The Change of the Seasons: Teacher's Pet

Chapter 2
Breaking the Ice

Chapter Description: Who said a catfight had to be over a guy?

[size=2]Becky Brownwood swung somberly on a swing at Edwardson Elementary School’s playground. The sad little auburn girl had just broke the news to her best friend and she wasn’t sure how Nancy was going to take it.

“It’s no big deal Becky.” The African American preteen told her confidant, “Miss Marshall has been telling you to stop walking with me to class anyway.”

Nancy Armstead was a 5th grader like Becky and the two had been nigh inseparable since the 3rd grade. She contrasted Becky in almost every imaginable way. She kept her curly black hair long and liked to wear skirts, rather than the jeans Becky often wore.

“I just don’t get teachers Nancy. Why doesn’t she want me helping you walk to class?” Becky asked.

“She says that we take too long getting to class because we keep talking to each other.” Nancy said.

Becky sighed, “I guess that makes sense. But I’m the reason your ankle is broken in the first place. I should be the one helping you get to your class.”

“It’s ok Becky, you’ve done a lot for me already.” Nancy tried to assure her.

Nancy and Becky had ended the past summer off with quite a spectacle. The girls had been playing in the woods with Nancy’s brothers when Becky accidentally tripped her BFF into one of New Spring’s titular creeks. The outcome turned the 10 year old black girl into a soaking wet crybaby, complete with a pantheon of cuts and bruises and of course a broken ankle on top of it all.

The two preteen girls spent the remainder of their summer vacation watching sappy chick flicks in the comfort of the Armstead’s home.

“It just sucks. Everyone is mad at me and now because of your broken ankle and we can’t do anything together during recess.” Becky complained.

Nancy laughed at that, “Go play Becky. My mama always says you’re the kind of girl that needs to get your issues out by running around and playing like boys do. So you should do that.”

“But Nancy!” Becky yelled.

“But nothing. Go have fun for me. I want to relax anyway before class starts again.” Nancy stated.

Becky took her friend’s advice and started to kick the ground to build up momentum on her swing. Rapidly swinging back and forth, she waited until she was at the apex of her climb before launching herself from the swing set and landing several feet from it.

“Bye Nancy!” she said.

“Bye Becky!” her friend yelled after her as she ran off to play with her classmates.

If there was a paradise for children in this world, then Edwardson Elementary School’s playground would probably be its town center. The playground’s designers combined the best play areas from the new and the old. Integrating free range fields dotted with trees and hills with two large play areas in its center. The little kids had a pirate ship set with slides, see-saws and monkey bars while the bigger kids got a climbable castle set that housed a small basketball court.

Becky was usually keen on playing King of the Court in the castle or climbing around it on most days, but the teachers often hung out around there and she didn’t feel like running into Mrs. Baxter. Besides, she really felt like running around today and a group of her classmates were gathering out in the field. Hopefully she could join their game without too much trouble.

“Hey guys can I play?” Becky asked the group, though she directed her attention to her classmate James.

“Yeah sure Becky. We’re playing Hunter-Seeker where someone is the robot and they have to hunt aliens and capture them.” James explained matter-of-factly.

“Isn’t that just Hide and Go Seek Tag?” Becky asked, dumbfounded by the boy’s imagination.

Her classmate James Medlock was an interesting kid. She had long known James’ brother Jonny, she had even been in Ms. Yong’s class with him last year. But over the course of the summer, Jonny had apparently turned into a Grownup and his big brother James had taken his place as a Growndown. The blond and chubby 10 year old was more outgoing than Jonny had been, but far less athletic. She liked him for the most part as the two were regular partners in class and James was very smart, but she thought he liked video games and cartoons too much. Their conversations would almost always revolve around them.

“Nuh-uh it’s nothing like that at all.” A 9 year old 4th grade boy with jet black hair adamantly declared to Becky.

Scott Longview was also a new kid as well as a supposed Growndown. But he was a grade below Becky and James, in Ms. Yong’s 4th grade class. He seemed just as energetic as Becky usually was and she thought he was kind of cute. It was a shame he was so whiny though. In the few weeks they had played with each other during recess, he would always end up complaining about something so childish it made Becky’s head turn.

Another 4th grader with curly red hair, quietly confirmed what Scott refused to admit, “It basically is just Hide and Go Seek Tag.”

