I may be new to teaching alone, but I have aided teachers before, so I do have experience in the classroom.”
“Even so, it couldn’t hurt to learn from the more experienced here,” Ms. Hertz, the science teacher pointed out.
“Oh, I’ll take any advice you can give me, ma’am,” the new math teacher smiled. “I just didn’t want anyone worrying about my abilities.”
Ms. Hertz cracked a small smile, pleased with this woman’s respect for her elders.
“That’s good to hear. Now it’s important to remember that you need to be firm with your students. If not, they’ll walk all over and learn nothing. Make your rules known and follow through with any discipline you assign. No half-measures, Ms. Blanchet.”
The blonde’s smile faltered a bit. While she knew discipline was important, she was a bit worried about that being the other’s primary concern. “I do intend to be firm when needed.”
“You always need to be firm,” the older woman informed. “Children these days need discipline.”
“Oh, everyone needs discipline. I will readily admit that, but people need different approaches depending on who they are. Pressure may form diamonds, but dough rises when you let it rest.”
“Mm,” Ms. Hertz smile fell. “I suppose you’ll just be learning the hard way. I wish you well on your endeavors.”
Now, now. No need to be all doom and gloom,” the principal spoke up once more. “I’m sure Ms. Blanchet will find her footing here one way or another.”
“Thank you, sir,” she gave him a smile and nod. “I’ll do my best here.”
“As is expected,” the older woman nodded.
“Well, we should probably get out of your hair and let you prepare. If you need any help, you know where to find me,” Principal Delmas gave a slight nod and exited the room alongside Ms. Hertz.
“Phew,” the blonde sighed quietly to herself. “Back to work.”
She sat down at her desk and rearranged some papers, tapping them against her desktop to get them properly aligned.
Setting them aside, she went about organizing the drawers of her desk.
“Hey there!”
“Gah!” the new teacher squawked at the sound of a new voice, nearly falling out of her chair.
“Oh, sorry,” the large man chuckled. “Heard there was a new teacher and thought I’d check in.”
The blonde held a hand to her chest as she caught her breath.
“Ah… it’s okay. I just thought I’d already met all the other teachers, so I wasn’t expecting anyone else. Who are you?”
“Jim Morales. Gym teacher.”
The new teacher froze up a bit, recalling her own time in gym as a child. Gasping for air during runs, wearing clothes that revealed more of her body than she wanted to, getting picked last for teams, having to get dressed in front of her peers as a fat girl, being yelled at by the gym teacher…
“Are you okay?” Jim asked, noticing her change in demeanor.
“Oh, yes, sorry,” she shook her head a bit to clear her mind. “I just have some bad memories of gym class. That’s all.”
“Huh,” he frowned, not sure how to respond to that. Not the most pleasant thing to hear negativity associated with one’s job. Sure, he could be tough, but still…
“But that doesn’t mean gym is bad or anything!” she was quick to add, speculating that she may have hurt his feelings. “I just had a rough time as a sensitive overweight child. Physical activity is important!”
Jim relaxed a bit, smile returning.
“Well, yeah. Gotta keep your body goin’!”
Rolling up his sleeves, he struck a pose and flexed his biceps, smirking with great confidence.
“Don’t get muscles like these by slacking off!”
Marie’s eyes widened a moment, impressed by his physique. She could already tell he was strong without the flexing, but with the flexing? Wow!
“Oh, wow! Good job on that! Must take some serious work to get to that kind of strength. Trust me; I know. I may not look like it, but I do exercise. I used to be fifty pounds heavier. I am still working on losing another fifty, but it’s progress!”
Was she fishing for compliments? Maybe a little.
“I guess we’re both hard workers then!” Jim grinned as he rolled his sleeves back down. “You’ll fit in great here with a work ethic like that!”
“Aw, thank you,” Marie blushed just a bit. “I am hoping to do well here. It’s my first solo teaching job and I’m a bit worried about doing well.”
“Well, you’ve already proved you can work hard, so I’m sure you’ll be just fine! Don’t worry about it, Miss… uh…”
“Oh! I’m sorry. I completely forgot to introduce myself. My name is Blanchet; Marie Blanchet.”
“It’s alright. I’m Jim Morales.”
Marie decided not to remind him that he’d already given her his name.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Morales.”
“Same here. And you can just call me Jim. Everyone does.”
