First period on Friday before Spring Break. As usual students are trickling in late. I mean what’s going on that the same kids are so consistently this late — for a math class even. I know, I know. Teenage brains. Early in the morning. I’ve was there once. But every day?
Francis gets up from his chair as he always does and opens the door. Stephanie walks in smiling as she always does, except that she’s not in this period. I don’t understand her mumbled explanation. Is she giving me late work? Is she leaving early today? Does she want to sit in on first period today? No, she says. No. No. She’s waiting for Lisa and Ariadne who sit at her table during eighth. She coyly won’t say why.
Time passes. She stands inside the door as the other students work on what they started yesterday. More time passes. She texts her friends. Eventually she steps into the hall, and I hear whispering. They peek around the door. They tell me not to look. And they walk up to my desk and hand me a cake.
I open my eyes wide.
“A cake!?”
“Read it, they say.”
I laugh out loud. Yes, they were indeed very talkative yesterday afternoon.
“Can we get a picture of you holding it?” they ask.
I pick up the cake, sliding my left hand under the platter so that I can also hold up my coffee with my right. I tilt the cake slightly so that the top will be readable in the picture.
The cake starts to slide. Instinctively, my right hand jerks to catch it. The cake slides faster. My hand and my mug of coffee mash into the side of the cake, preventing the disaster that is about to unfold. It was a near miss.
The cake is a mess. My hand and my mug are covered in frosting. But at least the cake didn’t end up on the floor.
The girls ask for passes so that they can go to their first period classes. They promise they’ll see me in eighth and will not talk as much. They disappear down the hall, leaving me with a slightly damaged cake to explain to the students for the rest of the day.