Mr. Boothby acknowledged her slowly. “Yes, Ellie?”
“I, um… I actually don’t understand.”
“What part don’t you understand, then?”
“Um… all the parts?”
Her classmates laughed. In part because the girl had said it so dryly, and in part because they saw their own confusion reflected in her words. They, too, understood painfully little of the teacher’s lecture.
“That’s quite enough,” Mr. Boothby said as sternly as he could. Authority didn’t suit him very well. It didn’t mix with the round glasses and the balding head.
The attention curve of the kids had been broken and their laughter made room for small talk, jokes, and the all-around mess only a classroom of kids could produce. The kind of mess that a skilled teacher could master and steer back into focus, engaging the most problematic students first and having the rest fall in line by default.
Mr. Boothby wasn’t that teacher. He had lost them and wouldn’t get them back for the last fifteen minutes of class.
“Please stay after class, Ellie. I will explain things to you then,” he said.
Ellie quietly watched her teacher walk back to his chair and sit down behind his desk. Wordlessly Mr. Boothby bent over a pile of papers that still needed grading and delved into them, leaving the class to its own devices.
With a deep sigh Ellie turned to her left and stared out the window. The voices of her classmates turned into senseless background noise behind the intricacies of her own thoughts.
She never paid much attention to the other kids. She didn’t really know anybody well enough to make her attention worthwhile, she thought. Being the new kid was always difficult and for a while her attendance had been, at best, sporadic. Getting to know her classmates felt difficult and intimidating to Ellie. Where could she even begin?
The bell rang and school was finished for the day. Except for Ellie, who, with her big mouth, had invited herself to an extra fifteen minutes or so in the company of the awkward Mr. Boothby.
Ellie watched her classmates get up and leave the room with even more noise than they had previously produced. Then her eyes fell on Mr. Boothby, who still sat at his desk, quietly grading away.
Maybe he had already forgotten about her? Maybe she could get up and just kind of mix in with her classmates, make her escape?
Ellie decided it was worth a shot and carefully put her books inside the yellow backpack she carried. Then she quietly got up from her chair and trailed two other girls very closely as they moved through the classroom.
Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.
Ellie kept telling herself that as they neared the front of the classroom. Eye contact would be deadly now and she focused her eyes on the door. If she didn’t see him, he wouldn’t see her.
It wasn’t far. The door was just a few more steps away now and the girls she followed were already walking out. She was next and she knew then that she had gotten away with it.
She stepped outside into the hallway and turned to her right where her locker was. She just needed to get her coat and she would be out of here.
“Ellie! Did you forget? Stay and I will help you,” Mr. Boothby called out to her from inside the classroom.
Disappointed, Ellie closed her eyes. Her neck refused to hold up her head, crippled by the bitter defeat. She sighed as she contemplated just running away. He wouldn’t chase her and, when asked, she could simply deny having heard him call out to her.
How fucking awkward that would be.
Ellie turned around and walked back into the nearly deserted classroom. It was now just her and Mr. Boothby, who looked at her with a strange kind of anticipation in his eyes.
“Right. Take a seat and grab your book.” Mr. Boothby pointed to one of the tables in front of his desk and waited for Ellie to sit down.
Then the teacher got up from behind his desk and walked to the door. Gently he closed it.
“We can focus better this way,” he said with a dry smile.
When she heard the sound of the door closing Ellie felt threatened. Her stomach revolted, making her sick, and her muscles tensed up.
It wasn’t because Mr. Boothby was an evil man that had bad intentions. It wasn’t about Mr. Boothby at all. It was about her past. Her memories of men that had done things to her that should not have been done. Her memories of things that shouldn’t have happened to her. Memories that, now that she was alone with a man, came resurfacing from that place deep down where she tried to drown all her bad thoughts and feelings.
Deep down Ellie knew she was ugly. That she was bad. Because the things that had happened to her had happened because she let them happen. Because she had invited them to happen. Her mother had said so and mothers knew about such things. Mothers knew about womanhood and all the curses that came with it.
Ellie’s fault. Everything was Ellie’s fault. Now, too, she was alone with this man because she had said something. Done something. She didn’t run when she had the chance and now she was here, stuck in this dark, closed-off classroom with Mr. Boothby.
Mr. Boothby walked over to her as he said with an awkward smile, “Get out your book. We’ll take a look together.”
Ellie froze up. She knew how to move, theoretically, but her body refused to push through the tension burdening her muscles.
Mr. Boothby slightly leaned over her shoulder. “Is something wrong, Ellie?”
Ellie didn’t answer. She knew how to speak, theoretically, but her lips refused to curl into the expressions she so desperately needed. Get away from me. Open the door. Let me leave.
And then Mr. Boothby did something no qualified teacher should ever do. He misread the situation so gravely, understood his student so poorly, that he put his hand on her shoulder.
“Relax, El—”
Ellie’s body exploded and with one powerful blow she crushed her teacher’s nose.
Mr. Boothby fell back with a scream that mixed surprise with pain and reached for his nose where blood came gushing out. He could barely see a thing through the tears that burned in his eyes and stained his glasses. What the hell had just happened?!
Ellie jumped up, abandoned her backpack, and ran out into the hallway.
Her mind no longer understood what her body was doing. Her body didn’t care about the coat in her locker. It didn’t care about the few remaining students looking at her awkwardly. It only cared about running. Getting away. As far as possible, as fast as she could.
Ellie ran through the hallways of the school building that felt infinitely large, making her feel infinitely tiny. She ran, and ran, and ran until she reached the exit and burst outside.
The fresh air did nothing to calm her mind. The cold October wind emphasized how utterly alone and vulnerable she was. It took her by her throat and forced this awareness on her; she was meaningless and not meant to be loved.
Ellie looked to her right; Arthur’s mansion was that way. Then she looked to her left; farmlands and the southern border of Brettville.
The blood she felt dripping from her fist told her that there was only one thing left for her to do. Even if she wanted to return to Arthur it was too late for that now. She had assaulted a teacher, probably broken his nose. Arthur would never forgive her and she didn’t deserve his forgiveness.
She turned left and made a run for it.
Ellie ran down the main road, passing farmlands left and right. It was all an adrenaline-filled blur to her at this point. She didn’t pay attention to her lungs that threatened to explode, nor did she care about her heart that raced to keep up with her anxiety.