Short Story: Miss Baker.

Another piece from an assignment. May have gotten a bit harsh...but hey, I'm a creative writing student.

My first encounter with the stone faced, cold hearted, callous bitch was in year 8. It was the first day back after the long summer break and my friends and I were eagerly anticipating our new lesson timetable sheets. We sat in our form room, the smell of freshly painted walls and cleaning detergents hung in the air.

Chatter bubbled amongst everyone, and that’s when I got it. Printed on to a fresh, crisp white sheet of paper was my years’ timetable. Under mathematics was her name.

Miss Baker.

My heart stopped and my spirits sank to new depths. She was truly awful.  I’d heard the tales from other students the previous year, of how she made people cry and picked you out knowing you didn’t know the answer. I’d even witnessed a few things myself; how she wailed like a banshee at a student for forgetting his homework. Her face was crimson and bulbous, a purple vain pulsating on her forehead.

I’d always been terrible with my mathematical ability, it’s because there is a definite answer. You’re either right, or wrong. I don’t like being told I’m wrong, therefore I don’t like maths.

I glanced at my best friend, her expression mirrored mine but this made us both smile. We were in it together.

Walking to the lesson that day was like walking the green mile. We had already set ourselves up for a failure, signed our own death certificates if you will. Our lack of knowledge and desire to learn how to solve algebraic equations and use Pythagoras theorem had doomed us from the start.

We entered the room and found a seat.

In she came.

She was a larger lady, built quite stocky with little room on her shoulders for a neck. Her hair was always cropped short adding to her manly bravado and her face was constantly miserable, framed by thick, dark rimmed glasses. If looks could kill, she’d be the last person alive on earth. The 21^st century medusa she was, one look and you were frozen, petrified in the spot you were occupying.

Even her smile was terrifying, the kind your mother gives you if you’re being an annoying little shit in public or she has company over for dinner. The type of look that says “carry on but be warned, if we were alone my hands would be wrapped around your jugular right about now”.  The kind of look that sends a shiver down your spinal cord.

Her attire was not the most desirable either. She always wore black trousers that sagged around her behind and legs but cut through her stomach like bread baking around twine. And the shoes, oh the shoes! She wore that kind of awful safety footwear that nurses have to wear, the ones with big rounded toe protectors and clog type heels.

I sat talking her in, she was just like they had described. I marvelled at her awful dress sense and the lingering odour of musty coffee breath that wafted from her mouth every time she spoke to you.

If I hadn’t have been so enthralled by her appearance I probably could have prepared for what was about to happen.

“You!” she said.

Like a fool I turned around, gulped and then pointed at myself mouthing the words ‘me’ in her direction.

“Yes, you. What’s the answer?”

I squirmed uncomfortably in my blue plastic seat, which I so desperately wished would just envelop me right there. Beads of sweat began to form on my forehead.

“Well?” she pressed.

I looked straight at her, right in the eyes. I felt my skin crawl, my blood ran cold and my limbs began to stiffen. Medusa had taken me.