Chapter two:

The scent was still strong and running wild in Tina’s mind, but she spotted her classroom and had to stop walking; reality got in the way of life.

‘Here it is, room 0119,‘ Tina said to make a mental check that she was indeed entering the right classroom.  Underneath the classroom number, there was the teacher’s name: “Pieszecki, A.”  Tina did a double check to make sure she had the right teacher’s classroom.

“Pies zecki….pee…zeki…pees…zeki…” Tina silently whispered the name attempting to pronounce it correctly.  “Whatever, I’ll just wing it…here goes…”

Tina turned the ***** to the dimly lit classroom, took one last deep breath, and inhaled that scent.  The scent once again gave her the courage to enter that classroom.

“Hi…” a nervous Tina said, as she entered and saw a woman sitting down sipping her coffee. 

The woman was caught off guard; she was expecting Tina, but not this early.  She chocked on her coffee, and the temperature of the coffee burnt her tongue so she let out a cough and drooled the coffee back out into her cup.

“Ow, *****…damn it, *****…” as she turned to her right hand side looking at the girl who just walked into her classroom.  “Excuse me, sorry for the language…” Alice said while still coughing from the coffee she chocked on.

“Ih….it’s okay…I should’ve knocked…sorry…” said Tina feeling guilty for what happened.

Alice was now up and about happy to meet Tina, her new protg.  “Hi, you must be Tina Kennard,” she said cheerily as she stuck out her hand to shake Tina’s.

“Yes, hi.  Nice to meet you…Ms….Pieszecki…I hope I’m not late.” Tina said unsure whether or not she pronounced the teacher’s name right.

“Please, just call me Alice, and you’re right on time!  Anyways, are you ready for this??”

This would be Tina’s last semester in college, and for her last semester, she would be student teaching English, at a local high school.  Before graduation, Tina had to student-teach in order to receive her own teacher certification.  Even though Alice was only a few years older than Tina, and had only been teaching for three years herself, she had quite a reputation in school.  She was known as the “fun” teacher.  All the students loved her class, and wanted her to be their teacher.  When the space opened, Alice soon became head of the English department, therefore, being Tina’s mentor teacher.