Chapter 11 – New teacher

My arm is completely healed after a few days. My reputation, on the other hand, that’s a different story. Pam’s victory over me is the talk of the school, even the teachers – though unaware of exactly how it happened – soon seem to know about it. The rooftop challenges have been replaced with ‘I hear you lost to a Nature!’ followed by laughter.

“It’s stupid really,” Miriam is kind enough to explain at lunch a few days after the incident. “And not at all true. There’s a sort of hierarchy between the groupings. Since Natures are often the healers or sometimes a bit ‘peace and love’ you know, conscious of balance and such, losing a fight to one of them is not something you brag about.”

“What fights do you brag about losing?”

“Well, if it had been a Minder or a Transformer, that would have been less bad.”

“I beat a Minder and a Transformer.”

“But it only matters who beat you.” Of course, it does – no one wants to admit that the Langdale actually did something well. I should be happy though, I’m receiving no more challenges, just laughs as I walk by people.

“What about Timers and Transporters? Where do they land?”

“Well, in a fight you’d rather lose to a Timer than a Transporter.”

“But the hierarchy is different based on what challenge it is.”

“Yes, in a race you wouldn’t want to lose to a Minder, that would be embarrassing, but losing to a Transporter or a Timer would be a valiant effort.” Or a stupid bet if you’re racing one of those Transporters who can disappear and appear wherever they want.

“Mind if I join you?” Pam asks and swings her long, blond braid behind her back and smiles.

“Of course not,” I tell her and move my book aside. She puts her food tray down and takes the chair opposite me.

“Professor Holt wanted me to ask you to stay after class today, he thinks you could be my chance.”

“No way!” Miriam exclaims rather loudly before I have a chance to react. Half the people around us turn to see what happened.

“Mind your own beeswax,” Pam tells them off, but she still sends a somewhat disapproving glance at the tomato red Miriam.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “It’s just… wow.”

“I’m not following,” I bud in before they can finish the entire conversation without me.

“I think it’s better to let the professor explain.”

“I think it’s unfair if I’m the only one who doesn’t know,” I point out. She hesitates for a second and studies my face.

“I’m looking to get my teaching degree which requires finishing all levels, including the advanced, completing the project, and teaching a new student. I’m only missing the student now.”

“So, in other words, he wants you to teach me?” Well, isn’t that just cheery; the only teacher at the school who thought he could teach me anything, and now he’s sending me off to a student.

“He thought it was a good idea,” she says uncertainly. “Would you consider it at least?” I turn my eyes up a look at her somewhat pleading face.

“How long have you been waiting for him to find someone for you?”

“About two years,” she admits.

“What exactly does it entail?” I ask.

“That would be a conversation better fit for somewhere more private,” professor Holts voice says clearly from two tables over. He doesn’t shout or even turn around and look at us. The only indicator that he was speaking to us and not the other teachers at the table is their confused looks at the sentence that evidently didn’t seem a fit response to anything they had said. Both my companions look down and focus on eating their salmon and cream potatoes. Fine then, if it’s going to be like that. I hear a small snigger from the teachers’ table and see Professor Holt busy himself with his plate. And they say he can’t read minds.

The rest of the day dones on. After the Fight Club, most of the students have been intent on learning Blind Location and practically begging to spend the lessons at in room 642. Pam takes a seat next to me in the back of the class and hands me one of her mineral tablets. She closes her eyes and tries to place a water tablet next to it and make a plant grow. After a few attempts she gets it and we simply play around with the plant instead; I hold it up in the air and she makes it lash out and try to wrap it around my wrist.

“I’ve been doing this for a while,” she admits. “It just takes me a little time to get the feel of it.”

When the last lesson finally ends we wait patiently for the class to empty and Professor Holt to make his way to our desk.

“I thought Pam could teach you about energy sensing.” I never agreed to learn that. “You’re a Langdale, no matter what you say you still have that esteemed pride that won’t allow you to be anything but the best you can. I can’t teach you about energy, mine is too constant for that, but Pam’s gift is suited for this kind of thing, and she knows how to do it herself. If you both agree to this, I’ll smooth it over with the headmaster.”

“Smooth things over?” Never mind the insult of him thinking he knows anything about the Langdales, he is right about the pride thing, but this whole thing sounds unsanctioned.

