Before you Go 5

The two women were left alone for a minute as the older one looked at Larissa, and she smiled again. Gabe had gone back into the hallway with the offices to get some of his things for the next class though he was going to be watching her for a moment. Judy had already told him that was what he was going o do. His classes in the room that he shared with another teacher were in the afternoon, really. “Maybe you could work with him as well,” Judy said with a sigh as she watched him go.

“What is so wrong with him that you have to constantly go at him like you are?” Larissa asked.

“Sometimes, you just have to know which ones need the push in the right direction.” Mrs. Libby said with a smile, “He has potential, but he has to calm down a bit to get there. That witch is going to ruin him, though.”

“You aren’t planning anything else, are you?” Larissa asked, knowing she didn’t want to be an unwilling victim in some bad matching matchmaking scheme.

“I have no idea what you are speaking of.” The older woman said as she almost looked offended for a moment and then smiled again. “Whatever happens will happen. You know I do not push too much for anything to happen.”

“Sure,” Larissa said as she looked at the older woman and knew there was something else going on here, but she didn’t want to know. Judy was a helpless romantic. It was well known that she liked to play matchmaker for the people that she liked and thought they should be together. Larissa had somehow escaped that fate so far. She was very aware of that as she looked at the older woman who had the look of an imp who was planning something that Larissa didn’t understand too much.

Just then, the bell rung, and students began to flood the class. Larissa didn’t know if it was really a saved by the bell situation or not. She looked at the older woman who moved to the front of the class, and the man who was still pouting a bit walked around the partition to see Larissa look around the classroom as well.

Mrs. Libby started to laugh as she saw the look in Larissa’s eyes for a second, and then she motioned for the class to be silent. Larissa knew the over, and she often used it herself. Somehow it did work well for most people. “Listen up.” Mrs. Libby said. “I have a treat for all of you. This is one of my best students Dr. Larissa Walker who will be your acting sub while I tend to Mr. Danner and his class to get them back on schedule. Dr. Walker will be here for a month to help me with the class, and she will be taking over it within the week. Though she is not a teacher, I expect that she might be even harder on you than even I am. Do not mess with her, or you will be spending your afternoons with me. Now she is doing this as a favor for me so I can do other things, but she still will be working her normal job as well. Do not make her life more difficult.” The older woman changed her direction and looked at Larissa, “Introduce yourself.”

“As Mrs. Libby stated, I am a doctor, and I do work in the pathology department at the local hospital. I have been a doctor now for four years, and I enjoy what I do. It was this class that helped me realize what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I do also understand that not all of you want that. One thing one of the best teachers I had other than Mrs. Libby liked to meet with each student and discuss the future even if it is not in my prevue. I would like to do that with all of you as well over the next few days. Though I will only be your teacher for a month, I can help you figure out if this is for you since I am closer to your age, and I do remember what it is like.”  Larissa said with a smile. The students all looked at her like she was something they hadn’t seen before, some kind of unicorn, “I also work the night shift so, I will be leaving one job to come here to help Mrs. Libby out. I may have had a bad night the night before, but I will try to be fair in the classroom. I do require that you will do your assignments when I assign them, and I will be checking them. We will start the meeting today after we go over the basics of the heart and the basis for all of the structures of the system it is attached to.”

“Can we ask questions?” One of the students in the front row. She could see that the students were eager to learn more about her.

“I guess.” Larissa response.

“Are you from around here?” The same person asked.

“Yes,” Larissa said. “This was my class a few years ago.”

“Do you have family here?” Another student asked.

“Yes,” Larissa responded, not wanting to get into her family with them.

“Are you married?” One of the young men asked.

“No,” Larissa said with a smile.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” the same young man asked.

“No,” Larissa said. “Right now, I am focused on my career.”

“How old are you?” one of the young females in the class asked.

“Twenty-two,” Larissa stated and then looked around for any other questions.

“How are you a doctor at twenty-two?” The same young woman asked.

“I was a child prodigy,” Larissa said as she looked around again and saw that was going to raise even more questions, so she decided to get it out in the open and over with before they could ask. “When I was nine, they found out I had a gift for learning at a rapid pace, and I was moved through the grades to find one that I could fit in. I was already beyond what they were teaching here, and because of my siblings, I had already read all of the textbooks they had, ranging through senior year in high school. So I had to do a few classes for the one year I was here in this school, and this was one of them. I went on to the local university because I was a minor, and my parents refused to uproot my brother's and sisters' lives because I was different. I graduated from there when I was fourteen, and then I went on to medical school and graduate school at the same time. I received three master's degrees and a doctorate two years into that, and then I graduated from medical school when I was seventeen. The same year I also received three more master's degrees and three more doctorate degrees in a bunch of varying subjects.”

“So you’re super smart?” One of the people asked from the back of the classroom.

“People like to think so, but I often have to disagree,” Larissa said as she smiled. “Now it is time to get started on the class.”

The older teacher and the younger one, who was in awe of how quickly she got through everything, started to walk out of the classroom to get on with what they had to do. She heard the older woman say to the younger man, “That is how you get them under control.”