You'll remember the guy who said all those big words

My mum picked me up a street away from home. Julie was feeling ill and needed picked up from school. School never changes. Even after all those fancy renovations it went through, it's the same old daft place. Keeping my head down I recognised my English teacher coming out of the office and just prayed she'd keep on going. When I say my English teacher I mean she was the head of the department and I had her for three of the five years I studied English. We didn't get on. Not really. In first year she read my first novel and told me what I was doing wrong which was good. In third year she criticised my interpretations of Shakespeare but she praised my essay on The Yellow Wallpaper. In fourth year she criticised my taste in literature until I turned up with Steinbeck and Orwell and that shut her up. It was my fifth year teacher who let me run riot with my ideas even when they were blatantly bullshit. It was my second year teacher who gave me books and told me to read Sylvia Plath because she was a 'mouthy feminist so I was sure to like her'. He was the one who pinned every essay of mine to the wall of the English corridor. I did not pick advanced higher English despite my A in higher because I did not like her. I wasted my time in Spanish and Music and Philosophy instead. I had to deal with her on the last day when the littlest one went to get her card signed and she turned those scary witch eyes to me and said "So Catherine. What is it you're doing?" And I don't lie and tell her English. "Why didn't you pick advanced higher then? It would have been helpful?" Oh you know, other things. Keep my options open.

So woe is me indeed when she suddenly turned and said "Catherine! I didn't recognise you! What is it you're doing?" And I don't lie and tell her History. "Did you not enjoy English?" I lie and say I did very much so but French was iffy. "You should have picked advanced higher. I remember your critical evaluations." Critical Evaluations. I loved that phrase. It was so ridiculously academic for an essay. And then the dreaded "So what will you do after that?" And I can't answer. I can't say I'll write. I can't say I have plans. I can't say I'll backpack across Europe and start a writers commune like Byron. Because come on who doesn't want that? Apart from all the dying. Some scandalous hideaway of the best. We could revel in our genius. I escape after a few more awkward uh huhs and smiles. She says I look different, I've changed and she waves her hand in my facial direction. I don't want to tell her that it's because my hair is scraped back and curly. Or because I was hungover. Or because I hadn't brushed my teeth yet, or changed my jeans that I dried sitting on the sink counter with one foot holding the door shut and the drier blasting my sodden crotch. And I bloody well hope I look different from when I was seventeen!

Then I bumped into my French teacher. The one who tried to get me to thank him for my A. He gave me an odd look but said nothing, thank God. I didn't need to meet every teacher from subjects I ditched in university.