“Usually we pair up an advanced student with a new student, and even though you’re new you aren’t exactly new to gifts or how to use them. It’s also usually two students from the same group, a Nature teaching Nature, and teaching them everything, not a specific skill.”

“So why change now?”

“Because I think you could both benefit from it.”

“If I could teach a Langdale no one would care that I got my degree from the American Academy, I could get a job anywhere,” Pam tells me. “And we both have things we could learn from each other, we could both grow stronger.” And the professor has already determined I’ll always want to be the best I can.

“That settles it then.” He straightens up from the desk he’d been leaning against. “You can try out the room while I talk to the headmaster.” He walks out the door.

“That’s settled I guess,” I repeat to myself.

“You’ll have to excuse him, he’s just excited, he’s been looking for a good fit for two years, and this is perfect. If you’re really in, that is.” She hesitates, the excitement on her face held slightly at bay.

“Sure, wouldn’t want to ruin it for you.” And maybe this could be good, she’s been here a long time, she’ll know things. “Just one question: Why would going to the American school hurt your job opportunities?” She looks down for a second.

“The African and the European both consider themselves the best, of course, the British has a long-standing tradition of rivaling with the French village, so depending on who you ask it’s not enough to just go to the right school…”

“The French village?”

“Yeah, the European school is decided by nationality in the dorms, they don’t have one building but small ‘villages’ from each country.”

“How do you know all that? Is that like some sort of requirement too, knowledge of the other schools?”

“No, I was an exchange student there for a year, Professor Holt thought it would be good for me after I’d finished the project.”

“What exactly is that? The project?”

“It’s like an exam, you complete a self-chosen project with the use of your ability and what you’ve learned here. Mine was my tablets.”

“So it could be anything you choose?”

“It has to be approved by at least three teachers, and it should be something unique, and of a certain difficulty. This guy, a few years ago, put on a ballet like the swan lake or something, but without actors. Everything was done by animals, and it was incredible. A small group of Natures helped with the scenery, making the leaves blow in the wind, making the water dance like nymphs. The whole school watched it, and I’ve never seen anything like it before, it was like being in another world. It took him almost a year to teach the swans to dance, but I think it paid off, someone came and got him a few days later, no interview or anything, he just got his dream job handed to him.”

“And this is something everyone does? Or is it just if you want to be a teacher?”

“It’s like an exam, it marks the completion of your training – you can choose to take it after the basic courses or postpone and go to the advanced level. Of course, the demands are much higher in the advanced, so it’s not always an advantage to wait, you have to show you’ve learned something new, or they won’t accept it.” So I have to master at least one of the things the professor has assigned me.

“But it’s okay to have people help you?”

“With details, the majority of the work has to be yours. Like with mine, I did all the research and figured out exactly how to mix everything, but I had a Transformer friend help me make them pocket seized while still containing the nutrients of a field. I got marked down for that, they were impractical and useless without his help.”

“So the help can only be to put something over the edge, not anything with an actual effect or necessity.”

“Pretty much yeah.” The door opens and Professor Holt comes in with the headmaster and the pearl teacher.

“You’ve been talking all this time?” he asks, but I’m unsure if he’s angry we haven’t been practicing, or happy that we didn’t just sit in awkward silence.

“Professor Holt has explained the situation to me,” the headmaster gets down to business. “I am not an unreasonable man, I can see the appeal of this arrangement. However, miss Garner is one of our most promising students, and we will not risk her future on this – after all, miss Langdale, you haven’t shown much promise or willingness to learn. I have been told you haven’t attended a history lesson yet. However, if you’re both willing to give the arrangement your best efforts, we will permit you a year for completion, after which, should the results not be satisfactory, miss Garner will be assigned a new student and miss Langdale will attend lessons with Professor Summers. Are these terms acceptable to you?”

“Yes, sir,” Pam answers immediately. I study his face. ‘I’m not an unreasonable man’ he said, but people usually don’t feel the need to note something like that unless they expect others to assume the opposite – whether he expects that because people usually assume that or because I’m a Langdale, that’s a different question entirely. Speaking of Langdale – I haven’t come to expect my name to be a help around here, why are they not more afraid I’ll hurt or corrupt Pam? Perhaps a single Langdale isn’t cause for much fear, and they’ve already heard that Pam can stand her own against me…

“Lizzy?” Pam asks, cautiously begging.

