Week 2: The Start of Spring Semester

Driving into work, William Turner made a point of taking stock of his surroundings. Today marked a momentous occasion for Mr. Turner as he was about to to start his last semester as a classroom teacher at Peril County High School. And even though everyone locally called it “Pearl” County High, this was no jewel of a job for Mr. Turner. He had toiled away in his classroom for thirty-two years now. Thirty two years of breaking up fights, of kicking smokers out of the bathrooms, of grading term papers about chicken fighting and coon hunting, of seeing potential wasted and potential leave. Thirty-two years would be finishing up in twenty-four weeks.

The line at the Dairy Cheer was usually longer than this at 7:15 in the morning, so Mr. Turner decided to treat himself. “Large coffee, regular. Fried bologna biscuit with egg and cheese and a chocolate doughnut, please,” he called into the old speaker at the end of the drive-thru. The voice on the other end said something incomprehensible, but Mr. Turner was fairly certain he was told to pull on up.

Black Grass, the county seat of Peril County, ran along the riverbank and then cut through the valley that sits between Cherokee Mountain on the north side and Osborne Mountain to the south. As Mr. Turner drove along the main thoroughfare, the steep cut rock to his right showed the scars of where roads had been scratched directly into the mountainside decades ago. The high school was at the bottom of the hill, in the middle of downtown. Mr. Turner had made this drive from Mason’s Creek five days a week for the majority of his life now. He was fairly certain he could do it blindfolded.

“Good morning, Mrs. Banks,” he said as he signed the log book for teachers. Mr. Turner was usually one of the first teachers to arrive at the building, but no-one ever beat Mrs. Banks, the school’s secretary. The joke was that she was there from the night before. He meandered down the hall to his classroom. Every pencil, pen, printout and textbook on his desk was neatly placed and ordered, as were the books on his shelves and the desks on the floor. Mr. Turner liked things in order.

He spent the next few minutes enjoying his breakfast and reading the morning paper. Students began to trickle in for first period, plopping their bags on the floor and falling into the beige and blue desks with that exhausted thud only teenagers manage to make after sleeping for eleven hours.

“What’s up, Mr. T?” Albie Higgins shouted as he entered the room. He was a lad of significant girth and greasy black hair. His face was spotted with a splotchy beard that failed to connect in several spaces. His Megadeath tee shirt was sleeveless, revealing a white tank top underneath.

Mr. Turner put down his paper and looked up at the young man. “Good morning to you, Mr. Higgins. How are we today?”

A goofy grin filled Albie’s face. “Finer’n frog hair, Mr. T,” he replied.

“Are you ready to get the semester going?” Mr. Turner asked.

The grin never wavered from his face as the teen replied. “Well, I guess it will be good to get this year over,” he said.

Mr. Turner shook his head. “You know we have a lot of work to do between here and the end of the year.”

Albie’s face dropped. “Mr. T, I ain’t much for doin’ a whole lot a work. Let’s just take it easy. What do ya say?”

“You got time to run and get you some breakfast if you want, Albie. The bell doesn’t ring for another ten minutes or so,” Mr. Turner said as he grabbed his lesson planner. Albie nodded and made his way out of the classroom. Turning to the correct page, Mr. Turner glanced over the lesson he had prepared for his first class.

After a few more minutes had passed, most of the seats in his class were filled with young men and women. Many were bleary-eyed and groggy, but a few looked eager to get the day started. Albie had returned with two breakfast pizzas, a handful of grapes and four small cartons of low fat chocolate milk.

The first bell of the day rang at 7:55 am, signaling to all students who weren’t already in class that they should be heading that way. The last few stragglers made their way into Mr. Turner’s room, and he shut the door. “Four or five minutes, and we will go over the bell-ringers on the board,” he said as he made his way to his desk. He called each student’s name with most calling back “Yeah!” Or “Here.” After attendance was taken and submitted, Mr. Turner walked to his dry erase board and grabbed a green marker.

“Alright, let’s knock these out. Quick grammar review. Let’s list the eight principal parts of speech. Who wants to go first? Anyone? Anyone?”

The students looked back at him, blankly. No hands shot up. Mr. Turner took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Guys, I know it’s early and it’s our first day back from break. But let’s get a little energy going, huh?” The sound of a few seats scuffing on the floor could be heard. Someone in the back of the room cleared their throat.

