Naira: Hey, Grandma, just wanted to let you know that I’ve gotten the job. Love you, Naira.
Grandma: Oh, Naira, that’s great to hear! I hope you enjoy it. Lots of love, Grandma.

Naira’s POV

I smiled at the text my grandma sent me back. Whenever I would text with her, I would always have to end my first text with my name so she knew who it was. Let’s just say she wasn’t so good with technology, even though she really loved to keep an eye on me. It was more like me were emailing each other through text rather than quickly sending each other messages. But I rarely checked my email, so this worked for me as well.

Currently, I was working on my class for Monday. Working as a teacher basically meant you barely had free time. Sure, you had the weekend off just like most jobs, and at this school they somehow managed to have school days end at 1pm before the kids would have to do obligatory activities such as arts, or different types of sports. But in that free time I always, and I mean always, had to prepare for the next day. Sometimes it would be easy because I would just print out stuff for the kids to do, but other days I actually had to teach them things. Luckily I only had to teach the youngest kids, so the material I had to prepare wasn’t very difficult.

Now, before you ask, I was not a teacher for a specific subject. I was the only teacher the kids had, other than the PE teacher, and only taught the basics. The year after mine got a specific math teacher, and afterwards they would also get a teacher for the sciences. All I had to do was teach the kids the basic grammar rules, the simple math tricks, and the other super easy stuff. It was more about having fun and becoming comfortable, than actually learning. Well, that came out wrong, because without what they learned in this year, they would probably be screwed… But I hope you get what I mean.

So, I had the math part already all figured out, but now I needed to plan out something for the remainder of the time. I often liked to incorporate everything together instead of splitting everything up into separate subjects. That way kids would be able to relate more to it rather than think everything they learned was very useless, which often happened in high school. Anyway, the subject we were covering was ‘Me’. No, I don’t mean me as in Naira the teacher, but me as in the individual. It was the basic thing all elementary schools covered, and I thought it would be nice to interlink with the English subject, description, which we were doing. Plus, I would also get to know the students more, because at the moment I was still having some troubles remembering some of the names. But now all I had to do was figure out something I could do for this… it was a lot more difficult than I expected. How could I do this so it was interesting for everybody?

And that’s when the doorbell rang. I didn’t remember Maya telling me that somebody was coming over, or that she had ordered something. But I really needed a break and really didn’t care if the person waiting for the door to be opened was a serial killer. So, I got up and walked to the front door, opening it to find Vic.

“Hey,” he grinned, holding a bag in his hands.

I raised my eyebrows at him, wondering what he was doing, “umm, hi. I don’t know if you know this, but Maya’s at work, and I don’t know if you were expecting me to hang out or something… but, since I don’t know how else to say it, what do you want?”

“Oh, umm, Maya asked me to bring this stuff. Didn’t she tell you? She told me I could drop it off now…” Vic himself seemed pretty confused now as well, “or did she tell me I was supposed to bring it tomorrow?”

“Ugh, I really don’t know,” I shrugged at the man that was wearing a snapback even though it was pretty cloudy outside, “but since you’re here now, you can also come in. There’s no point in coming tomorrow if you’re already here.”

“I guess,” he made a similar movement and expression before walking in the house and deciding to leave the bag at the stairs where Maya would see it as soon as the arrived home.

I didn’t know why, but being around Maya’s friends without at least two of them present, or Maya there, it was just all so awkward (except with Jaime, of course). Normally I was good being around people and I knew exactly what to do or say, but because everything was to weird and uncomfortable the first time we met each other, I just couldn’t change the individual impressions they had of me.

I looked around the hallway while Vic also just sort of stood there, “so, umm, would you like to have something to drink? The table is kind of full of paper, but we can work around that.”

“Yeah, sure, I’d like that,” he nodded and followed me to the kitchen, only taking a quick glance at the mess that was supposed to be my work.

I got out two glasses, one for myself and one for him, “you probably know exactly where what you like is, so I’m not even going to bother asking you.”

Vic chuckled and grabbed himself something from the fridge while I filled my glass with water. And I suddenly got an idea. Do you ever have that? When you just randomly get the best idea at the weirdest moment ever? Yeah? Well, that was me right now. I knew exactly what to do to get a great idea for my lesson!

“Are you busy right now?” I asked Vic who looked at me suspiciously, “like, do you have to leave soon?”

He thought for a bit, probably contemplating whether or not to answer truthfully, “umm, no? Why?”

“Because I need some help with work,” I took my glass with me to the table and looked down at the scattered paper and my laptop before sitting down. Vic followed closely behind me and sat opposite of me, maybe terrified of where this was going to go.

“Why would you need my help?” he squinted at me as if trying to figure me out, “you do know I’m not a teacher, right?”

“Well, you’re lucky ‘cause I am,” I said seriously causing him to roll his eyes in a joking manner, “but, I need to figure out what I want to kids to do. We are doing something about who they are as people. So, heritage, what they like, their future, etc. But I don’t know what I want them to do, because I want it to be fun as well!”

