My name is Elisa. I am the youngest of five children you have Tom, Sarah, Mary and Lenn. With Lenn I differ 10 years, with the rest even more. So basically, I was an accident. That was never a problem for my parents, they loved me as much as my brothers and sisters. And since I differed so much in age they could spend more time with me because the others were more independent. I say loved because my parents aren't here anymore. They died when I was eight years old. Ever since then my siblings took care of me. For the first four years we all lived together so they could take care of me together. For the last four years Mary is taking care of me. So now me and Mary live together in a small home. She is a teacher and recently she decided that she wanted to come teach at her old school. All my brothers and sisters went to the same highschool and I followed them back there. And today is the first they of the new year so we are both a little nervous. At my school, they are not aware of the fact that my parents aren't alive anymore. I didn't want to be the sad case of the school so we never mentioned it. There was no individual conversation with parents or guardians when I enrolled so it never came up and since I get good grades there is no need for a teacher-parent contact. So, they also don’t know that the newly hired teacher is my sister. We came to an arrangement that we wouldn’t tell anyone. Some of the older teachers might remember her from when she was enrolled when that would have happened they probably would bring up our parents but she promised me she would talk to them and explain it. I am not that worried about that. However, my English teacher from last year left for another teaching job so my sister would probably be her replacement. We aren’t a very big school so chances are I get my sister as my teacher. I hope it doesn’t get to awkward.
“Elisa, are you almost ready? I don’t want to be late for my first day of work.” Mary yelled upstairs.
“I am still packing my stuff. I am almost ready. I am sorry.”
I ran downstairs and hugged my sister, my way to say that I was sorry.
“It’s ok, don’t worry. Just get your bike.” Mary told me.
Indeed, we were going to bike together to school. I know it doesn’t sound like we were honoring the agreement to keep our connection secret. The plan was that one of us would wait a couple of minutes at one of the nearby streets so we wouldn’t arrive at the same time . As sisters, we are very close and we like to spend time together so it really is worth all the troubles, besides it isn’t that much trouble. I get my bike and wait for Mary on the street while she locks the door. A second later she stands besides me with her bike and we are on our way. We talk about how nervous we are. For her it is a new job with a lot of memories and for me it is seeing my friends back again. The thing that makes me the most nervous is that she might be my teacher but offcourse I am not telling her that. She is a great teacher but she doesn’t have much confidence and me, her sister, telling her that would make her upset. She would brush it of like it is nothing because she want me to know that I can talk about anything with her but by now I know what will hurt her and what not. She might be my guardian but she is also my sister and we take care of each other. We arrived at the point were we would say goodby.
“You are going to do great. I believe in you.” And I gave her a hug.
“ Thank you but I am so nervous and it doesn’t matter what you say, it won’t change. But you know that it means a lot to me.”
“ Just have fun and everything will be fine. I just know it. And I am there to so if you need me, I am there.”
She gave me a nod and than she took off. We really did take care of each other. For most people this may sound like a weird conversation. For us it was normal. She may be my guardian but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t my sister, so we took care of each other.
Now it was time for me to leave. I hoped on my bike and left. My friends would be waiting for me and finaly I would see them again. With all the vacations everyone took we had barely see each other. Even fredrique with whom I danced in a dancecrew I had barely seen. Now school has started every thing would go back to normal. My friends at school and the dance training would start again. Even dough I have been a lot to our barn to practice. It wasn’t the same without every one there. You might be surprised that we practiced in a barn but there is a good explanation. Steven had origenaly recruited people to dance toghether and his parents owened a barn and he was allowed to use it. So we practice in a barn. Afther all the years of using it you woudn’t guess it has ever been a barn. It has become the ideal dance hang out.
“hey stranger!” abruptly my thougts ended. Apparently I had arrived at school and Fredrique had already found me. I hugged him and said hello. He had apparently already spotted the rest of our friends and he escorted me there. Elia, Celia, Jess and Jacob stood already together. We exchanged the usuall greetings afther woulds the new teacher came up.
“Since our previous teacher has left I wonder who our new teacher is. I hope she is a little more reasonable than misses Mert. She was so uptied.” Said Celia
Jess agreed:” yes and those boring tasks I hope this one shows a little more creativity”
The conversation continued about how our new teacher needed to be.
“Hey Elisa you are awfully quiete, what do you think about our new teacher?” said Elia
What was I supposed to say to that. I mean our new teacher was very likely going to be my sister. I saw fredriqe look of reassuring. He knew about the situation. About me being an orphan, living with my sister and my sister probably replacing our previous English teacher.
I answered: “well let’s just see what happens, you never know. But worse than misses Mert is probably not possible”
My friends laughed. I was of the hook. Then the school bell rang. I wasn’t to sad about that. Fredrique and I stayed behind a little bit.
Fredrique said: “ you did well.”
“Thanks, it was nice to know that someone had my back. I am really happy that you know.”
“Me too. Are you nervous about your sister.”
“You know this morning and the past couple of days she acted weird. And I don’t know how I feel that she might be our teacher. God is is just so complicated.”
“Everything will be alright. Don’t wory.”
Thank you. We arrived at our class room. We walked inside and took our seets. The introduction talk started. We would have English the fifth hour of today. English was what my sister gave and according to mister Davidson my sister would be our teacher. I needed to get used to hearing misses Peterson and not Mary. Well it was five more hours until that class so time enough I guess.