New Beginnings

• Amelia Nikles-Ralph, Grade 7, Kenmore State High School
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

The thrill of having shaped thirty young minds had worn off years ago. The rush of adrenaline at having picked up a blob of clay, and have moulded it into something recognisable with it. The teacher stared out into the rows and rows of vacated desks. They stared back at her, daring her to reprimand them, like she had done to their occupants so often in the last year. But the room was so silent, and the desks looked lethargic and bare without the scores of children that had always been there that the teacher felt compelled to look away.
The teacher moved her bespectacled eyes around the classroom instead. The room looked tired without the vibrant artwork that normally plastered the walls, and that she usually felt tiring was gone, taken home by children to show proud parents. Combined with the desks, the room looked the worst since the start of the year, when the teacher was faced with the dreaded task of breaking their old habit and undoing the work of the ‘sweet’ year 4 teacher. The elderly teacher chided herself for thinking this, and worried fitfully that she was going soft.

Like her past students, the teacher own desk was bare, and little remained asides from the half chewed apple she’d had at lunch- and was too lazy to chuck in the bin- and three gift wrapped parcels. The first was clearly a box of chocolates. Classic. At least she had something to share with her family when she could bring herself to walk out the door. She debated whether to open the box and eat a bar, but, like driving home, her lazy set of mind wouldn't allow it. Turning the box over in her hand, she surveyed the remaining presents. The second present was a mug, which promoted herself being the ‘World’s Greatest Teacher’. Humph. She checked the card, saw the present was from ‘Yours Faithfully, Charlie Spanner’ and decided not to believe a word of it.

She pushed it aside and reached for the final present. It was a round, circular shape, engraved with the names of this year’s class. She smiled, and suddenly he room didn't seem quite so bare and lonely any more, and ghosts of the children’s laughter floated through the room.

Sure the memories would fade, but she would remember them. She stood up, grabbed her keys, and cursing her arthritic legs, started counting the days until the new term started. She would welcome a new beginning.