Second Draft

 I have done some editing, I tried to give more attention to the protagonist's feelings towards a teacher. Also, showcase his need for belonging and the internal fear.

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When she entered the room, the class did not go quiet, as usual. The other kids did not notice her. She entered quietly, looked around and quickly made her way to the teacher’s desk. She walked so fast that her scarlet hair stayed in the air for a while, drifting, as if the wind was just waking up and still not making a sound. A few of the kids now realised that this unfamiliar woman was staring at the class from the teacher’s desk. Whispers flew around the classroom and everyone now had their eyes on her.

‘My name is Becky, I will be covering Ms Danger for a while,’ she said. She told us that she came from Utah, but she had just gotten her degree from University of Chicago. She was so happy to be able to teach us lot. She was pretty.

She started then, one by one, asking names. ’Let’s start from the table closest to the door’ she said. ‘Tell me, please’ she added, ‘your name and your favourite thing’.

‘My name’s Tom, and my favourite thing is dogs’, ‘I’m Susie and I love the sky’. It carried on, one by one in a clockwise motion. The class introduced themselves while Becky took notes, her hand softly gliding on the surface of a warm yellow notebook. With one smooth motion she moved her hair behind her left ear exposing her shining skin, rosy cheeks with a few freckles on the left cheek that combined to form a sort of constellation. It seemed familiar but running through my memory I wasn’t quite sure… If only I could have a better look, I thought, as Connie, who sat behind me smacked me in the head with a pencil.

‘It’s your turn you dumbo,’ he said, and the class broke out in laughter.

‘There’s no need for that, Connie,’ The teacher shouted half seriously.

She walked towards me. With every step she made my heart skip a beat. ‘Kiss me’ I thought, ‘love me’, I thought. I did not quite understand as these thoughts were something I only heard in movies. Unfamiliar yet so warming as if early morning sun laid its fingers on my chest. She smelled of almonds, like marzipan. I wondered how long can I keep that smell inside me…

She gently glided her fingers across my head. ‘Now tell me’, she started, ‘what is your name and favourite thing?’. ‘I love constellations!’ I shouted in an uncontrolled, stammering voice, much like a faulty megaphone cracking in the middle of a word. ‘Const… Const…’ Houston we have a problem, my brain is on fire. ‘Const…ellations!’ Hers looked like Delphinus.

‘And what is your name?’ She added.

‘My name is Delphinus’ I replied as my face started to burn.

The confusion on her face was unbearable. I felt like I was set on fire, flesh melting, dripping off my skull, the class’s laughter was now even stronger than before like a whip slicing my back open. ‘What an interesting name’.

‘It’s Marcus!’ I said, hastily.

‘Even better, now tell me Marcus what’s your favourite constellation? Wait…’ She paused for dramatic effect. ‘Let me guess…’ Class started ‘Del-phi-nus’, She smiled uncovering her teeth, that too was perfect.  She gave me one last look before moving on to the table in front of me, but I swear to god, once she looked at me, and the class was shouting ‘Delphinus’ her hand glided alongside her cheek, sort of pointing out those freckles that fascinated me and looked just like constellations in the night sky.

Soon after, she went around the class getting everyone’s name and class started as usual. She glanced at me once or twice, both times turning her left cheek towards me.  

 

 

The bell rang and the class that had sat so quietly for almost whole hour, stood with the force of a incoming tsunami, drawing all the kids from their desks and launching them through the door. No matter how hard I tried to hold on to my desk, hoping for her to stroke my hair again, I was pulled along as well, submerged with all of them. Then, through the door into the confluence in the corridors, filling it with every other classroom into one unstoppable channel forcing its way through the narrow school corridors leading to the canteen, pulling everything and everyone under. For a solitary moment I could have drowned in this current. It was magical, actually, for those thirty or forty seconds running from the classroom to the canteen, time would somehow freeze. Like a football floating down a river, without any real effort, surrounded by kids from other classes I would make my way to the canteen. Everyone burning with the energy that comes from being a part of a mass gathering. Everyone bonded by the goal. The faster you are the better food you will get, the better seat. 

I was somewhere in the middle, still submerged, still not completely free, still lost in northern hemisphere.  Kids pushing from both sides. Inch by inch we moved forward, towards the lunch lady.

‘You are pathetic, Delphinus’ Connie whispered loud enough for everyone to hear,

‘Delphinus, del-phi-nus’, everyone joined in, bursting with joy and laughter, grabbing me with their little fingers and dragging me back. ‘Let me go, let go of me!’ I screamed, but no one seemed to hear me. Like an Ivy, crawling, wrapping around my fragile body, no matter how hard I try to escape their poisonous reach they would let go of me. Soon enough, I found myself pushed back to the end of the queue, back to the door, almost, embarrassed and sad.

When I finally reached the kitchen, there was barely any food left. The stew plopped on my plate and looked mushy and gooey like it had been chewed up and spat out. They’d ran out of pastry too.

There were almost no seats left. When I tried to approach the empty one, the whispers around it formed a brick wall that I could not bring myself to pass.

‘Marcus’ a very familiar voice reached me from behind. I could feel that scarlet hair, I knew it drifted in the air behind me.

‘You can sit with me, Marcus’

She still smelt of marzipan.