A shorter story written as a request. Here's part 1, I hope you enjoy it.
Wrestling for Control
By Roy Ellison
The ball of paper struck Amelia in the back of her head.
“Ow! Who did that?”
She turned around from the blackboard, her voice all soft and helpless. Again. She hated this class with a passion. She tried to figure out who threw the missile, but just then, another one hit her right in the face, knocking her glasses away.
“Ah! Stop it!”
Another paper ball hit her. And another one. Soon, the entire class joined in, showering her with more missiles. She tried to protect her face, hoping that she wouldn’t make a wrong step and crush her glasses. That was the last thing she needed. Not only had Eric, her no-good husband just divorced her after cheating on her for years, the court had also awarded the custody of their son to her mother, with whom Amelia had her own troubles.
Life was shitty, and accidentally destroying her glasses right when she was spiraling into debt and personal catastrophe would just be the final nail in her coffin.
While being pelted by paper balls, she knelt down as carefully as she could, her blurred vision barely allowing her to see anything, let alone her glasses on the dirty floor of the classroom.
What the hell had she been thinking? She had majored in English and Spanish literature, but had always hoped for a nice and quiet job, maybe as an editor or a proofreader. Something with minimal human interaction. Well, it turned out that nowadays, publishers preferred machines to do the job, and she had been out of work.
Becoming a school teacher had never been her plan, and teaching at a private school for notoriously difficult privileged students was the opposite of what she wanted. However, she needed a job, and the private school board took her without any training. They just needed to fill a vacancy, and they were paying moderately well.
Of course, the aforementioned difficult and privileged students were a problem. A major problem.
The laughter was getting louder as the students started throwing trash at her now. She still tried to find her glasses in the growing mess when a big can of energy drink hit her on the back, soaking her blazer in the sticky, disgusting liquid.
“Ow! Please, stop it! You’re hurting me!”
Instead of a ceasefire, the students redoubled their attacks. The next can hit her on the back of her head. Some horrible stuff ended up in her hair, turning her already busted hairstyle into a repulsive mess.
Amelia really tried to keep it together. She tried to stay strong. She tried to maintain some semblance of composure. She really tried.
Then she found her glasses. As she put them on, she found that the left lens was broken.
She got up.
She looked at the horde of idiots in expensive clothes.
Her face turned red.
She took a deep breath.
She screamed at them.
It was a weird, disturbing squeak.
Amelia’s voice was just ridiculous. The students guffawed as she closed her mouth.
One of the especially obnoxious students, a young woman called Chloe, asked:
“What was that, Mrs. Jenner? Was that supposed to be a shout? Were you trying to discipline us?”
Amelia stared at her. She felt so ridiculous and weak like this. She clenched her fists desperately. A few days ago, she had run out of a classroom when the students had started making pig noises at her whenever she tried to speak.
She wasn’t going to run today. She had to take a stand.
She had to.
If she didn’t, any remainders of her authority would be washed away. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself and bring the situation back under control. She really tried. She opened her mouth. No sound came out.
She fought back the tears.
Please … She begged herself. Please, don’t run. Don’t give in to their bullying. Please … Please stay strong.
Chloe laughed right in her face, then took out her vape, took a pull right in front of her, and then blew it right into Amelia’s mouth.
The teacher’s eyes went wide. She gagged. She coughed. She bent over, trying to catch her breath, trying to clear her airways.
She stumbled about, tears streaming from her eyes and then, she ran.
Chloe took another pull and shrugged:
“What was that?”
She met the grins of her classmates with a look of absolute supremacy.
In the teacher’s bathroom, Amelia was trying to fix her … everything. Her makeup was ruined, her cute pastel outfit was in a bad shape, and her hair was a mess. Her throat was still hurting and she was struggling to breathe. She was completely exhausted and exasperated.
Should she go and talk to the principal?
She probably should. What the kids were doing was dangerous! Then again, if she showed up again, she would probably get a dressing-down for leaving the classroom while she should be working.
Okay.
She had to deal with this on her own. She had to stand up for herself! She had to …
She started crying again, then locked herself into one of the stalls.
Finally, class ended. She came back out just before to act as if she had been there the whole time, then packed up her things and headed to the teachers’ room. Just as she came in, her colleagues looked away. That was the other thing: Not only did her students have zero respect for her, but her colleagues were more or less embarrassed for her. The court hearings had meant that she had to miss work several times, which increased the workload of the other teachers, and the classes she was in charge of were seen as even worse than the others.
Amelia really couldn’t blame them.
She went to her desk, which was slowly being encroached upon by its neighbors and tried to get a coffee.
Just then, Martin, one of her colleagues popped over to her and said:
“The principal says you’ll have to substitute gym class now. Kelly had to go to the hospital with one of the students.”
“What? Gym class? But they …”
“You’re the only one we got. Get to it.”
“I don’t even have my gym clothes!”
“Just tell them to play ball. It’ll be fine. Hopefully, they won’t ruin anything.”
Amelia was on the verge of panic.
