Teaching Mr. Bristle: Part Five

     Brick yawned and opened one eye. "What happened last night?" he asked. "When I woke up, both of you had left."

     "Oh, you won't believe what we did last night..." Garfy began.

     "So here's what happened," Cody said, cutting his friend off, "Garfy and I had to go to Malara's house because she forgot her backpack."

     "Sounds extremely exciting," Brick commented, half closing the eye he had opened.

     "But there was a twist!" Garfy declared. "Mr. Bristle was there."

     "Because of those lessons she was giving or whatever," Cody explained. "We were about to leave when Malara was like, 'You two would be perfect for my simulation!'"

     "Uh huh." Brick completely closed his eye, and said, "Interesting."

     Garfy laughed and tapped the Techo to keep him awake. "Don't listen to Cody, he has the worst storytelling skills in the world." He cleared his throat. "Alright, so there was that simulation thing. Cody and I had to act bad like we do in class, and Mr. Bristle had to tell us to stop. At first he was, like, horrible, but then he suddenly shouted really loud! It was the most unexpected thing ever."

     "So anyway," Cody continued, "we've decided Mr. Bristle isn't that bad after all, because we actually had a pretty good time. That mean principal is coming to monitor our class today, and if Mr. Bristle doesn't teach well enough then he'll get fired! Normally I'd be okay with that, but he seems like a teacher we could get along with in time. Which is why, today, we need to be good students."

     Brick snorted. "Okay then. Sounds like you guys had a blast. But sure, if you guys think the teacher is potentially cool then I'll try to stay awake today." He smiled.

     "Thanks, Brick!" Malara said, jumping into the conversation.

     "Ahhh! Where did you come from?" Cody asked.

     "I've been here for about five minutes. You guys were really busy telling Brick that story, so I thought I'd wait a few minutes before I popped in." The Elephante giggled.

      "Yeah, um, whatever," Garfy prompted. "Let's get to class."

     Five minutes later, all of Mr. Bristle's students were quietly sitting at their desks, grinning. Malara had spread the word to all of her classmates to be especially good. She had explained to them Mr. Bristle's side of the story, how much of a struggle it was for him to try and teach, how he was willing to have fun with the class if they would cooperate, and how Mr. Shay was planning to fire him. Surprisingly, she got through to the students and everyone agreed to be civilized in class. Or it could have been the fact that since Cody, Garfy, and Brick were going to be good, they decided to jump on the bandwagon too and annoy Mr. Shay instead, for a change.

     Mr. Bristle stood up and grabbed a pile of worksheets from his wonderfully organized desk. "Today, we're going to start writing scripts as a homeroom project," he announced. "Every morning we're going to work on, um, we're going to work a bit on writing plays. At the end of the year, perhaps, we could perform them!" He began to pass the worksheets out to the students. Malara knew the teacher was trying his best to be a good public speaker. "These worksheets are here to help you all develop a plot, characters, and all that stuff."

     Mr. Shay had brought an abnormally large desk into the room. He was slouching in his chair, watching the class nervously. Why is this class going so well? he asked himself.

     The students all cast each other sly grins. They saw how Mr. Shay was getting upset by their good behavior, since they all knew he wanted to fire Mr. Bristle. But no one was going to give the principal a reason to.

     "All right, so, go ahead and fill those worksheets out," Mr. Bristle said happily to the class. His eyes met up with Cody's for a moment and they both chuckled.

     The class turned out to be quite peaceful, much to Mr. Shay's discontent. The students all talked with room level voices to each other, but the noise never rose too loud. Mr. Bristle circled the room, taking brief glances at all of the plots and characters his students were beginning to create. Everything went all too well; before anyone had even realized the class was nearly over, the bell rang.

     "You so kept your job!" Malara said to Mr. Bristle as she exited the classroom. As soon as all of the students had left, Mr. Bristle shut the door of the classroom and turned to Mr. Shay, who had been grumpily silent for the majority of the class.

