Memorable Teachers

The minute woman shuffled into the classroom in her long, black robe. No words. No smile. Sister Irene was a no fuss person which, to the students' dismay, reflected in her perspective of life and her teaching method.
In a few seconds she reached the front of the room, climbed one step and sat on the edge of the chair. Her back board-like straight. Her stare in a direct line that cut the room in two.
'Good mornig', she began then paused to allow the class to reply. We didn't disappoint her. 'Today is interrogation day!', she announced with a pleasure that even she found difficult to hid. The class fretted. Interrogation days were undoubtedly her favorite. The delight in sitting there, her small head bent on the textbook, her beady eyes following the index finger that, in turn, followed the black words on the snow-white page.
Sister Irene reached for the register and opened it. My stomach tightened.
'This time will begin with the letter A. And the first person to come out is Belati' Sister Irene looked up and scanned the group for the unfortunate girl; once found the Sister rested her piercing eyes on her and invited, 'Deborah come out'
The girls timidly gained center stage opposite the blackboard, near the desk where hte black nun eagerly awaited. The science and technology textbook already opened on the desk.
'So...; Sister Irene addressed the girl, 'Are you ready?'
Deborah's lips stretched in what, under other circumstances, would have been a smile and swallowed as her eyes paused on the textbook. The rest of the group quietly went to the wooden cupboard at the back of the classroom to retrieve the bags containing our embroidery or needlework, returned to our desks and sat down. I wasn't looking forward to two hours of tedious cross-stitching punctuated by the monotone voices of students duly repeating the memorized words of a dull topic.
'Come, come', the Sister exhorted clapping her hands, 'Hurry up. Why is it taking you so long to collect a bag?' These girls! They have to make every simple thing a big deal. Sister Irene was losing her temper. Two minutes had already gone yb. How much longer before the lesson would begin? A couple of minutes later the class had settled down busying itself with needles and canvasses while Deborah was deep in the recital of chicken and eggs.
'Inside the egg there's a yold. The yold is the yellow part in the middle of an egg that provides food for the developing embryo', Deborah announced certain in her very recently found knowledge. Sister Irene nodded and waited as the classroom raised their eyes from their work and waited as we plunged into a confused silence. The oppressive warm of a mid-morning June engulfed the ground floor room and I looked out of the window. A small, red bird was happily hopping about. I longed to be out in the now blossoming garden but insted the sharp crackling of a ruler against the desk made me jump in my seat and my head turned to face the source of the noise.
'What does the book read after 'the developing embryo'?', Sister Irene was impatiently asking in that high-pitched tone of hers that pierced my ears. Deborah looked baffling down at her hands while the rest of us frantically leafed through the science and technology textbook. 'What's after 'the developing embryo'?' all of us were wondering with increasingly sweaty palms.
A full stop!', the Sister yelled bringing the inner surface of her right hand crashing down on the desk.
A full stop!?
The words hit us with puzzlement then silent laughter and some giggles from the most intrepid.
Deborah took the Sister's ridiculous explosive challenge as she took everything else...total mystification and resumed the recounting of the ever so fascinating tale of the yolk inside the egg.
'May I go to the toilet, Sister?'
Oh, no. Here we go. Another tirade about the danger of over peeing.
Sabina was standing with her hand stuck up in the air and the other on her crotch anxiously waiting for a speedy, positive reply. Sister Irene's stern face showed underneath the vestments and her creased lips began to move as the rest of the upper body rises straight and her left arm shoots forward as she glanced at her wristwatch. 'It's only twenty minutes after the break', she spat making expressive movements with her arms and hands. 'It isn't healthy to go to the toilet that often!', she declared. 'The doctor says so!', she continued making her point with penetrating eye contact that would make even the most disagreeing of us have a change of mind in a matter of seconds. 'You should go to the toilet every four hours. Not more than that!'
Sabina tried to say that she hadn't been to the toilet at all in the break but the Sister would have then questioned her on the purpose of having breaks and, anyway, Sabina was swiftly interrupted by Sister Irene's dismissive gesturing and the dry single word, 'Go!'
Sabina dashed out of the room as the angry nun carried on, 'The liver doesn't work as it should if you go to the toilet every couple of hours', she asserted shaking her head to a world that spanned madly around her so fast that Sister Irene hadn't realized she had been left behind years earlier.
I put the crochet down in my lap and looked out of the window. The red bird had flown away.