volume one hundred and thirty-six

she should never have been a teacher

📍Written from a blue Autumn morning from Wathaurong Country, otherwise known as Bacchus Marsh, while birdsong and cool air trickled through the open window.

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What I remember:

Her nose points to the heavens and has a wrinkle from nostril to nostril. A result of the way she gets rid of a seemingly constant itch by rubbing the base of her palm in an upward motion, dragging it with it. The shape is forever transformed.

Her shorter-than-her-ears tight ink-black curls glisten every day. Every minute of every day. It is as if they’re wet. It is as if she just stepped out of the shower. All of the products she uses in it are enough to give reflection to the fluorescent lights of her classroom.

A grade 6 teacher, and vice principal. She wants to be the principal. We all saw that so clearly when he was off for a week and she stepped in and we felt the wrath that came with that power.

Her favourite knitted jumper isn’t beige and isn’t cream and it isn’t white. It’s vanilla. The kind of colour that makes you hungry when you see her in it. And she wears it a lot. That jumper hangs long beneath her hips, and is paired with a loose-fitting show-no-shape black skirt underneath to her ankles, chunky black shoes, and opaque tights.

When she assigns her students in pairs, she never puts them boy/girl. It is always girl/girl and boy/boy. She has more patience for the boys. She wants them to succeed and she will explain tasks many times if that is what it takes for them to get the highest grade. If the girls show no interest, she wastes no time forcing them to. If they don’t understand right away, it is their fault.

When I scrape my ankle on my bike pedal, slicing it open to a large gash, and show her a completely blood-soaked sock, she tells me to “Get over it”. She refuses to let me go to first aid for a bandaid stating that it has stopped bleeding. It hasn’t. It needs more than a bandaid.

She is maybe 35, but to us, she may as well be 100. She is the only female teacher who doesn’t wear a wedding ring on her stubby, unpolished, chewed fingers. Fingers and stubby thumbs that are quick to point out every mistake I make and use me as an example.

My Mum shows up not-so-accidentally early one day to pick me up. It gives her enough time to sit in and witness what her daughter has come home every day in tears about and what has seen zero results from her approaching the principal about it. Before she can greet the poor excuse for a teacher with her fake early arrival and “I will just sit up here until you are done” with the undertones of “I will just sit up here and make you think about what you have done, let you know I am watching you”, the other girls in the class run up to her. They seem relieved to be in the presence of another adult.

“Ms. X is horrible to Lauren. She is mean. But she is really mean to Lauren. She bullies her every day.”

She doesn’t wait around long enough for him to retire and to take his job. She disappears, without a trace and without any fancy farewell. Good riddance is what we all think, and what a shame it didn’t happen sooner.

What I like to think to be true: 

She takes the framed photo of him and his wife from his desk and places it in the draw. She doesn’t need to see that; his face, his wife, their happiness.

He is gone and it is about time. Sure, he will be back in a week but until then, this is her office.

The blinds are drawn to block the bright Australian summer sun outside. It feels much cooler in this room and she can keep the air-conditioning off by doing that. The air-conditioning makes her sneeze and cough and her nose itch.

She lines his pens up in perfect parallel on his desk, to her right, beside the notepad that has his name and contact details on every page. She picks up one of the pens and scribbles her name over his on the first page and marks a large X over “Mr”. She doesn’t replace it with Mrs or Miss, but Ms. She is always Ms. 

Why does it matter whether she is married or not when he gets to be Mr no matter what? 

She looks up at the crucifix hanging above the door out of the office and into reception. That is why it matters.

She desperately wants to be working in a place where being unmarried isn’t a daily thing she feels pressured to change. The parents glance at her bare wedding finger when she meets them, “Ms. X, was it?” they ask with judgment glaring down. The other teachers introduce her to the widower fathers from their classes.