Vic shrugged, drank some of his soft drink, and leaned back in the chair like it was no big deal, “turn it into a project. Let them make a poster, bring in some stuff they really like, and then show it off one evening to their parents.”

“Do you think they’ll be able to do that?” I wondered skeptically, “I mean, they are only first graders.”

He leaned forward again and looked at some of the marked and unfilled worksheets I had lying around, “yeah. The poster will basically be a nice opportunity for them to draw, which kids at that age always like, and you can have them write a short paragraph with all these descriptive words you’ve been teaching them, and they get to bring in toys! I mean, who the fuck doesn’t like that!”

“Now I feel so stupid,” I groaned and hit my head against the table softly, “that’s, like, the simplest idea ever! How did I not think about that?” I looked up at Vic, glaring at him, “are you sure you’re not a teacher?”

“I guess I am now,” he smirked, seeming satisfied with himself, “do you want to make an example together so you can show the students what you expect and want from them.”

I agreed to his idea. Who knew a rockstar would come up with ideas like this? Well, I definitely didn’t. This whole idea wasn’t that crazy, and it actually meant I had something to occupy the kids with for a while. I sort of had a policy of trying to not give them any homework at all, because it just really sucked and was unnecessary. So, following Vic’s idea, we looked around to see if we could find some poster paper and markers to draw with. When that was done, the planning started.

“So, are we making one for an imaginary person, or you, or me?” I asked as I put all my other stuff on a pile so we had more space.

“Let’s make one for you,” Vic smiled and looked at all the markers we had found, inspecting them and testing them on some scrap paper, “that way the kids won’t just know you as their teacher, but also as a person. I know they won’t realise now, but they will probably really appreciate you when they’re older.”

“Yeah, I know that. I literally have that with my own elementary school teacher. He will always be my favourite teacher ever. Instead of creating a barrier between students and teachers, he acted like our friend,” just remembering him reminded me of why I got into teaching when I was older, “but anyway, we need to make categories. I already said heritage, favourite things, and future job, but what about me also add family?”

“That would work,” he noted them down on another piece of paper, seeming to take this all pretty serious.

I chuckled at his concentrated face as he was mentally drawing things, “you like making posters, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” he laughed, taking his eyes off the paper, “I was studying graphic design, but then I decided music was better, and dropped out.”

“I guess I chose the right person to do this with, then.”

We proceeded to discuss my life and what to put on. Vic was actually pretty interested in everything I said, even though there were so many other people that just got bored with it all after the first couple of words. It was a nice change, everybody here seemed to be somehow intrigued by me. I told him about my parents; my mom had had me in the hospital, but left as soon as possible. I was never even given a name, and instead of bringing me home and taking care for me, she went straight to my unexpecting dad. He was left all alone with a newborn he didn’t even know existed before I was in his arms. And that was when I got my name: Naira. My dad was half Native American, so he decided to go with those roots and call me that. So, it was basically my dad and I, and occasionally my grandma as a mother figure. It also mentioned my heritage, so there’s that. I was quarter Native American, eighth French, eighth English, and half trashy white girl. That comment got Vic to laugh, so making fun of my own life wasn’t too awkward. And then came to whole part about what I liked; it was way more difficult than I was expecting.

“Oh, come on,” Vic laughed while finishing off the titles for my heritage, “it’s not that difficult. What do you like to do? What are your hobbies?”

“Teach,” I shrugged, not really being able to think of anything else. This had always been my problem, especially in high school. I never knew what I wanted to do or what I liked. No, it wasn’t because I couldn’t make a decision between everything, it was because nothing really stood out to me. I wasn’t the kid that was amazing at drawing, good as signing, natural at playing a music instrument, or skilled in athletics. Life just didn’t work that way for me.

“Anything but that? You need to like at least one more thing… right?” he questioned before noticing how serious I was actually being, “wait, you really don’t know.”

“Nope,” I sighed and sat back down on my chair, putting my head in my hands, “I can work well with kids, but I really can’t do anything else exceptionally.”

“Well,” Vic decided to sit down as well, so we were on the same level again, “do you play a music instrument?”

“No.”

“Do you sing?”

“No.”

“Play sports?”

“No.”

“Draw?

I shook my head, “you can ask me everything, but I can promise you I literally haven’t done anything.”

“Well, then, girl with the Native American name, Naira, and French last name, Belisle, with a multi cultural dad, and a trashy white girl as a mom, we will have to find your muse.”

Notes

So... we didn't get many votes, so I'm not sure we actually have you guys making the decision right now. Things will probably keep on going the way they are, but more voting rounds will happen, so I hope to see more people joining in with the next ones!

Anyway, Vic has now come into the picture even more. I wonder what will happen in the next chapter.

- aweirdkindofyellow