Worst Impressions

Chapter Fourteen

'Why do you think we're being called to assembly?' Meg asked me quietly as we marched through the halls on Monday morning, our little group lost in the tide of students. It was too early for any kind of announcement. I had no patience for anything a teacher might have to tell me before ten in the morning.

'Maybe someone died,' Lisa said.

'Or some of the teachers are having affairs,' Chrissy suggested.

'I don't think that's the sort of thing they announce,' I silenced them with my logic. 'It's going to be something stupid. You're setting yourselves up to be disappointed if you think it's anything else.'

Jenny linked her arm through mine. 'Do you think perhaps it's to do with the student placement?'

'Why would they announce just one specky university student to the whole school?'

Well, they wouldn't.

But if there were two, then they'd make a point of presenting them properly.

Wyatt was easy for me to pick out. He was sat rigidly in his seat, his back so straight that I suspected someone had shoved a rod up his arse. His eyes were on the back of the room like there was an interesting focal point on the wall. The guy beside him was a lot more relaxed. He'd opened the top couple of buttons on his shirt casually and was winking openly at the girls who had fought over seats in the front row. Had he been a teacher, I'd have labelled this behaviour as creepy. As he was likely only one or two years older than us, I decided it was more... arrogant than anything else.

It still wasn't exactly a promising start for a would-be teacher. The kind of behaviour he'd need to rein in before he was old enough to take on a real position of authority in a school.

'Girls,' the head teacher said once we were all seated. When she remembered there were boys in the audience, she added hastily, 'and boys! I would like you to join me in welcoming two university students who will take temporary placements with us from today. First, we have Mr Wyatt Collins, who will be present in your Mathematics lessons.'

An unenthusiastic round of applause followed this announcement. Wyatt got out of his seat and bowed his head in greeting to the room. What a moron. No one liked Maths teachers or their assistants, and if he was just a temporary placement, then he was going to be given absolute hell. Well, as much hell as the girls in our school were capable of.

The head teacher held her hands up for silence. It didn't take much for people to settle. 'It's customary for us to take on just one student placement per year. However, this year we were presented with two such exceptional and promising young men that we bent the rules. Therefore, I hope that you will all welcome Mr Gideon Wickham. He will assist in Music classes.'

There was decidedly more noise in celebration of the handsome Gideon than there had been in the welcome of poor Wyatt. Not that I pitied him. It would be far easier for Wyatt to cope with the school environment if he wasn't being hounded by lovelorn teenage girls. They would be much too interested in Gideon to disturb the Maths teacher all that much.

Now, I had always found older men to be attractive. Not the kind who could be my father, because that was weird for someone my age. But guys in their early twenties had much more appeal than someone my age. I supposed it was to do with the air of maturity around them. They had jobs, cars, and sometimes their own homes. That, and they were usually a lot more toned and handsome. It also may have had something to do with the fact that Hollywood movies and American television shows often cast men in their twenties to play the roles of teenagers. Such Adonis-like actors had left me with lofty expectations and tastes when it came to the sort of boy to catch my eye.

So, while I understood that having boys in our school was a big deal for most of the girls, I was a lot more excited at the prospect of my next Music class.

'So...' Georgia whispered in my ear. I hadn't noticed her sat behind me and jumped when she rested her chin on my shoulder. She smirked. 'Did I just see you blush?'

'No,' I said. 'I was just thinking about how everyone is going to go crazy over that guy.'

'Gideon?'

'Yeah, if that was his name,' I said as if I hadn't been paying much attention.

I'd been paying so much attention it was almost criminal.

'Beth,' Jenny elbowed me gently, 'he's a teacher, remember?'

'And if he's the same age as Wyatt, then he's only a couple of years older than us. And we're eighteen, so we're practically adults. Besides, it's a student placement, and we're basically months off being uni students ourselves. That's practically the same thing.'

'You're giving this a lot of thought,' Georgia teased.

'I'm not!' I ignored the fact the head teacher had started to speak at a higher volume. I wasn't the only person discussing the new additions to the faculty. I whispered, 'I'm just saying that it's not impossible that they might end up dating a student or something. Not me, obviously, because I'm not interested. But even if I were, it would be fine. What're two years? Nothing, that's what. For someone else. Not me. Obviously.'

'Not interested in who?' Lisa asked on my other side. 'What are we talking about?'

'Beth's crushing on Gideon already,' Georgia said.

'No way! I didn't think you even had normal female hormones, you're so frigid. Chrissy, you'll never guess -'

I hid my face in my hands. The first Music class would not be the romantic haven of harmless, casual flirtations that I'd been hoping for. It was going to be an hour of me trying to look at anything but our teacher while Lisa, Chrissy, Georgia, and Jenny smirked and whispered about my feelings.

Not that I had any feelings on the matter.

I just wanted to look without getting the third degree about it from my friends.

Which, admittedly, would never happen.

It was like a rule of friendship that you had to make some fun of the person your friend was slightly interested in. It didn't matter if it was just that they thought they were physically attractive or if they were completely head over heels in love. Jokes had to be made, questions had to be asked, and suggestive comments had to be audibly whispered in that person's presence. It was just the way things were.