Page 24 of Open Water

“Yes, Anita, how are you today?” He tries to smile his most charming smile.

“Can you come with me, please?” she snarls. She is not happy. Lukas tries to rack his brain as to what he has done this time. What he could have possibly missed. He has printed and signed his timesheets and submitted last week’s summaries, so should pretty much be in the clear? He hopes.

She stops in front of the reception desk and turns around to face him.

“Myrtengren, Östra Real’s Senior School is not a Post Office. We do not accept deliveries for staff during school hours. You will have to arrange for any items to be delivered to your home address. Consider this a warning, Myrtengren, the next time we will refuse to accept your, whatever you call this.”

She’s waving her hand over some pink cellophaned monstrosity of a basket from something called ‘Lovesurprises.se’. Lukas does not love surprises. And whatever it is.Fuck. He knows exactly what this is.

“Thank you so much, Anita, it won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t.” She huffs and stomps off and Lukas just wants to die. Seriously. And now he has to carry this, whatever it is, up to his classroom, because there is just not enough time to drop by the teachers’ lounge. This is how gossip starts. It was bad enough with the bloody flowers yesterday. Which, by the way, he took home and awkwardly placed in a bucket on his balcony.

Because he doesn’t own a proper vase anymore. He did. But Rickard smashed it into the sink during some heated discussion about something Lukas doesn’t even want to remember.

It hadn’t been a good relationship. It had been full of anger and jealousy and accusations and childish behaviour from both parts, and for the first time, Lukas is kind of grateful that it’s not his problem anymore. That he can look back and see that it wasn’t healthy. Not right. And now, he has moved on from the drama. He is never going to let himself into a situation like that again. Never.

He manages to get upstairs into the quiet safety of the Biology classroom without anyone paying any attention to the pink, crinkly, horrendous thing in his arms.Thank God.He needs to stop this ridiculousness. Right now. But those thoughts still don’t stop his childish curiosity of peeking inside. And anyway, this pink sparkly cellophane needs to disappear before any of the students come in.

He almost panics with the frenzy of tearing it all apart. Bloody ridiculous plastic and packaging and the bow is seriously over the top, and the damn stubborn shit just won’t stay down in the pathetic wastebasket that he stomps his foot inside to try to keep the cellophane from expanding into a pink sparkly mess under his desk. It’s ridiculous and so are the contents. A square basket with row after row of colourful red and yellow neatly stacked bars of crisp wafer covered by a thin layer of delicious milk chocolate. Rows and rows of bars neatly stacked with a Lovesurprises.se card fastened with yet another ridiculous bow.

He takes a deep breath before ripping the card off and falls back in the chair with a sigh. Damn. Damn, Damn, Damn.

‘I hope I made you smile. Tom.’

No, you didn’t, you fucker,he thinks.You big arse. Twat-face. Imbecilic wanker of the century.

He says neither out loud. Instead, he places the basket neatly at the back of the desk as the Grade 2 students mill in amongst chatter and scrapes of chairs and the usual banter.

He’s not supposed to use his mobile in class. Neither are the students, but Lukas just can’t help himself.

LUKAS: Please stop.

He doesn’t expect a reply, yet there it is. Clearly on his screen in black and white.

TOM: Did I make you smile?

He throws the phone onto his bag on the floor. He will deal with Tom later.

“Okay you little shits, pop quiz!”

Lukas is not supposed to call his students ‘little shits’. Not that they care, because they are all groaning and sighing and a few of them are talking back to him. Hurling childish insults at him as he flicks on the first diagram on the laptop, which displays perfectly on the screen behind him.

“What term best describes the state of the cells labelled E on the diagram behind me?” The class falls silent. As expected. None of them are remotely interested inTurgid cells in the Osmosis cycle. Tough.

“Turgid?” some girl at the back shouts and Lukas fist pumps and grabs a chocolate bar, throwing it in a perfect volley to the girl who catches it one-handed as the class cheers.

This is fun. He can do this.

“Which of the following features of a leaf isNOTrelated to its role in gas exchange?” He has another bar of chocolate twirling between his fingers, as he turns around and points at the four options displayed on the screen behind him. And suddenly the class is all ears. A few students tapping furiously on their phones. Googling no doubt.

“Vascular Bundles?” the boy in row two shouts, standing up and taking a bow after catching his chocolate.

The class is cheering. And everyone’s laptops are now open. He doesn’t give a fuck. They might learn something.

“Normal concentration of Carbon dioxide in the air?” Lukas shouts as at least three students shout back at him with 0.04% which releases three more bars flying in perfect arcs to their outstretched hands.

He keeps going. Throwing out some ridiculously hard questions. And a few easy ones to the guys he knows will struggle. Well, whatever.

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