     Cody, Garfy, Brick, and Malara stayed back and peered through the door's window. "We don't really even need to worry," Garfy said. "Mr. Shay no longer has any reasons to fire him-"

     Before the Wocky could finish his sentence, the group achieved a dead silence as they watched the conversation between the principal and their teacher. They couldn't quite tell what was being said, but judging by the enraged expression on Mr. Bristle's face, they knew something was wrong.

     Ten minutes later, Mr. Shay walked out of the classroom with a smug expression on his face. He turned to the four students, and spat, "Ahem. Get to class."

     "Whatever you say," Cody replied with a sneer. As soon as the Bori was out of sight, the group rushed back into Mr. Bristle's room to find out what exactly had happened.

     "Mr. Bristle! What's going on?!" Malara asked.

     The Gelert was a wreck. On the verge of tears, he said softly, "I'm getting fired. After next week, I won't be teaching here anymore."

     "But...why?" Garfy asked, surprised.

     "Apparently, the lesson plans I've set up for our class don't follow Mr. Shay's new curriculum well enough. In this new curriculum of his, the script writing techniques section has been removed completely. That was the main focus of all of my lesson plans for the next few months!" he explained in an angry tone.

     Brick frowned, and spoke up for once, "So he's basically created a new curriculum like that just to have a reason to fire you!"

     "Exactly," Malara said. "Mr. Bristle... I really don't know what to say. He's pinned you down to the ground and I can't see a way for you to get back up. I'm really, really sorry. I thought that maybe, just maybe, he would've stopped holding that grudge against you if you got a little better at teaching."

     "Don't be sorry," Mr. Bristle replied, smiling faintly. "Those few classes you gave me really helped... Who knows? Maybe I'll find some other job as a substitute teacher somewhere."

     "But you shouldn't have to, Mr. Bristle! You deserve this job just as much as any other teacher in this school does. Just because you've reached rock bottom doesn't mean it's not worth a try to climb back up the mountain. I can't see it now, but somehow, I just know there's a way for you to convince Mr. Shay to let you keep this job..." Malara trailed off.

     "Malara, there just isn't a way. The guy hates me, and I admit that I'm not too fond of him. He's found a way to flawlessly fire me. There's no way around it."

     All five of them stood silently in the room, feeling defeated. "Well," Cody said with a sigh, "see you tomorrow, Mr. Bristle."

     "Yeah. Hurry up you four, the late bell already rang about five minutes ago. Sorry for keeping all of you in."

     Garfy walked glumly out of the room, and he was soon followed by his three friends. Heading towards their next classes, none of them spoke a word.

     ***

     As Malara walked into the cafeteria, all of Mr. Bristle's students immediately rushed up to her. "What happened with Mr. Bristle and Mr. Shay? Mr. Bristle didn't get fired, did he?" a red Pteri asked.

     Malara choked on her words, as if she had a Greeble in her throat. "Mr. Bristle...he's been fired."

     All of the students, who had been there to watch the conversation, gasped. "But why? It doesn't make any sense! We actually had a good class today," the red Pteri said in shock.

     "I know, I know... Mr. Shay is getting him fired for the worst reason ever." The Elephante sighed. "Mr. Bristle's original lesson plan for our class, which is what the teacher must use to teach every single day, was practically thrown in the garbage can. According to Mr. Shay's new curriculum, we the students should not be learning about script writing at all, which was the main topic of Mr. Bristle's lesson plan."

     All of the students slumped, feeling terrible for their teacher. If they had only been good students earlier on...perhaps he wouldn't have been fired. "So Mr. Shay really only created that curriculum so he could have an excuse to fire Mr. Bristle! What a jerk!" many of the classmates exclaimed.

     Cody, Brick, and Garfy walked slowly through the doors, seeing their melancholy classmates right away. "Do they know?" Garfy asked.

     "Yeah. I told them," Malara answered.

     "So...when is Mr. Bristle leaving?" the red Pteri asked the three pets who had just entered the cafeteria.

     Malara answered instead. "He's leaving in a week," she said softly.

To be continued...