The World’s Oldest Teacher
It was recess and Gordon, Paulo and I were
sitting against the school wall with books in our hands. We looked like the best kids in the whole
school. In fact, we were the worst kids in the school! We had recently discovered that if we sat
quietly under the open window of the principal’s office, we could secretly
listen to all of his private conversations and telephone calls. So far we had learned that he was supposed to
bring home a loaf of bread and that he had a dentist appointment in two
weeks. It turned out that our principal
is a very boring man. Just as we were
about to give up and play some soccer, we heard a knock on the door and then
the very happy voice of our teacher.
“Oh, Mr. Evans. I’m glad I caught you in the office.”
“You sure seem happy today,” he replied
suspiciously.
“Oh, I am happy. It’s not every day that I get to give you one
of these.”
“What is it,” Mr. Evans asked.
“Just a note from my doctor saying that I
am to have a week off work for a little operation,” she said smugly.
“No!
No! Not that! Anything but that!” cried Mr. Evans. “You know I’ll never find a supply teacher to
cover your class for an entire week! Why
don’t you just wait for summer break to have the operation?”
That must have been a private joke between
them, because Mrs. H. instantly burst out laughing. “During the summer?” she gasped. “During
the summer?! Ha! Ha! Ha! Stop it! You’re killing me!”
As Mrs. Hoagsbrith’s
laughter died away, we could hear Mr. Evans muttering to himself. “Oh, dear.
What am I going to do? I’ll never
find a supply teacher for that class.
The last one I got left the country, and the one before took early
retirement. If I can’t find someone to
cover her class, then I’m going to have to give the kids the week off.”
Gordon, Paulo and I jumped to our feet and
raced to tell the other kids in our class the great news! When the bell rang to end recess, our teacher
watched in puzzlement as our class formed a conga line and made its way down
the hall to our classroom.
For the rest of the day and all weekend,
it was all we talked about. Would Mr.
Evans be able to find a teacher to cover our class next week or wouldn’t
he?
On Monday morning, we arrived at school
early and waited anxiously by the parking lot to spot any unfamiliar cars. No one arrived that we didn’t know. When the bell rang, we rushed to our
classroom to wait for Mr. Evans to come and send us home for the week. At nine o’clock, the principal appeared at
our door and said, “Class, I have great news!”
Immediately everyone began cheering! Confetti filled the air and kids blew party favours.
“Yes,” Mr. Evans continued, holding up his
hands for silence. “I searched all
weekend and I finally found a supply teacher to take on this class for the entire
week!” Looking out the window, he said,
“Ah, and here comes your teacher now.”
Disappointed, we turned to the window and
saw a small car slowly pull into the parking lot. It slowly backed into a parking space and
after a few minutes, the door slowly swung open. Our mouths opened in shock as an old man of
about 70 slowly got out of the car and stood bent over, holding on to a cane. We turned back to our principal and Gordon
said, “You’ve got to be kidding! That
can’t be our teacher!”
“Of course not,” chuckled Mr. Evans. “That man isn’t even a teacher. But his mother is!”
Our heads swung back to the window at
once, and we watched as the old man shuffled around to the other side of the
car and opened the door. And then it
happened. Very, very slowly, he helped
an ancient woman out of the car and then took a walker out of the back seat for
her. She was 95 years old if she was a
day! We stared as she made her way
across the parking lot, stopping to rest every now and then.
“Yup,” Mr. Evans smiled. “She’s perfect, isn’t she? I looked for a teacher for a hundred miles in
all directions and came up empty handed.
I nearly had to send you kids home for the week, but then I stumbled
onto this one in an old age home. She’s
been retired for 40 years but she says she’s rarin’
to go!”
Rarin’ to go where? I wondered as I watched her take four
steps and stop to catch her breath.
When she finally got to the classroom, she
shuffled right up to the row of coats at the back of the room and said, “Hello,
class. My name is Mrs. Johnson.”
Mr. Evans hurried over to her and spun her
around. “Well, now, Mrs. Johnson. It looks like you have things well under
control. I’ll be in my office if you
need me.” And he quickly scurried out of the room.
