"High school? All right, sounds good," Derek responded to his boss's direction. She then carefully put him on the ground and waved him off. "High school, huh?" he thought. "That's where... well, it'll be all right this time around. I just have to hope that I can get my voice heard this time around." The little guy made quick work of the hallways as he thoughtfully made his way to his classroom assignment. Being assigned to the high school section, Derek had a few classrooms on the top level of the building he would be working in that day. Thankfully, there was a compartment within the staff elevator designed specifically for him. Thus, he wouldn't be stepped on or otherwise squished while traveling from floor to floor. Once on the top floor of the school, Derek hastily exited the elevator and found himself in his first class of the day. To keep things easy for him to transition with and to consistently teach, Derek was assigned both a grade category and a subject. Today's subject he would be aiding with was history. In the first classroom of the day, Derek would be assisting Mrs. Johnson, someone he got along with well.
"Good morning, Derek," the blonde teacher greeted, spotting the six-incher walking across the floor near her desk. She picked him up gently and set him on her desk, right next to the appropriately sized table just for the guy. "Good morning, Grace," Derek smiled back. "Feeling well?" The teacher nodded. "Absolutely. I'm looking forward to being able to working with you today. I am sorry to hear about what happened the last time you were in the high school section of the school." Derek blushed and looked away. "Well, I suppose an accident was bound to happen with me being this small. It was the first, but unfortunately I can't imagine it will be the last. At the very least, Principal Franklin gave me this tracking device to make sure that I'm safe."
"Good!" Mrs. Johnson replied. "I'm very happy to hear that. Anyways, today we'll just be introducing the class to the first topic of the semester, since we went over the syllabus last week. We might get into a little bit of the lecture, but for the most part it's an overview. You won't need to worry about things too much, just be available for students if they have any questions." Derek nodded in understanding as the first bell rang, indicating it was time to get to class. A few minutes later and the class was filled nearly to full capacity. As Mrs. Johnson began class, Derek felt the gazes of several of the students. He noticed a few girls giggling to themselves and a boy snickering as well. Derek sighed and just sat back in his chair.
About halfway through the class, two lines of students arranged at the front of the classroom. One line filed next to Mrs. Johnson and the other line in front of Derek's desk. An eager brunette girl lowered herself to Derek's eye level and she immediately spoke. "Oh my gosh, hi, you're so cute," the student giggled. Derek felt a little uncomfortable. He didn't think he should acknowledge that comment with a 'thank you', so he replied professionally. "Is there something I can help you with?" Derek asked. The girl smiled. "Well, yes. Firstly, I'm Erica. Are you an experiment or something? Or were you born like that?" Derek shook his head. "No, I'm afraid I was asking if I could help you with something mentioned in the overview. You know, class related questions." The girl named Erica rolled her eyes. "All right, whatever. I want to know more about you though, you seem really interesting." She then walked back to her seat and the next student walked ahead.
Pretty much the entire line of Derek's students produced the same thing: questions about his height. He gave the same answer to everyone and that was that. Derek breezed through, encouraging each student to come to him if there was any struggle related to the class material. All of the students expressed a degree of annoyance and disappointment at the fact that he didn't share his personal information. Nonetheless, they did want to come up with an excuse to talk to him, and thus wanted to find something in the class material to ask him. Mrs. Johnson's line took much longer to get through, considering all of the questions had to do with class. Eventually, the teacher and assistant got through the rest of class no problem. As the students walked out after the bell, Derek noticed that the first girl, Erica, was eyeing him. He shivered but remained stoic. He then prepared for the next class which he also shared with Mrs. Johnson in the same classroom.
What happens in the second period of the day?