Becoming a Tif, Chapter 2

An Imposing Man

Ophea skated rapidly along the stream onto the bridge. She could hear the water flowing right beside her, but she resisted her desire to jump in. Instead, she spread out her arms and imagined herself flying like the birds on the top of her head. She pushed on her legs to turn and closed her eyes; sadly everything came to an halt when she remembered she was late for class.

As she arrived to the open gate of her school, she took off her skates and replaced them by her black converse. She continued walking until she arrived in front of her locker and somehow stuffed her rollerblades in it, then she took her books and ran to her English class. As she opened the blue classroom door, she was surprised to see that her teacher hadn’t yet arrived, and she contentedly marched to her desk in the back row of the class.

Five minutes later, an unknown and imposing man entered the classroom. He wore a black suit with a matching tie, and had combed his brown short hair with some gel to make it stay. Ophea could have bet him to be rich considering his clean new fashion clothes, not mentioning the amount of eau de toilette he had injected himself with.

The man approached the students and presented himself. “Good morning, I’m Mister Gregory, your math teacher has caught a bad flue and I was assigned to take your class for the day”.

No one in the class said anything; they just stared at Mr. Gregory with big opened eyes. Mr. Gregory seemed to be waiting for an answer, or at least a small sign to prove that he was welcomed, but since no one pronounced a single word, he continued “your teacher told me he had given you some work, so I expect you to get on with it.”

All students- already tired from school even though it was only a Monday- got out their math books, and continued their work while Mr. Gregory sat at the desk and observed them working with a slight bored expression showing on his face.

Ophea finished her work in less than 15 minutes, even though everyone else was still struggling on one of the first problems. She got up, and gave her notebook to Mr. Gregory- who looked at her in an uncommon manner. She ignored it, and went back to her place to sit at her desk. She must have fallen asleep when she felt a cold thing touching her skin. She opened her eyes, and saw Mr. Gregory with his head bent over hers, she hadn’t noticed it before but he was wearing thin black glasses on the tip of his nose.

“Ophea”, he said while removing his glasses “tomorrow after school, come on the same bridge as you did this morning, I want to take you out for a coffee, I need to talk to you about some important things.” He didn’t wait for Ophea’s answer and walked towards the door before adding, “Please come, it is vey important.”

The rest of the day passed very slowly, Ophea was impatient to return home and take up what happened this morning with her mother. When the bell eventually ran to announce the end of the day, Ophea hurled down on her locker and grabbed her skates. She used the same path as this morning, but in the opposite direction and skated as fast as she could to arrive to her house.

As she passed the stream, she undid her bag and took out her lunch box. She broke a piece of bread-which was meant to be her lunch- and gave it to the birds resting on the grass, that way her mother won’t complain that she never finishes her lunch. She continued the way to her house; it was a small house with five windows and only four rooms, but it was sufficient for only two people.

She opened the door and entered with her skates, but regrettably took them off since her feet were starting to hurt. Megan was in the living room dancing at a good rhythm, with the music on maximum volume. Ophea reached the speakers and turned them off.

“Hey! What’s that for?” Megan asked angrily, after all she was a dance teacher and she needed three hours of practice everyday.

“I need to talk to you, it’s important! Please don’t laugh at me!”

“What? You finally got your periods?” Megan asked sarcastically while wiping herself with a towel to remove her sweat.

“No”, replied Ophea bitterly, she hated it when her mum made fun of her that way. She gestured her mother to sit on the black leather couch in front of the television before telling her today’s morning resume, “There was this man that came today for substitution I fell asleep during class and when I woke up, he asked me out!”

“Wow! What? What do you mean by he asked you out? Be more specific!” Megan exclaimed with her eyes wide opened.

“He told me to meet him on the bridge near the stream; you know the one I always go on to go to school. He said he has to tell me something very important”, Ophea said wondering whether or not her mother believed what she had told her.

“Can you describe him for me?” Megan said, she was thinking could it be him? Did he finally come back after so many years? No he couldn’t have, or could he?

“He was wearing a nice suit with a tie, smelled like a rich gentleman and his name was Mr. Gregory.”

Megan sat still for a moment, now she was sure, it was him. He had always liked to put tons of perfume on himself and loved wearing suits. He also never revealed his real name in the human world and went by Gregory instead of Gresgory. All confident and glad Megan said, “Don’t go tomorrow just come back home as usual.”