The Ghost That Won't Quit (Emma)

[Bell Connelly]

As it seemed so often seemed to be the case when Bell was just getting on a roll the end of class buzzer cut through the room stopping her words dead in her tracks, Bell sighed inwardly, never truly enjoying this part of the day but regardless Bell stood in front of the whiteboard clapping her hands together as she tried to make her voice heard over the ever mounting sounds of scraping chairs and idle chatter as a sea of humanity made for the door like rats fleeing a sinking ship


“Ok guys, that’ll do it for today! Book report is due in two weeks, please take care of yourself and each other. PLEASE don’t run you might hurt yourself and as always I’m here for the next 20 minutes so if anyone wants to stay behind and talk more about the themes of love in Shakespeare you’re more then wel-”


Bell stopped in mid sentence suddenly becoming aware she was talking to an empty room. No one ever did stay. Ever. With a resigned sigh Bell start about her normal routine clearing up her books her back turned to the door unaware of anyone who might be standing there

[Emma McDougall]

Shakespeare, why did schools insist on teaching them Shakespeare? Why did every teenager have to read one or more of his overdone plays? Romeo and Juliet. Hamlet. The Tempest. The Shrew. All of them made her head hurt. The old fashioned speech, the hidden meanings behind things, and most times the horribly sad endings. It made as much sense to her as German and held as much meaning to her as a broken coffee cup.

Gathering her things she started to leave the room but stopped at the door. Rereading her text book for the dozenth time wasn't going to help her understand any of this. Emma hiked her bag onto her shoulder then turned to head back to the front of the class. Miss Connelly was one of her favorite teachers so surely she could help. The teacher always smiled, and treated everyone with kindness. Plus she kept a positive atmosphere in her classroom.

"Um, Miss Connelly? Um, excuse me I'm sorry to bother you." Eyes dropping she shuffled her feet hoping she wasn't bothering the teacher too much. She knew the teacher was nice so she wasn't afraid that she was going to get yelled at or anything. But she knew a teachers job wasn't just standing in front of a crowd of students lecturing all day.

[Bell Connelly]

True, The Bard wasn’t exactly Bell’s favourite either. While the cliff notes of the stories were wonderful, the exact details seemed to be too stiff and rigid to be enjoyed in the modern sense of the word, plus the somewhat anti-semitic and sexist themes that ran through them made her a smidge uncomfortable to say the very least. Plus it was hard to get teens interested in Shakespeare even considering his massive impact on the language. If Bell had her way she would have been giving this kind of focus to Alice and Wonderland, a wonderfully surrealist story with several important morals to it.

But Bell did what she could, she tried to make them as interesting as possible while at the same time not overwhelming her students.

Try being the operative word, as usual, she felt that her students were only half paying attention and their severely limited interest in that kind of literature was waning.

So you could imagine her surprise when someone actually wanted to stay behind, She whirled around sharply, her heart dropping slightly when she saw which student exactly wanted her, not that she had any kind of issue with Emma, she found her a pleasant if not a quiet child for the most part.

However, the physical resemblance between her and Sarah made Bell feel a tad...off about her.

Still, pushed that down for the moment as she painted a warm and welcoming smile on her face “Oh please not at all! Come in please Emma” Bell insisted smiling warmly “Do you have a question about the book were reading? I have a few minutes so I’d be happy to walk you through anything you’re not quite grasping”

[Emma McDougall]

Nervous she continued to tug on her back pack's strap wondering if she should just leave. It's not like she expected to use Shakespeare in real life anyway. Maybe if she memorized cute quotes to use at opportune times, but she doubted she'd remember them for the right moment. Plus people might just think her weird or a nerd for quoting the most quoted writer in history. Was he the most quoted? She guessed that he had to be high on the list.

Emma tensed when the teacher whipped around to face her and again she was reminded of her own family. Back home most of her family immediate and extended had red hair. Some had the tamer auburn, brown, and one little brother had jet black hair. But most were the flame red like her. A part of her felt like the teacher didn't particularly like talking to Emma, but then again Emma felt that way about most people.

"Um, well, I don't really understand Shakespeare." Dropping her big blues she felt the need to run away and hide in a hole. "At...all." She didn't get most of her subjects but that wasn't Miss Connelly's problem. Her problem was English not every other issue Emma had with the esteemed school for special individuals.

[Bell Connelly]

Despite the awkwardness that being around Emma made Bell feel her “Teacher” impulses were rapidly overtaking those strange feelings. It was this kind of thing that made her flock to certain students, Emma’s body language made Bell’s heart go out to her, clearly admitting to helping was never easy especially when you were around so many confident teens, and clearly Emma had issues speaking out, that was evidence by how she acted in class….


..Maybe that was because she needed someone to listen too


Bell blinked momentarily before squaring her shoulders and smiling down kindly at Emma “You’re not the first person, and I doubt you’ll be the last” before Bell guided over to her desk preching herself on it keenly and gesturing to Emma to copy the movement, “No time like the present as my father always used to say….Where shall we start?” 

[Emma McDougall]

Emma gave a weak half-hearted smile for the teacher. At the gesture she moved to one of the nearby desks and sat down pulling her book back out of her bag. Her hands tingled from nerves, which directly tied to her powers. Thankfully she remembered to wear her gloves, so it was no big deal.

"Um, well, the..." What? How could she tell the teacher that there wasn't a 'start' there was a wall. A dead end. The words on the page just a jumble of meaningless stream of phrases. The story, the theme, the plot, it all alluded her. None of it made sense. If she knew where to start maybe she wouldn't have the problem she had now.

Sighing she closed the book and stood. "Nevermind...I'm sorry to bother you. I..." Want to crawl into a hole and never come out. She looked away tucking a frizzy curl behind her ear. "I'll just read it again. Surely...it'll make sense." After the twentieth time of reading the same paragraph.