A Different Blue(17)

“What do you mean?” he asked quietly. I expected him to get red in the face or kick me out.

That's usually what happened in my other classes when I couldn't keep my sassy comments to

myself.

I shrugged and popped the gum I wasn't supposed to be chewing. “You ask us to bare all, write

our little secrets down, our lowest moments, but I don't see you sharing anything personal with

us. Maybe I don't want you to know my story.”

The class was quiet. Shockingly so. It seemed everyone was holding their breath, waiting to see

if Blue Echohawk had finally gone too far. When Wilson didn't explode but merely eyed me

owlishly for several long seconds, the tension eased somewhat.

“Okay. Fair enough,” Wilson acquiesed quietly. “But I am the teacher, which by definition

means I instruct and you learn, so things are not going to necessarily be fair because we have

different roles. And in the interest of time, I'm not going to spend the class period talking

about myself.”

“How about twenty questions?” somebody spoke up from the back of the class.

“Or spin the bottle,” someone else shouted out, and a few people snickered.

“Tell you what. I will give you a brief timeline, just like you've done for me, and then I'll

tell you my turning point moment. Deal? That way Miss Echohawk can be confident that everything

is fair.” He winked at me, and I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue. Teachers were not

supposed to be young and cute. Somehow that really irritated me. I just arched one eyebrow

disdainfully and looked away.

“I was born in Manchester, England. I have two older sisters. One sister still lives in

England, as does my mother. My oldest sister, Tiffa, lives in Las Vegas, which incidently is

what brought me here. I am twenty-two years old. I finished what we call college when I was

fifteen, which I suppose is about the equivalent of graduating from high school very early.”

“Wow! So you're really smart, huh?” This brilliant deduction was offered by a girl with a

Marilyn Monroe voice who used glittery pens and wrote each letter of her name in a different

color, surrounded by hearts and stars. I had dubbed her Sparkles.

I snorted loudly. Wilson shot me a look, and I decided it was probably time to shut up.

“We moved to the states when I was sixteen so I could attend university early, which is simply

not done in England. My mum is English, but my dad was an American. He was a doctor and took a

position at the Huntsman Cancer institute in Utah. I graduated from university when I was

nineteen, and that's when I had my turning point moment. My dad died. He had wanted me to be a

doctor like he was – actually four generations of men in my family have been doctors. But I was

rather a mess after he died and decided to go another direction. I spent two years in Africa in

the Peace Corp teaching English. I discovered I really liked teaching.”

“You shoulda been a doctor,” Sparkles volunteered breathily. “They make more money. And you

woulda looked super cute in scrubs.” She giggled into her hand.

“Thank you, Chrissy,” Wilson sighed and shook his head in exasperation. So that was her name.

It wasn't much better than Sparkles.

“This is my first year teaching here in the states. And Bob's your uncle.” Wilson looked at

his watch.” My life in two minutes. Now it's your turn. You have the remainder of the class.”