Unlike James and Scott, Becky was fairly familiar with Cody Rainer in their years together in elementary school. The fellow redhead would often be a tag-along with his older brother Connor when they played together on the playground last year. But since his brother’s graduation to Morrison Middle School, the younger brother now spent his recess time following James and his fellow classmate Scott around. Of the three boys, Cody was the shyest and most low-tempo compared to other two.

“If Becky is joining then she has to be It.” demanded Mandy Axwell, the preteen girl was drenched in sweat from the previous round of the game.

“Fine! That’s what I wanted anyway Mandy!” she told Mandy as she stuck her tongue out at the blonde hair girl.

“No one has been able to catch me yet loser!” Mandy bragged as she adjusted her ponytail, “I’m the alien queen here!”

James chuckled at his classmate, “You’d be really fat if you were actually the alien queen Mandy.”

“Oh shut up James! You’re the fat one!” Mandy refuted, the boy’s words seemingly alarming her despite possessing a skinny body.

“No I’m not!” James insisted.

“Yes you are!” Mandy said.

“Shut up you guys! I’m going to count to thirty so you all better scram.” Becky stammered and closed her eyes, “One. Two. Three. Four….”

As she counted, Becky wondered why Mandy was even bothering to play with these dorky boys. She was perhaps the most popular girl in the entire 5th grade. She could play or hang out with anyone on the playground. Though Becky already knew the answer; Mandy had been once been like a sister to her, though it would be more accurate to say that they could have been step-sisters.

Until the 3rd grade that is.

Their parents broke up that year, and Becky was rarely ever able to speak with Mandy outside of school. Mandy started changing too, she got her mom to straighten and highlight her hair away from her natural dark blonde curls and started to wear what was “in” that year. Worse still, Mandy turned their friendly competitions they had as little kids into a horrible rivalry that perpetuated itself on jealous and payback. Their friendship collapsed and the two young girls were barely on speaking terms through the entirety of 4th grade. The only time Mandy wasn’t trying to be popular, fashionable, or a smarty-pants was during recess. It only then when Mandy would do what she loved to do the most.

Run.

Watching Mandy run wild during recess and P.E. brought butterflies to Becky’s stomach. The way her beautiful ponytail waved in the wind, the grace in how she moved her legs and arms, and most of all: the warm smile hidden below Mandy’s focused eyes. It mesmerized Becky as a preteen just like it had done when they were little.

Mandy had always been a mean jerk, but she carried herself with a great deal of self-respect. Something that Becky intensely admired in the preteen girl. But when you got into Mandy’s heart, just as little Becky had done in Kindergarten, there was a lovely princess inside. Imaging that same princess in her preteen rival today melted Becky like butter.

Becky would give anything to see Mandy smile like that at her again. Not a smug grin as she was easy to throw around these days, but with the joyous delight that was always across Mandy’s face whenever she publicly kissed her mom on the lips.

That mental image spurred Becky in a way she had never felt before.

“Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty. Ready or not here I come!” Becky roared with as much as her girly voice allowed her.

She had a special something for little Mandy when she got her hands on the 10 year old girl.

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“It’s a shame that you and Becky have gotten off to such a rough start Elizabeth.” Kim told her colleague, “I recommended her to you for a reason. I thought you and Becky would really click with each other like she and I did. She’s an adorable teacher’s pet when you get to know her.”

Elizabeth listened to the much younger 4th grade teacher as she sipped her iced coffee at the epicenter of the juvenile anarchy that was recess. Kimberly Yong was something of a protégé to Elizabeth. This was only the 25 year old Korean-American’s second year teaching school and she had been doing a fairly good job at it. The short young Asian woman was something of a sensation among kids at the elementary school, much like she had been when she first started teaching here. Kim’s long, gorgeous black hair and her busty body made her especially popular among the older boys in the school. Elizabeth had no doubt that Kim would help usher in the puberties of a whole generation of preteen boys; just as she had done with the previous generation that were now in their twenties.

While the matured Elizabeth used a style of teaching that mix motherhood with a no nonsense lecturer that was more popular with the more academically inclined children, Kim used her youthful nature to try and befriend her students in order to better educate them. Elizabeth was beginning to believe that Becky Brownwood’s impulsive behavior represented a critical error in the younger woman’s teaching style. Something she hoped to correct in the young woman.

“I think you should let bygones be bygones Elizabeth.” Grace Marshall suggested, “It’s clear to me that she cares deeply for whatever she sets her mind to but can be a bit clueless about the big picture overall. That’s the very definition of a child Elizabeth. You shouldn’t stomp that out of an 11 year old girl.”

