Several hands shot into the air, and Lily chose at random.
“An atom.”
“Correct.” Lily offered Ben the box. “And what is the center of the atom called?”
Again, she had a few students to choose from.
“The nucleus.”
“Which consists of…?”
Lily continued to build the questions until they’d all gotten a piece of candy, impressed with their base level of knowledge and confident she had a bright group of kids.
Time flew by, and when the bell rang and signaled the end of her first class, Lily felt good, amped up for her next and ready to do it all again.
Chapter 2
The first day of thesemester was always Eva’s favorite, but today she couldn’t enjoy it as much as she usually did.
Five minutes of scrubbing at the stain on her blouse hadn’t been enough to get it out entirely, and she’d had a question about it from every single class she’d taught. And as for the woman who’d caused it in the first place…well, that was like looking at a ghost.
It had been two years since Eva had last laid eyes on her ex, but Lily and Victoria seemed to share some similarities. Blonde hair, bright blue eyes, pale white skin and a full figure. Victoria would never be caught dead in a shirt like Lily’s, but it had still been enough to make Eva do a double-take. Enough to make Eva react more viciously than she might have done were it anyone else.
No matter. Eva refused to let their encounter ruin the rest of her day.
Eva knew she had a reputation for being one of the toughest teachers in the school, yet that didn’t stop those students she’d never taught from testing her limits, seeing how far they could push things before she snapped.
It was her fourth class of the day, and she’d handed out six detentions.
More were brewing as she watched her freshman honors students file into her room, talking animatedly with one another. If they thought Eva was going to give them an easy ride because she had them the period before lunch, they were sorely mistaken.
“Quiet, please.” Eva rarely needed to raise her voice to take command of a room, and silence fell when she stood in front of the board. “I am Dr. Thomas, and for the next two semesters, we will be studying the four pillars of biology: cells, genetics, ecology, and evolution. A lot of people consider biology to be the easiest of the sciences”—an opinion not helped by cramming the entire biology syllabus into their freshman year—“but I think you’ll soon learn it’s not the case.”
A hand raised at the front of the class.
“Yes?”
“What is the easiest? In your opinion?”
Eva wasn’t going to be drawn into a debate within the first five minutes. “They’re all on equal footing, but if any of you consider this class an easy ride, you’re in for a rude awakening. You’ve been placed in an honors class based on placement tests and teacher recommendations but make no mistake: if you don’t pull your weight, you will be moved. I don’t tolerate slackers. Understood?”
Twenty heads bobbed in unison.
Eva slipped her glasses onto her nose to take roll call, noting where each student was sitting as they answered. She prided herself on learning their names—and identifying any potential troublemakers—quickly.
“Another thing I don’t tolerate is people talking when I am,” Eva said when she was finished, leveling a glare at two kids in the back row of seats. One of them dropped their head, looking at the desk with pink cheeks, but the other stared right back at Eva.
Her first problem student.
Eva refrained from rubbing her palms together.
“Francesca, is it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s ‘Yes, ma’am’, or ‘Yes, doctor’, if you prefer.” Eva hadn’t spent six years slogging through a PhD program not to use the title that came with it, but she didn’t always use it in the classroom.
“Yes, ma’am.”
