Gym Teacher

Gym Class
Chapter 1:

Terri Simons was assigned as the new gym teacher for Dalemont High. The school was notorious for it's largely overweight students. With their average nine to twelve-year olds already weighing around 250 pounds, it was certainly the heaviest school in the country. The core reason for this was the way PE-class was handled. Gym classes were always optional, as the school council didn't feel it to be their responsibilty to oversee the health of their pupils. The children that did attend PE were mostly their for fun, and didn't take it serious at all. They mainly fooled around on the trampolines and swing ropes, slowly driving the gym teachers insane and making them quit in less than five weeks. To avoid this, the school has finally made the classes mandatory, and the grades achieved here were now included into the students overall exam score.

Of course, this didn't fare well with almost all of the teenagers, and it was now up to Terri to deal with their wrath. Terri herself wasn't that experienced. At 23, she had only recently finished her studies and her internship, and this was her first real job. Terri was only 5'4 ft tall and weighed 90 pounds, so most of the eight-grade students already towered over her. Beach blonde hair wrapped in a ponytail, crystal blue eyes, full lips and an average, if not a little skinny body gave her lots of male gaze, and female glare.

So Terri's first day at the job did not start off easy: aside from being young and inexperienced, she had to deal with classes full of fat, angry, pissed-off students, most of whom have never even seen a piece of sports equipment in their life. Despite that, Terri, dressed in a simple white polo shirt, navy blue sports shorts, and white sneakers still did her best to stand confidently in the middle of the room while her much bigger pupils waddled through the door.

"Alright, let's all sit down and get down to business, shall we?" Terri yelled. "You can go down to business with me anytime you want, sweetie!" a blubbery red-haired mass of a boy yelled, while he slapped his equally blubbery friend some skin. Terri sighed, but decided not to ignore it. She stepped in front of the kid.

"What's your name?" she said, while standing on the tips of her toes in a desperate attempt to confront the boy face-to-face. The ginger boy looked down and a smile appeared between his flabby cheeks. "Joooshh" he said, while exhaling his fish-breath directly into Terri's face. Both he and his friend walked away, giving Terri shoulder bumps while grinning. Terri stepped forward to confront Josh on his attitude, but was held back by her ponytail by a flabby hand. When Terri turned around she was shocked to see her younger niece, Marla.

Marla Simmons might've been Terri's cousin, the two looked absolutely nothing alike: Where Terri's hair was a shiny platinum blond and always neatly wrapped in a bun or ponytail, Marla's hair was dirty blond, unwashed and hung uncharmingly over her shoulders. Where Terri's skin was as flawless as glass, Marla's skin was covered in moist, freckles, and spots. The most important difference was their physique: Terri's 5'4, 90 pound structure was dwarfed by Marla's 6'2, 210 pound frame. To top it off, their personalities where as opposite as could be: Terri might be tomboyish and rash sometimes, but she always held a sense of modesty and helpfulness to compensate. Marla was, simply put, a huge bitch. Emphasis on huge.

"Hi, Marla. I just noticed your name on the student's list. What a coincidence you're in my class!" Terri excitendly said when she saw her relative.
"Shut up! What do you think you're doing here? If my friends find out a family member is one of the teachers here, they're gonna think you're here to babysit me...that's totally embarassing!" Marla angrily whispered.
"Marla..."
"What?!"
"We only differ three years. I mean, you're twenty and in 10th grade. You should probably be more embarassed about the fact you've been held back four times." Terri accidently raised her voice when she spoke that last part, causing some of Marla's friends to overhear the two and going "ooooooh" while snickering. Needless to say, Marla was not amused.

"You bitch...I will totally get you for this like...seriously get you for this!" Marla said, still whispering but in a very, very angry tone.
"Marla, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that out loud..." Terri tried to apoligize but Marla pushed her aside and stormed out of the room. Terri followed suit but when she reached the exit Josh suddenly blocked the door. "Where do you think you're going...teacher?" Josh said. "I'll be right back, Josh. Uhhm, could you grab the tray of basketballs in the meantime? We'll practice two-pointers when I get back." Terri replied. She attemped to move past Josh, but he held her by the shoulders. "Marla's fine. She's only a little suicidal. There's plenty worse of that around this school." he grinned. "Now, in the meantime, we're really excited for gym class. As you might know, this school has a serious lack of psyhical activity and as you can see, it has affected us all in many ways. Isn't that right, fellow students?"

"That's right, Josh!" all of the other students suddenly shouted in choir. Terri was amazed, perhaps a little suspiscious, about the way Josh portayed authority. With that authority Josh stepped forward and adressed the others. "As some of you know, yesterday I was sent to the principle's office for accidently fondling that French foreign exchange student 'Petite Paulaine' again, and I stumbled upon the archive folder, and I found a report, deeply hidden underneath a pile of other files, from the Children's Health Departement . Apparently, Dalemont High has an averige student BMI of 64,1. That's...very overweight. Even for our standards. And it got me thinking: have we overdone it? Have we crossed the line from apathetic laziness into lethal carelesness? I mean, some of us are ten, damnit! They're out there, already on the verge of morbid obesity. And why? Because this school doesn't give a shit! They see a tremendous problem, literally, and they just don't give a single shit. They see children fat enough to be unable to walk a few steps without rolling over...stop laughing, that wasn't a joke Craig! I still remember you having learned how to tumblerole back before you were able to crawl just because you were to fat to do so!" Craig, who stopped laughing, looked down at his belly in shame. All of the others went silent to do some self-reflection. "So...we should blame the teachers and faculty for neglecting us?" One of the teens asked. "Yes Karin, in a way. But we also have ourselves to blame for driving all those gym teachers bonkers. Well, that's about to change! I believe that with the right amount of motivation, dedication, spirit and some guidance from little Terri over here, by the end of the year, we can all say 'Fuck you' to that snake of a principal and enjoy our summer break on the beach, showing of our shaped abs and hourglass figures to the rest of the world. How does that sound?!" Josh raised in fists as he finished his speech, and the crowd of overweight students broke out in one loud, booming cheer. "Hooray for Terri!" they chanted, while some of the students started crying and hugging each other out of joy. As if they won some kind of championship, that much excitement and joy hung in the air. Josh suddenly stuck his head between Terri's legs, and lifted her up on his shoulders. He thrusted his shoulders forward, throwing Terri into the crowd, who caught her and grabbed hold of her. All of them started hugging and kissing her. While Terri was scared to death by what just happened, she glanced at Josh, who still stood confidently in front of his audience, and couldn't help but feel a little proud. In a way, she already made her first achievement.