Suzie’s House 96: Ms Spring

If I were working chronologically, this scene should have come a few weeks ago. It should at least have come before two weeks ago with Mrs. D. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I hadn’t written it yet until today. 🙂

Mrs. D was late. Not that Ben minded. She could be as late as she wanted. In fact, he’d be happy if she never showed up to class again.

“Did you hear,” Lisa said. She was sitting in the desk next to his, which was not where she was supposed to be, but no one was going to tell her to move, not even the guy standing around waiting for her to get out of it. “I heard she’s been suspended.”

“Who?” Ben got a mental image of someone hanging in the air like one of those bridges made of rope like you’d see in an Indiana Jones movie.

“Mrs. D. I predict she will not be coming to class.” Lisa looked smug.

“You mean, like she got fired?”

“Something like that.” Lisa tilted her head thoughtfully.

“Because of us?!” He was thinking about the time Lisa dragged him into the principal’s office because of the grades Mrs. D had been giving him.

“Yep.” Lisa looked even more smug.

“Yes!” Ben felt like jumping up and down and cheering. He slapped the top of his desk, with a loud smack.

Gene, sitting in the desk behind him, started laughing. They all bounced in their seats for a minute. He was going to ask if they’d have a teacher at all when Principal Greear came in with a really pretty woman.

She was really young for a teacher. She didn’t have any wrinkles at all, and she smiled nice. Ben liked her right off.

“Class, allow me to introduce your substitute teacher, Ms Spring. Ms Spring comes to us through a literacy program run by the university. She will be teaching you something special for the next two weeks, and maybe for longer.”

“Hi, Ms Spring,” a couple of the kids said. Ben could hear others talking to each other about how pretty she was, and who had a crush on her already. Lisa, who had moved to her right spot, leaned forward so Ben could see her and did a thumbs up.

Lisa knew things other kids didn’t. If she thought Ms Spring was good, then she was going to be good.

“We are going to do something fun and easy.” Ms Spring clapped her hands together while she talked like she couldn’t wait to get started. “We are going to write stories.”

She started telling them about how they were going to do it, how fun it was, and how she wasn’t going to be mean about their grades. The more she talked, the more excited Ben got. She made him feel like this was something he could do. He started writing stuff in his binder even before she told them too.

Ms Spring, huh? That was a good name for her. She made him feel like one of those speeded up science movies about plants growing, like he could really make something of himself.

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