“Guys, this is not a hard question. These are the building blocks of the English language. As an atom is to Chemistry, these are to Language Arts.” Mr. Turner scanned the room, seeking any form of recognition in a student’s eyes. “Misty, give it a shot.”

Misty Dixon, a small young lady wearing a Peril County High sweatshirt and hair pulled back into a tight ponytail held by a large green bow, looked like a deer caught in headlights as she sat at her desk. “Um, is this on the test?”

Mr. Turner shook his head. “What test, Misty? We’re not talking about a test. We’re just getting our feet wet.”

Albie pipped up from the back of the room. “You gotta get’chu some wader's fer that, Mr. T. You can take ‘em giggin’ this spring and yer feet’ll be dry as a bone!”

“No, it’s just an idiom, Albie. But thank you.” Mr. Turner had forgotten how difficult it was to get this group going in the morning. “I’ll give you one to get started. It’s the one that’s forgotten most of the time. Does this ring any bells: Conjunction?”

If anything, the class looks even more confused and uninterested. Dawson, a dark complected student with long dreadlocked hair sitting in the front row, raised his hand. “Are you talking about, like, nouns and stuff?”

“Yes!” Mr. Turner said excited. “That’s two. Let’s get the other six.”

Dakota Dillon, a freckle-faced girl with long red hair sitting in the far row raised her hand. “Should we write these down? Like, for the test?”

Mr. Turner shook his head, feeling a little put out. “There’s no test, Dakota.”

“No tests?” Albie shouted from the rear of the room.

“Not today, Albie, but we will have a couple this semester.”

“Well, will this be on the test?” Misty Dixon asked.

Mr. Turner looked in her direction and forced a smile. “Misty, let’s not even worry about tests right now. Let’s just try to refresh and learn.”

Albie raised his hand. He had finally finished his breakfast pizza, except for the large piece of sausage that somehow managed to hang onto the corner of his mouth. “Why we gotta learn it if it a’int on the test?”

“Pal, sometimes it’s just good to learn and know stuff,” Mr. Turner said with a hint of exasperation in his voice.

Colby Jeffers, a rail thin young man wearing a camouflage hunting jacket, thread-worn jeans and muddy boots coughed. “Mr. Turner, I promise I don’t mean to sound disrespectful when I say this. But I been goin’ to schoo since I was five; we all have. And in about four months, we are all done. All I gotta do is enough to make sure I don’t fail this class and I get to leave this place. And that is all I’m gonna do. I ain’t interested in the parts a’ speech or writin’ papers or none a’ that.”

After so many years in the classroom, Mr. Turner was never surprised by the lack of enthusiasm found in his senior students. They were approaching their final semester, so this was typical, if a little brutal. He scanned the room, seeing a number of his students nodding along with this sentiment. “Guys, I’m gonna be honest with you. I’ve seen senior-itis for over thirty years now, I know its real. You want to get out and see what the world has to offer. Well, this year, I’m in the same boat. We all have the same last day this year sine I am going to retire after you graduate. Now, there are some things we have to do between here and there. But, I promise to make it as painless and enjoyable as I can.”

The rest of class was mostly uneventful, with Mr. Turner straining to pull every ounce of effort he could from his class. And the story was the same for every class he taught for the rest of the day. Senior English was not a priority for most of the 12th graders at Peril County High, it seemed. But Mr. Turner did as he had done for thirty-two years, he stood in front of roughly twenty-eight students and taught to the best of his ability, one hour at a time. He discussed prepositions and punctuation, adverbs and exclamation marks. He reminded students of the work they had done and informed them or work still to do. And as the final bell rang at 3:05, Mr. Turner crashed into his desk chair, closed his eyes and let his mind shut off.

Mr. Turner didn’t move when Albie gave a gentle knock on the door. “Hey, Mr. T? You ok?”

Without moving a muscle or opening an eye, Mr. Turner responded, “Just resting my eyes, Albie. What can I do for you?”

The young man walked across the room and sat something down on the desk. “I got ‘chu a’ apple. They had a box of ‘em for after-school. Figured you might like one.”

Mr. Turner leaned forward and smiled at his student. “Thank’s pal. Been a few years since someone brought this old teacher an apple.”

“Well, guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” Albie said as he walked back to the door.

“Have a good evening, Mr. Higgins.” Mr. Turner arched across the desk and picked up the apple. It had a giant bite taken out of one side.

“Twenty-three weeks and four days,” he thought to himself.