The Amulet of Kryshar

Chapter 6

"So, do you two have anything to say in regards to your outrageous behaviour during the lesson?" Ms Rose folded her hands over her belly and leaned back in her chair and it creaked dangerously. Please fall, please fall, my mind chanted on repeat. Yes, I was incredibly annoyed at Ms Rose and I had no qualms about showing them.

Melanie and I were standing in the classroom in front of the teacher's desk. Besides us and Ms Rose, the entire room was empty. The class poured out through the door while Melanie and I were staring at each other. Me, in shock, and her with contempt.

"Well, I am waiting," Ms Rose said with a bored voice. "What do you two have to say?"

"That I still find it unfair how you gave us no time to prepare for this test," I said.

There it was again. That strange light in Ms Rose's pale blue eyes, her facial expression changing to one of understanding for a second and then transforming back into an angry sneer. "As far as I am concerned, I have taught you everything you needed to know."

"That's not true!" I turned to Melanie. "Come on, Melanie, I know that you hate my guts right now, but help me out here!"

She stayed quiet and stubbornly stared at her shoes. I can't expect any help from her anytime soon then. I turned to face Ms Rose again. She was looking at me with her eyebrows raised. I had no patience left for her.

I raised my left eyebrow triumphantly (purely for show; I am still proud of that skill) and pressed my hands onto the desk and leaned forward. "Oh, so if that were the case, then that would mean that you were lying last week when you said that we still had a lot of topics to learn before the test, which is why you wanted to do it on the last week of school. Or maybe you were lying just now. In either case, that means that you were lying in some point in time, which is setting a bad example for us. After all, you are a teacher and you are basically teaching us to be disrespectful and a liar."

At that moment Ms Rose's own share of patience seemed to have shattered. Her eyes had that weird ethereal glow to them again. I blinked as she started yelling at me in full volume. I had no idea how her vocal chords kept up as her voice became higher and higher pitched. She stood and glared up at me. I was taller than her by half a head. "How dare you! You disrespectful, uneducated little girl!"

"Little?" I smirked. "Wow, that's rich coming from you." I stood on my tiptoes just to demonstrate my point.

Her face flushed red all the way down to her neck. "Disrespectful, rude, no manners! You should be sent to the Principal's office for this! If I'm lucky, you would get expelled for the outrageous behaviour you have displayed today! Yes," she smirked with glee when she noticed my shocked expression, "I could get you expelled for so many things. Talking rudely back to a teacher, snipping up your test, throwing a tantrum in class and disrupting the lesson. I wouldn't mind it one bit if you were expelled."

I froze. Expelled? Could that happen? Would that happen to me? My parents would be so disappointed in me. They probably wouldn't even be angry, but that was even worse. I still clearly remember that feeling. I was 5 years old and I didn't want to go to kindergarten that fateful day. So I faked a cold and my parents were so concerned about my sudden 'illness' that they allowed me to stay at home for that day. The acting went really well for the first half of the day, but then when it was time to eat lunch, I forgot about the fact that I was incredibly sick and had trouble swallowing food without my throat hurting. I came hurtling down the stairs at breakneck speed because I was starving. I hardly ate anything for breakfast. My parents were too worried about giving me too much to eat. I was so busy gulping down food, that I didn't notice my parents staring at me. When I did though and I looked like a perfectly normal kid with a full mouth, I could see the realization dawn on their faces. They didn't yell at me. They didn't scold me. They didn't beat me. They were so furious at me, that they couldn't even be angry anymore. They were just so very disappointed. And that was ten times worse than any punishment they could have given me. I started crying when my parents told me how disappointed they were in me, which then in turn caused baby Dylan to cry as well. I eventually made it up to them and they forgave me again, but I made a promise to myself to never lie or hide anything from my family again.