“Then you can call me Marie,” she smiled. “No need for just you to be on a first name basis.”
“Oh, thanks,” he grinned, thankful for the respect she was showing. Not many people respected him…
“No problem, Jim. Now, I hate to be short with you, but I do have more work to do to get things ready for Monday.”
“Oh, of course,” he rubbed the back of his head. “I’ll get out of your hair and-”
“Jim!”
Both Jim and Marie started at the sound of the principal’s voice.
“Oh, sorry,” Principal Delmas frowned softly at Marie before turning his attention to Jim. “Miss Blanchet has work to do. Unless you have a job to do here, I suggest you leave her to her work.”
Marie looked to Jim sympathetically. Not wanting him to get into any sort of trouble, she thought up a quick lie.
“Oh, sir, he was just here to help me move some stuff around! I needed some muscle and he offered to help me.”
“Huh?” Jim looked at her quizzically. What on earth was she talking about?
While the principal’s focus was on Jim, she offered the gym teacher a wink and mouthed the words, ‘play along.’
Jim blinked a few times before perking up. “Yeah! What she said.”
Delmas looked at Jim a bit skeptically, but decided the new teacher had no reason to lie.
“Alright then. I’ll leave you two to your work.”
With that, the principal offered a wave and walked off.
“Phew,” Marie sighed and looked to Jim. “Sorry about that. I kind of roped you into doing work for me. I just didn’t want you to get scolded. You don’t have to help if you don’t want to.”
Jim, still a bit flabbergasted that this teacher he just met would lie for him, took a moment to respond.
“Oh, no, I can help. Least I can do for keeping me from getting an earful.”
It helped that she referred to him as muscle. It wasn’t often someone stroked his ego.
“Oh, good. I was actually hoping to move this desk a bit, but I worried about making a ruckus scooting it along. Think you could help me lift it?”
“No problem,” he grinned and put a hand on his bicep. “I am the muscle, after all.”
“That you are,” Marie chuckled and stood up from her seat, making her way to one side of the desk to help Jim move it.
-
“Wow! You really are strong!” Marie chirped after setting the desk back down and catching her breath. “How’d you get to be so strong anyway?”
“Oh, I’ve always been a big guy,” he grinned. “Big kid, big teen, big man.”
“I noticed you didn’t say you were a big baby. Though I doubt many people would admit to that.”
“Why would-? Oh, a big baby like a wimp!”
Jim laughed, as did Marie.
“Anyway, you may have always been big, but you had to have done something to get those muscles of yours. No one is born like that.”
“Of course not! I worked for this body!” Jim flexed once more.
Marie chuckled.
“I’m sure you did, but how? Why?”
“Oh, right,” he brought his arms back down. “Well, I’ve always liked being active. Played a lot of football back in my day.”
“Back in your day?” Marie giggled. “You can’t be that much older than I am and I’m thirty-five! Come one and give us some credit. I know the kids think we’re ancient, but I’m sure we’ve got plenty of time left.”
“I dunno. Just hit forty not too long ago. But you have a point. I’m just so used to being surrounded by kids. Makes me feel like an old man,” Jim laughed.
“You’re forty? Huh. You don’t look it. I was thinking you were my age at most. You’re certainly aging gracefully.”
“Huh?” What was with this woman and the compliments? Not that he was complaining. He rubbed the back of his neck and smiled a bit awkwardly. “Oh, I don’t know about all that.”
“But those muscles!” she gestured with her arms out, almost sounding exasperated.
“Heh.” He was actually turning a little red now. She was making him feel like the hotshot high school jock he used to be. “Well, thanks. I’d have thought you were in your twenties.”
“Really?” Now she was the one blushing. She glanced away from him, twirling her ponytail around her finger. “Thank you.”
After a bit of awkward silence, Jim cleared his throat.
“Anyway, yeah, I used to play football. Could have gone pro too!”
“Oh? Why didn’t you go pro? How did you wind up a gym teacher?”
“Huh?” Jim’s eyes widened and his mind rushed for a fib. “Well… I wanted to do something with my life after high school, so I joined the Navy. May not pay as much, but at least I was doing something.”
That wasn’t the reason, but she didn’t need to know that.
“The Navy, huh? What were you hoping to accomplish, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Uhh…” He honestly hadn’t thought too heavily on it back then. He didn’t think too heavily on a lot of things. “You really wanna know? I thought you had work to do. I should get out of your hair.”
