What a couple of days it had been. Residential trips are always stressful, but walking around the sights of our capital with forty 10-11 year olds was definitely more stressful than the average.
We'd been there for three days already, driving down on the coach on the Tuesday, visiting museums and landmarks Tuesday afternoon, and then Wednesday and Thursday, and would be heading back up north the next day to end the week. There were five of us on the trip, two older teaching assistants, Yvette and Steph, and the two Year 6 teachers, Emma and Louise, as well as myself.
They were all lovely people, and it had been a pleasant trip in general, Louise keeping us entertained, full of jokes and innuendos as she has a similar sense of humour to me. Emma is more straight-laced, but still laughed along with us all in the group.
Stressful though taking the children around the landmarks had been, the nights were what was killing us. Despite their age, there were a lot of children very insecure about being away from their parents, and none of the adults had been able to get any sleep before 1am at the earliest so far. I, as the senior member of staff, had been the one to send others to bed, and hadn't been to bed before 3.30 either night yet. Louise had said it best when she'd joked at the teacher table during one of our meals, "It's not worth the lack of sleep if I'm not getting laid!"
Still, the last night had arrived, and we were hopeful that the children would be so shattered that they'd get to bed earlier, and indeed, the vast majority of rooms were completely quiet before 11pm, although I did receive a knock on the door with a girl missing her mum at around midnight. I very sympathetically ushered her off to bed and patrolled the corridors until all was definitely quiet.
Finally sure that all of my charges were asleep in bed, I closed my door behind me and locked it, changing into shorts and a t-shirt to sleep. Normally I'd wear nothing or just my underwear, but couldn't risk being woken and answering the door half asleep without dressing first!
After a while, just as i was on the verge of sleep, I heard yet another soft knock at the door. Cursing in my head - it was gone one o'clock now, and I thought I might have gotten a decent few hours sleep - I climbed back out of bed, paused a second or two to gather myself, set my phone to record the room from the side table by the bed (always best to record conversations, especially at this time of night - there was no way the phone could see the child at the door and I could never be accused of saying anything inappropriate if it was recorded) and opened the door again, ready to act sympathetically while also laying down the law to go the hell back to bed.
Much to my surprise, it wasn't another pupil, but Emma, one of the year 6 teachers, who stood outside my room. She was wearing shorts and a baggy grey t-shirt similarly to me, her long brown hair hanging loose down past her shoulders. She's slim, and about average height at around 5"5, with a pretty, but not beautiful face, and fairly small chest. I was a little surprised, knowing Emma to be very straight-laced, to see her barefoot, two small, pretty feet with red nail polish at the end of her pale legs on the hotel carpet.
Despite the very "comfortable" look, presumably designed as mine was, to be appropriate if a child knocked on her room door, my eyes couldn't help but be drawn almost immediately from her legs to her erect nipples, clearly poking out underneath her top. In fairness, she couldn't be expected to wear a bra to sleep, even on residential, I supposed.
It took me a few seconds, and there was no way she could have missed it, but I managed to pull my gaze from her tits and greet her, asking if everything was ok.
"Could I come in, please? I feel a little vulnerable out in the corridor." She had a slightly disapproving look on her face, and I hoped she wouldn't cause a fuss over the blatant staring at her chest, especially after the comment about feeling vulnerable.
I opened the door wider and gestured her inside, unable to stop myself from trying to peer at her arse in her shorts and disappointed, though I shouldn't have been surprised, that the long, baggy t-shirt covered it.
Emma came in and sat on my bed, shuffling back far enough to sit with her ankles crossed out in front of her fully on the bed, leaning back on her hands placed slightly behind her.
"What can I do for you?" I asked, sitting on the chair I'd only recently moved from the doorway,pulling it close to the bed so I sat facing my colleague.
"To be honest, I just can't sleep. I've had kids knocking on the door until gone midnight and now I can't get off to sleep."
I chuckled. "My last one was maybe fifty minutes ago now, but I was up and down the corridors from then until recently and I'm pretty sure everyone's settled and asleep now." I grinned. "I was trying not to lose my temper until I saw you were the one who knocked on my door."
Emma laughed. "You're more patient than me. I definitely lost my temper with the one who knocked on last. It was nearly one in the morning!"
I smiled. "So, what can I do to help?" I may have been a little quick getting to the point, but it was two in the morning, even if it wasn't a kid who'd knocked.