She pulls her giant handbag from her feet and plonks it on her lap, feeling around inside searching. She shuffles through the incense options and chooses frankincense. She lights it, waves it around until the flame leaves and the ember remains and then pokes it into the soil of the peace lily on the desk. The ashes fall onto the leaves and it brings her pleasure to see that. Small chaos created, likely to be undetected.

From the other side of the door, she can hear one of the students, Matthew, complaining of a sore tummy. Again. This kid feels sick so often she knows he either hates school and will fake to get out of it as much as possible, or something needs to be done. Maybe an allergy? Maybe anxiety? Maybe poor diet?

If only his parents would ever pick up the phone when she tried to reach them. If only the principal would ever listen to her when she asked him to call. No. He just told her to get back to the paperwork he had assigned her. Not long into this job, she realised that the vice principal was just getting assigned all the parts of being a principal that he didn’t want to deal with.

Not this week. Sure, all that would be waiting for her when he got back, but for this week she was king.

The conversation outside tells her that Matthew has laid down in the sick bay again.

There is a soft tap on the door from the receptionist. “Come in,” she replies. Trying to sound not too eager, but in a tone that says “You will like me more than him and you will wish I was still sitting in this chair when he is back in it.”

What happened:

“Oh my GOD!” I scream from the moving car.

“WHAT? Who is it? Who did you see?” My best friend understands from the driver's seat, pumps the brakes and makes for a U-turn.

“Ms. X! She was the bully teacher from my primary school. She made my life hell! She should’ve never been a teacher. She was so fucking cruel. Mum had to step in. I haven’t seen her in more than twenty years. Maybe … hang on…” I pause to do the math on my fingers. “It has been twenty-three years since I’ve seen her. She looks exactly the same!” I groan in disgust and disbelief.

We are coming back around the block now, from the opposite direction of where I saw her exit the bakery in the small coastal town my best friend calls home. Small enough, you would think, to not see anyone you know, certainly not a ghost. This should be a sanctuary.

“The rumours were she left to live in a lesbian commune. That was her only redeeming quality, quite honestly. Are there any of those around here?”

“So many!” my friend replies with glee. “Is that her? I want to know what she looks like if I see her around town again!”. A best friend that entered my life eighteen years ago does not know her, but does not need an explanation beyond “bully”.

“Yes! I cannot believe how much she looks exactly the same. She has the same wrinkled nose, the same clothes, the same ugly thumbs that she would torment me with when I did things wrong by pointing out my mistakes with them, and the same haircut. I cannot believe it. Her hair used to be jet black. The only thing different is that she is grey now.”

Lovely reader, head into the comments and tell me about an unexpected visit from a ghost.

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hi, lauren deborah! will always be free and by clicking this cute link, you will get full access to your inbox each week as well as to the archives. If you would like to support my work, you can buy me an ice cream. 🧡🧡🧡 Comments and likes on this post or sharing it with someone, jumping into the chat, listening to my podcast or submitting a question are all other ways you can support me and my work, too, and I love them all!

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here are three things i struggled with this week:

🌊  Apparently my hair styles best with the saltwater of the ocean and I have just started five weeks inland. Wonderful flat hair will be embraced!

🪰 How much some homes can instantly feel like home and others likely will never even feel like a temporary one. The vibes are essential.

🐝The urge to do it all. I read recently “You can do it all! Just not at the same time.”

here are three blessings from this week:

✍️ I am reflecting on all the new people I have met since returning to Australia, who go to the standard question “What do you do?” and I get to answer with such excitement.

🐾 Dogs who remember you from last time and greet you with happy kisses.

📻 The signs are everywhere if you look for them.

here are three goals for the coming week:

🌄 Ease back into ritual.

💸 No-spend March. Inspired by my besties. We are spending only what is necessary this month, and forgetting or borrowing whatever else comes up.

🫡 It’s all about saying no to most things, so you can say yes to the right things.

pics or it didn’t happen:

the moments following when i fed her and then when she let me pet her. 

I love you. Now I am off to look up free galleries and museums for my day in the city during no-spend March.

🧡, LD (lauren deborah | she/they)