You huddle around the kettle like witches circling a cauldron.
Naomi fills her fox-shaped mug and immediately sips her Yorkshire Tea (it’s the type that has been specifically designed for hard water areas; after all, in this part of England, most brews are tinged with Essence of Limescale and Naomi, who moved only recently, is adjusting). “We just got to the Oliver Twist extract,” she says, setting the kettle back on its base. “They spent half the lesson screaming at a spider.”
“A big one?” Amara’s voice is clogged. She tops up her lemon-and-ginger combo and wafts the steam towards her nose. “I saw a black widow in my kitchen last night.”
Instinctively, you wince. “I’d die if I saw a black widow. They’re massive, aren’t they?”
You take the kettle and pour water on your rooibos teabag. Redbush tea is naturally caffeine-free and, despite its delightfully woody taste, you think that this might be a mistake. You stayed up until 2 am playing a silly pizza game. The main reason you stopped, really, was because the cooldown mechanism kicked in and the vegetables would need a few hours to restock.
Amara has excellent reflexes: she hurriedly slides her mug onto a desk before turning away to sneeze. Five mini-explosions later, she emerges from the crook of her arm to insist, “Black widows aren’t actually dangerous. They’ll only bother you if you bother them.”
“I would give anything for a cold,” grumbles Karina. She’s opted for peppermint. “My room stinks of damp and the children are even worse.”
“Aren’t they dealing with that?”
“No! Tom Bailey sent an email to say they have other priorities. They have given me a monstrous dehumidifier to keep me company.”
You murmur, “Small mercies.”
Naomi checks her watch. “Ten minutes,” she declares. “I told them to be back at eleven. If that Billy Blizzard ambles in with a burger again –”
“I’m sorry. Billy who?”
“Blizzard! I thought he was trying to be funny. But it’s on my register and everything.” Naomi picks up a custard cream and crams it into her mouth. Somehow, she manages to ask, “How’s your morning going?”
Karina launches into a spiel about students turning up without pens, refusing to put their phones away, bickering bitterly over the seating plan – then, she relays that a tall girl came bursting into the room, scowled at her new English teacher and promptly stormed out again. “It was very strange,” Karina concludes. “I have never seen her before in my life.”
“Pink skirt?”
“Yes! How did you know?”
“She stormed out and lambasted you in the corridor.” Naomi grins. “You’ve definitely seen her before. She swore at her mother at Induction and you told her to stop being a cow.”
“Oh!” Karina starts. “I am surprised they let me get away with that.”
Everyone laughs. You take another gulp of rooibos tea, smiling as Amara suggests hurling a black widow at the next student who spells ‘a lot’ as one word. Karina groans – so far, her students’ performances in the spelling tests have been dire. Naomi demolishes another custard cream.
It’s a funny job, you think, making your way back to class. You spend most lessons oscillating between teaching and parenting. You dedicate unpaid lunches to ferrying students around the college, or ducking behind your laptop when your manager announces that there’s yet another spreadsheet to update. At home, you mark assignments or reply to emails or titivate PowerPoints. Every other weekend, you vent in the group chat about the nonsensical things that make you want to quit.
Nevertheless, there are some perks. You have friends. And you look after each other in little ways, stocking the staffroom with biscuits and boxes of tea.
