Times In My Life - S01 E09

Story 22 hours ago

Times In My Life - S01 E09

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 9

"Most of them are older and there are a couple of younger ones. They're all men except for the English teacher. My history teacher, Mr. Kertz is also my homeroom teacher."

"What's homeroom?", asked my sister who was still in public school, and didn't have homeroom.

"Homeroom is where you go at the beginning of the school day so they can take attendance and also if there are any announcements, they will be heard on the classroom's P.A. speaker. As soon as the announcements are finished then you have 5 minutes to get to your first class of the day."

"How many classes do you have in one day?", she asked. Being in public school she had the same classes every day.

"Usually 7 classes per day unless you have a spare period; in that case, you have 6 classes that day. Classes are 40 minutes long and you have 5 minutes to get to the next class.

And... there are 4 days in a high school week. On the fifth day, we start over on 'day 1'; each room has the day number written on the top right-hand corner of the black board. They also tell you the day number during morning announcements.

And just to confuse things even more, lunch period and fourth class switch with each other every other day."

"Wow... that's a lot of stuff to remember", said my sister.

Mom and dad both looked at me and related to me that things were much simpler when they went to high school. Same courses everyday, lunch was always the same time everyday. And of course, they had to 'walk 5 miles to school and it was uphill both ways.

We ate in relative silence for a while before dad said, "I hear you have a telephone message and it was left by a female."

"Wha...", I looked at my mom, who was smiling like the cat who had eaten the canary. "Why didn't you tell me it was girl who left the message?!"

"It must have slipped my mind... I'm sorry."

I could tell just by looking at her that she was in no way, shape or form sorry. In point of fact, she was still smiling, though not as broadly, and she had tumed her head towards the kitchen window in an attempt to hide her face. She always did have a bit of the devil in her.

"Why would a girl leave a phone message for you?", my dad queried.

"I have no idea", I said hotly.

"Nick has a girlfriend! Nick has a girlfriend", my sister teased in a sing-song voice.

"I do not! I don't even know any other girls in this town!"

"Could it be someone from school?", asked mom after she had given my sister the 'stop that right now' look.

I don't know... I really don't know", I asserted.

"Guess you'll find out after you call her eh?" dad quipped.

We finished eating and mom and I did the dishes. We traded off with dad and my sister for dish-washing duty on alternating days. Finally we were done; the time was 6:58 pm, nearly time to call the mystery girl.

I waited until it was five minutes past the hour before calling the number, I didn't want to seen as too keen. The call was answered on the first ring.

"Hello Nick" a pleasant voice answered. I had given up on how everyone seemed to know who I was, but I had no idea who they were.

"Hi", I replied without any questioning inflection in my voice. I may not have know who was calling, but I didn't want to appear to be a complete dummy.

"I saw you in English class today and you seemed to be... hmm... struggling with the material."

Well... she had that right. English was my worst course, made even worse by the teacher who looked as though she could easily pass for a Playboy model. I had been sneaking glances at her all through the class and not really paying much attention to what she was writing on the board or what was in my textbook.