Mrs. Johnson made her way to the teacher’s
desk, sat down and smiled at us. Then
she tilted her head back and fell asleep.
For the first time ever, our class didn’t know what to do. We had a 95 year old teacher, and she was
snoring away at the front of the room.
“Quiet,” Gordon whispered. “Let the old girl sleep.” For the next hour and a half, we quietly
chatted and played computer games. At
10:30, the recess bell rang, waking Mrs. Johnson with a start.
“What on earth was that?” she
exclaimed.
“The recess bell,” we told her.
“Oh, recess. I’m going to pass. You all go on without me. Have a great time.” And she fell back asleep.
During recess, we all decided that maybe
Mrs. Johnson wasn’t so bad after all. At
least she wasn’t working us too hard, and she hadn’t yelled at anyone all
morning.
Coming in after recess, the supply teacher
was nowhere in sight. Much to Gordon’s
delight, though, his pair of fake plastic teeth that Mrs. Hoagsbrith
had taken away from him two months ago was sitting on the teacher’s desk.
“Great!” said Gordon, grabbing them and
popping them into his mouth. For the
next ten minutes he entertained us with funny faces and silly grins.
The door finally opened and Mrs.
Johnson shuffled over to the teacher’s desk.
She stopped and looked at the desk, and then slowly turned around to
face us.
“Hath anyone theen
my falth teeth?” she lisped, pointing to the
desk. “I left them right here.”
Gordon turned white as a sheet and
fainted. Laughing, I grabbed the teeth
from his mouth and handed them to Mrs. Johnson.
“These must be them,” I said.
“Oh, thank you!” she said, popping them
into her mouth. “Wait. What’s that on your face?”
Before I could move, she grabbed me with
one hand and pulled a lace hanky out of her pocket with the other. Spitting on the hanky, she began wiping dirt
off my face. Then she noticed the girl
beside me, whose hair was windblown and tangled from recess. Spitting on her hand, she ran it over the
girl’s hair to smooth it down. The rest
of the class quickly began smoothing their own hair and brushing dirt and
crumbs off their faces.
When everyone had settled down, Mrs.
Johnson sat down and fell asleep. She
snored quietly until the lunch bell rang.
Scared of getting dirty or windblown, our
class huddled next to the school doors outside and discussed our
situation.
“Well,” said Gordon. “On the one hand, she’s kind and doesn’t make
us do any work. But on the otherhand, she spits on us!
Let’s have a vote. Who wants to
keep the old girl?”
No one said anything.
“Well, who wants to get rid of her?” he
asked. Every hand went up. It was unanimous. The only problem was how do you get rid of a 95 year old teacher?
It turns out, getting rid of Mrs. Johnson
was easier than we thought. Gordon came
up with a brilliant plan. Sneaking into
school early the next day, Gordon put on a flowered dress and a wig that he had
worn for Halloween one year when he dressed up like our teacher. He stood by the window and waited. Paulo and I waited in the parking lot. When Mrs. Johnson and her son pulled in,
Paulo and I were ready. We went quickly
over to the car and pointed to our classroom window. We explained that Mrs. Hoagsbrith
had made a remarkable recovery and she was already back at work. We no longer needed a supply teacher. Gordon waved from the classroom window. Mrs. Johnson looked up at the window, gave a
sad little smiled and sighed. “Well, it
was fun while it lasted,” she said.
“I’ll miss you all. You are a
dear group of boys and girls.” She and
her son drove off.
We posted a sign on our classroom door
that read “Shh.
Do Not Disturb. Testing.” For the rest of the week, we watched movies,
played video games and listened to music.
It was the best week we ever had.
The following Monday, Mrs. Hoagsbrith returned to school. “Mr. Evans told me that your class had
testing all last week” she said. “I’m so
sorry. I think that you deserve a break
today, so we are not going to do any work at all! Instead, we are going to watch movies and
play computer games!”
It was good to have our teacher back.
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