“Who’s Professor Summers?” I demand.

“That would be me,” the pearl teacher replies. She seemed fair when we first met; strict, but fair. I don’t smell a trap here, of course, I don’t know what happened with sweater girl after I left. I look to Professor Holt, this is usually the part of my thoughts he would invade and offer up his own answer. He smiles as if I’ve just made a great joke, but shakes his head and looks away. I look at Pam. She’s been waiting for two years for this, and she thinks it’s perfect. As it seems now I really have no reason to say no, and it might even be to my advantage to say yes, it’ll make me seem more trusting and possibly gain me intel.

“I see no reason why not,” I tell them plainly. Pam’s face lights up with a huge smile, and she actually throws her arms around me and hugs me.

“Thank you,” she says. The headmaster clears his throat reprimandingly, and she immediately lets go. “Sorry,” she whispers to his feet.

“I hope the relationship will not be unclear to you,” he says with a warning tone and opens the door.

“I would suggest the rooftop or the forest,” professor Holt says, still a hint of a satisfied smile in his voice like someone who has set up the perfect dominos and can now sit back and watch it all play out like he’s envisioned.

We go down to the forest, Pam’s home turf. She tells me to take a seat on the ground, close my eyes, and let her know when I can sense something happening. It feels like one of those tests they give children to check if they can hear and see properly.

“There,” I say and point to the tree at my right reaching out its branch towards me.

“You couldn’t feel anything before that? Anything at all?” I feel like an idiot, so I just stay silent. “You’re not looking for movement,” she says and sits down across from me. “It’s more like…” she hesitates and searches for the words. “Like the feel in the air letting you know spring is coming after a long winter, like when you look at a flower and can see what it will become when it blooms, like when you know it’s going to rain before there’s a single cloud in the sky…”

“I’m not a Nature,” I cut in and remind her.

“Well, you must have something like that too, can’t you… I don’t know, sense when something is going to fall?” It pains me to admit it, but:

“No. I’ve never predicted anything.”

“Okay, well, it’s like a hunch, like a gut feeling, it’s something you just know even though there’s no way of knowing it.”

“And that’s what you want to teach me? How to know something I can’t know.”

“Let’s try it again, okay?” I close my eyes and focus on everything around me. Nothing happens. I sense no change, no movement, no energy. Nothing. I wait. She’s going to try to surprise me, catch me off guard. I feel the leaves as the wind blows through them, I feel the soft ground never staying still because of the animals crawling over it, I feel the heat of the sun rays breaking through the leaves, but I don’t feel anything acting in a way it’s not supposed to. I take a deep breath and prepare myself, it has to come soon. She can’t wait forever. Any minute now. Is she making fun of me? Does she simply want me to sit here looking like an idiot? No, she wants her teaching degree, she has to actually be doing something. What is she waiting for? What is… There, that just… No, it didn’t it was just an ant stepping on a pine needle. What in the world is this going to accomplish? We’re just sitting here. I shift my attention to Pam, just to make sure she’s still there. She is, she hasn’t moved one inch. How long do we have to sit like this? I scan the entire meadow again.

“You almost had it there,” she says crestfallen. “Why did you move away from me again?”

“You weren’t doing anything…”

“Of course I was, do you think I was just sitting here for an hour and a half?” I look down at my watch, it really has been that long.

“What did you do?” I demand.

“I grew the root of that tree there.” She points to a big old tree. Underground, how stupid am I. “Look, you can see how the ground has shifter along this line,” She points to something I can’t make out on the ground. “You couldn’t feel the forest floor moving?”

“I’m not a Nature,” I remind her again.

“But you should still be able to feel the ground move, you can do blind locating. Look, it’s about time for dinner now, why don’t we go get something to eat and go over what we’ve learned so far.”

“What we’ve learned?” But it seems she at least has learned a lot. We end up staying at dinner for another hour where I tell her what went through my heads and she takes notes.

“Yes, yes that seems logical,” she mutters to herself. “Yes, this will do fine, what do you say we pick this up again tomorrow after class?”

“Sure, that’s fine by me.”