Untitled

Chapter 5

Ben slowly nodded his head as I watched his pale blue eyes scan over the pamphlet and soak up all of the information.

“Sounds like a good idea to me, Lil, with the way your attendance has been this year, it’d be kinda helpful to have something to boost your reputation for your time at Hopkins.”

I sighed audibly. “You were supposed to be in agreement with me, in that this is an absurd idea. This can’t benefit me in any way! I’m already the girl with the bad attitude that hasn’t been present all year and now I’m suddenly supposed to become the girl who writes poems and stanzas about her feelings and becomes oh so emotional so quickly?”

Ben cocked his head to one side, kind of like how Pixie does when I ask her if she wants to go for ‘walkies’.  “Aren’t stanzas the different paragraphs in poems?”

“Look, whatever, my point is that this can only bring bad things for me and I’m not about to make myself more susceptible to scrutiny. My life is already futile.”

Ben let out a bellowing laugh which made him sound disturbingly like our father, when he was in a good mood. “Oh, Lil, you’ve always been so overly dramatic, my dahling!” His mimic of the theatre involved him feigning a British accent, a terrible one, and placing his hand to his forehead as if he were going to faint.

I glared at him.

“Look, what are you so afraid of? At the end of the day, it gives you a chance to improve your writing, you get one on one with a teacher who knows what he’s talking about and if anyone questions the motive behind your writing, just pretend you had inspiration from a friend or a book.”

I hated to admit it, but his reasoning made sense. I snatched the, now crumpled, pamphlet from his mitt and huffed.

“Fine! I’ll think about it, but if I decide to participate, there’s not a chance in hell that I’m submitting my assignment piece; I’ll write a new, less intrusive piece.”

He smiled and planted a kiss on my head as he stood up. “That’s my lillypad.”

~

I patiently waited for 20 seconds after knocking on Mr Casey’s classroom door before he opened it. It was 8:03am and he was standing there, his dark brown hair looking dishevelled and his smiling mouth sporting a look which said he had forgotten to shave for a couple of days.

“Lily, I didn’t expect to see you so soon. Please, come in.”

He stood aside and I entered his classroom which felt too quiet compared to the usual buzz that it normally maintained. I curled a lock of my equally dark hair around my finger as I struggled to find the words to talk to him. Seeing as this was my second conversation with the man in my whole life, I felt strangely calm and safe around him.

“Hi, Sir, I just came to inform you that after much deliberation and hesitancy, I will present a piece to enter into that competition and I would be extremely elated if you decided to mentor me.”

His laugh was happy and it matched the twinkle in his eyes. “Lily, you don’t have to be so formal around me. It’s your senior year, you’re almost an adult. You shouldn’t think of me so much as strictly your teacher anymore. I’m here to help you but it’s more casual than it was in previous years. I’m more than happy to mentor you for this project, and seeing as you’re my only candidate, we can start right away. Are you free after school today?”

I nodded almost too enthusiastically.

“Great, meet me here at 3pm? I hope you’ve already concocted some ideas!”

~

I opened my notebook and flicked through it to get to the designated page.

“So, I don’t exactly know what I want to write about but I want it to be inspired by my love of Carol Ann Duffy.”

“Okay, I’m glad that you’ve found her work so inspiring. What’s your favorite poem?”

“I love The Map Woman, but Sub is definitely a close second.”

“Yeah, I think her lack of connection to any place except her hometown when she was younger in The Map Woman is mirrored in the short, snappy stanzas that always seem to trail off as if they don’t know their destination just yet.”

The way he described her intentions within her poetry left me mesmerized. I’d never been so intrigued by a person before, let alone a teacher, my teacher. He was so philosophical, I wanted to listen to him speak forever.

“I love that Sub seems to carry on from that too.”

This seemed to encourage him to carry on his explanation, which I had hoped it would.

“Yes, her inability to make history and to make people notice important aspects of life, as a woman is a concerning fact of society. And in typical Duffy form, she hyperbolizes this and transforms herself into parts of history as a woman, explaining how she wouldn’t get recognition for these famous happenings just because she isn’t male. For example, landing on the moon, or being a part of The Beatles.”

I smiled, because his talking grew faster and faster as he delved deeper into his hypothesis. This was an absolute sign of his infatuation and passion for, not only literature, but feminism. I instantly felt something for him. A mixture of admiration, attraction. It was inappropriate, but it was just a teacher crush, everyone had them at some point. Most girls had them for Mr Casey, I overheard them talking in the corridor. Who was, apparently, the youngest and most attractive English teacher to teach in Massachusetts. I completely understood their infatuation now, even if mine was for the intellectual side of him, rather than the physical. I had been gazing at him, not speaking for a while now and he was waiting for a reply to a question which I hadn’t realized was being posed.

“Uh ha, yes, I agree.” I momentarily blushed, praying that the question was one which required a yes/no answer for my own sanity.

“Good, she’s definitely a good role model for females and writers nowadays, which is why I can completely understand that you, as a female writer, look up to her.”

He thought of me as a female writer. My heart soared.

He raked his fingers through his consistently dishevelled hair and ran his hand over his bristled chin. The pulse in his jaw prominent as though he was deeply contemplating something.

“I think I may have a definite idea of what I want to base my poem on…” I trailed off.

He inspired me as much as Carol Ann Duffy did, and as risky as it was, as long as I overly used metaphors, superlatives, idioms and all the rest, Mr Casey nor anyone else, would ever know that my poem was dedicated and stimulated by him.