At 54 years old, the 5th grade teacher Grace Marshall had been as much a mentor to Elizabeth back when she had first started teaching as Elizabeth was trying to be for Kim. Grace’s dull brown hair was starting to grey over but the skinny woman still possessed a tender beauty. Even with her advancing age, Grace was able to easily counteract it with her fashion. She had a lifetime love of dresses and there was not a day Elizabeth could remember when she didn’t see Grace wearing some new colorful dress. The older woman also wore trendy, but appropriate glasses that enhanced her librarian appeal greatly.

“I don’t know ladies. 5th grade kids aren’t just regular kids anymore, they’re preteens. I have to expect more out of them. It’s partly my job to prepare them for middle school and I just don’t think Becky is going to do well there. And from there," Elizabeth thought about the horrors of high school life that Becky would likely get herself into, "I’d really hate to think of all the dumb impulsive decisions she’d make as a hormonal teenager.” Elizabeth told them.

“It’s just a matter of patience Elizabeth.” Grace replied. “I’m sure you were little different from Becky when you attended Edwardson Elementary School as a child, the same could be said of me; and I suspect that Kimberly would be the perfect example of what I’m trying to get across here if she had actually grew up here in New Springs.”

The 25 year old woman looked a bit annoyed, “I don’t think you know the mentality of Korean families very well Grace.”

Grace obliviously continued to tease the much younger woman, “Perhaps, though I’m quite certain you were absolutely adorable as a child Kimberly. It would really have been something if Elizabeth or I had been your teacher back then.”

Kim cringed something fierce at that, “Will there ever be a moment when I will won’t be chastised for being a young woman?”

“Never my dear.” Grace answered. “My own elderly mother still treats me like I’m all of 8 years old. Even though I’m the one who cooks and cleans for her. You’ll get used to it as you get further and further bogged down in the world of adults.”

“Moving out of your parents’ house would really help your growing up and boyfriend problems Kim.” Elizabeth offered to her love stricken colleague.

“Yeah, yeah.” Kim dejectedly said. “It’s a work in progress.”

Just as the discussion between the three women turned to idle chatter, Elizabeth heard trouble. Two girls were screaming in the field and was not the kind of squeal little girls gave off during play.

“I think those are your kids out there gals.” Grace said.

“Oh Jesus!” Elizabeth exclaimed, “We better get over there Kim.”

“Definitely.” Kim agreed and started running towards the source of the screams.

Elizabeth tried her best to follow, but her body had been steadily getting out of shape since she hit her 40’s. She passed through the various groups of children in order to get out onto the grassy field and followed Kim behind the large maple tree that was in the field’s center.

“What on earth has gotten into you Becky?!?!?!?” She heard her colleague demand.

The 5th grade teacher braced herself as she rounded the corner. It sadly wasn’t enough to keep her cool.

Mandy sat huddled under the tree crying her poor eyes out. The preteen was covered with scratches, bruises, and cuts. Though perhaps most worrying of all was that blood seeping out of Mandy’s mouth. Elizabeth went straight for Mandy and knelt beside her.

“Mandy are you alright sweetheart?” she asked the girl as she rubbed her tiny back.

“I lost a tooth Mrs. Baxter” Mandy shivered, the girl was clearly humiliated.

“Can you walk Mandy?” Elizabeth asked, “We need to get you to the nurse immediately to stop the bleeding.”

“I think so Mrs. Baxter.” Mandy whimpered.

“Come on brave girl, take my hand so we can get going.” She instructed.

Mandy, quick to respond as ever, grabbed her hand and squeezed with a terrible shake. Elizabeth glared at Becky who was being lectured by Kim. Mandy had clearly gotten some hits on her rival as well, as Becky had several markings over her from their fight.

She had one order of business before she took her student away.

“Becky Brownwood you broke the ice!” Elizabeth shouted, “You’re getting after-school detention for two weeks!”

“But that’s not fair Mrs. Baxter!!!” Becky tried to protest, “Mandy…Mandy called me…”

“It doesn’t matter what Mandy said young lady! You don’t attack your classmates!” Elizabeth asserted.

“Mandy called me a lesbian!!!!!” Becky screamed.

Elizabeth took a hard gulp at that and eyed Kim, the young woman clearly looked in over her head and frankly Elizabeth felt exactly the same. She had no idea how to respond to that, but she did know one thing was for certain.

Dinner was going to be late tonight

Teacher’s Pet will continue in: A Tale of Two Kings[/size]