Smooth,
“No, don’t go!” she held a hand out before recoiling at her own response. “I mean, uh, I could still use your help.”
Also smooth.
-
It didn’t take long for Marie to think up a new task. And another. And another. Anything to keep the conversation going. He’d piqued her curiosity!
“Well, I don’t think what I had planned really mattered as much as what I did.”
“And what did you do?”
“I learned the value of discipline and teamwork, shaped my body and mind to their absolute peak, developed fighting skills, and… Oh yeah! I fought a great white shark; had to have been fifty feet long! Okay, so, it was a dark and stormy night on the seas...”
Marie listened intently, and while she was immediately skeptical of him fighting a shark, let alone a fifty foot one, she was very interested to hear the rest.
“The waters were rough as wave by wave slammed into the ship, threatening to tip it over! That was the least of our worries though! The very depths of the sea was throwing its most dangerous residents aboard! There were sting rays, sea urchins, giant clawed lobsters; but those paled in comparison to… the great white shark that got thrown onto the deck of the ship! Right in front of me!”
“That must have been quite the scare!” Marie played along. Who knew? Maybe the story had some truth to it, but was exaggerated.
“Not for me,” he boasted. “Nerves of steel. I saw that shark and knew I needed to act! It lashed out of me, but I outsmarted it; dodging its mighty jaws and jabbing my fingers in its gills! With it struggling to breathe, I was able to get behind it and grab its tail. I dug my heels and I spun it around and around, building up speed until- SPLASH!!! I let it go and the beast went flying back into the sea! Just another day in the Navy for me.”
“You did that all alone? No help at all? A fifty foot shark must be really heavy.”
“Uh, yeah. Of course I did! It was tough, but I built up enough momentum to throw it. Science-y physics stuff, you know.”
She… did not believe him, but she didn’t have the heart to call him out. He seemed so happy to tell his story. How often did he get a chance to tell it?
“Well, it’s a good thing you were strong enough to get it off the ship. Do you have a lot of stories like that? I’d be interested to hear them.”
“Really?” he perked up, not used to being encouraged. “I have tons of ‘em! You should hear about the time I fought a razor toothed beaver! It nearly got my jugular!”
“Oh? Do tell!”
-
While the two rearranged the classroom, Marie listened intently to Jim’s stories. She knew they were tall tales, but that made them no less interesting.
“Have you considered writing a book?” she asked. “I’m sure people would love to read your stories for themselves.”
“Really? Uh, no, I haven’t. I’m not much of a writer.”
“Your ideas are interesting though! I mean- Your history is interesting. I would advise you refer to it as fiction though, rather than an autobiography. That way you can tweak and perfect what happened and make it as compelling as possible. Maybe add some story lines and some more characters… Then maybe you can get a ghost writer to write the book for you while you give them the ideas.”
“Huh,” he rubbed his chin. “I never would’a thought of that.”
“Maybe it could be a nice little project you work on in your spare time… if you have any.”
“I could try?” he offered. “But do you think anyone would want to read it?”
“Of course,” she chirped. “Though, now that I think about it, a book would take a long time to publish. If you want to share your stories sooner, maybe you could post it online. You can still work on a book while you do that. Heck, you may even drum up interest for the book that way!”
Jim raised a brow.
“You sure seem excited about all this. I don’t know where to go with my stories… Would you want to help me?”
Marie gasped and clasped her hands together.
“Yes, I would!” she grinned ear to ear.
The brunet was almost startled by her enthusiasm.
The blonde shrunk back a bit with a sheepish smile and a blush painting her features.
“Sorry. It’s just- This sounds so fun!”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so! Do you think you could give me your email so we can work on this thing? We can only do so much during work hours.”
“Uh, sure.”
Pulling out their phones, they exchanged their email addresses before tucking the smart devices away,
“Wait- What time did the phone say?!” Marie turned her wrist to look at her fitness tracking watch. “Oh shhhhh-oot. I need to get back to work! I’m sorry, Jim, but I need to boot you out. It was really nice talking to you and I thank you for helping me get the room in order and I hope to see you again, but it’ll have to be another time!”
As she spoke, Marie rushed to her desk and began going through her papers.
“Oh, sure,” Jim rubbed the back of his head. “I’ll be seeing ya.”
Offering a slight wave, he left Marie to her work.