Teaching. It's a wonderful profession except when it's not. Some day you stand in front of the class and eager little minds are sponging up the information as fast as you can throw it at them. Other days you're left wondering why you don't take up a more rewarding profession, such as cleaning out gutters.
I teach science to the upper classes and, as with every teacher, I have some brilliant students and some where you need to drill a hole through solid bone until you find the brain, and try to feed the information in that way. Part of the trouble is that sometimes the same student exhibits both traits.
Take Cheryl, for instance. Here we have an intelligent, pretty, vivacious, young lady with a mind like a steel trap. Anything she learns, she remembers, and she can apply that learning. You know the problem with a steel trap? Before you can put anything into it you have to pry the blasted thing open, and they're not designed to be easy to open.
Cheryl needs to have experiments demonstrated several times, looking dumber and dumber, as you show her how hydrogen plus oxygen plus fire equals a bang and some water. Then she'll suddenly be all smiles and you know that she's learnt the lesson and won't forget it. She aces her exams but, oh, she's a pain to teach at times.
Have you ever wondered why schools have such long breaks? It's so that the teachers can recover a semblance of sanity before returning to the classroom. It's not for the students sake, I assure you.
Now if you're wondering what this preamble is all about it's just a lead-up to what happened during the last school break. I like to go to the beach during the holidays. Swim and surf, get in some healthy exercise, beat away any children I come across with a big stick; just your average teacher's break.
I was strolling along the beach when I noticed that there was a bit of a crowd congregating up ahead. There was also a strange smell drifting on the breeze. Not really being one to follow the crowd I moved up into the dunes running between the beach and the main road. Idling along, I could see over the head of the crowd and see what the big attraction was.
There was a beached whale, dead from the smell of it, and the crowd were looking, ooh-ing and ah-ing and getting photos of themselves with a whale. Not really being interested in a gigantic pile of dead blubber I kept on going.
Of far more interest to me were thoughts about the student I mentioned, Cheryl. She was blonde and blue-eyed with the face and figure that explained why cheerleaders were invented. She was eighteen and, on holidays, not a student. Why was this of such interest to me?
I'd just come across her sun-bathing back in the dunes out of the public eye. The reason she was back in the dunes was because she was sun-bathing topless, and she made a lovely sight. When she spotted me, a strange man, walking towards her, checking her out as he came, she hastily grabbed a towel and used it to cover a couple of salient points.
I stopped next to her smiling and promptly received an evil eye.
"Not interested," she said coldly. "Keep walking."
"Now, Cheryl, is that any way to greet an old friend," I asked plaintively.
She gave a little start and looked closer, still failing to recognise me.
"Forget the sloppy shorts and t-shirt," I told her. "Imaging me in a nice suit or a lab coat."
"Oh. Mr Collins. What are you doing here?"
"Enjoying a week at the beach. Taking in the scenery." I was blatantly looking at her while I said that and she blushed.
"Um, yes. I, ah, I'm just doing some sun-bathing," she mumbled.
"I noticed, but you were doing it without this," I said, bending and whisking away the towel she'd thrown across her breasts.
"You can't do that," she protested, hastily crossing her arms across her breasts.
"I just did," I pointed out. "I had already seen you before you covered up, you know. No need to hide them. You have lovely breasts. I assume that you don't want tan lines showing."
She nodded, looking a little embarrassed. Bad enough to be caught topless, but by a teacher?
"Relax," I said. "I won't be telling anyone. You look silly, though, trying to hide behind your hands."
I reached down, took her wrists and firmly moved her hands to her sides, the look I gave her daring her to cover up again. She blushed, but didn't bother covering her breasts again, looking at me almost defiantly.
"Why are you back here instead of down on the beach?" Cheryl wanted to know.
"There's a dead whale washed ashore. It's a little smelly and a bit crowded down there so I detoured around. Good thing, too. I'd much rather be up here admiring a naked lovely, than down there admiring a smelly carcase."
"I'm not naked," put in Cheryl quickly and I smiled.
"I know. Reprehensible of me to suggest that you were, I know, but I was only anticipating things."
"Oh, alright," said Cheryl, apparently accepting what I said as an apology. I watched as her face changed as the words slowly sank in.
"What do you mean, anticipating things?" she suddenly demanded.
"Well," I said, giving a little shrug. "You are a very lovely young woman and I want to see you properly. I'm just trying to think up a way to get you to take of the rest of the bikini without sounding like a complete lecher."
"Not going to happen," she said, giggling.
"Why not?"
"You don't seriously expect me to let you look at me naked, do you?"
"Again, why not? You are seriously lovely and it's not as though I have a camera with me. It would just be between you and me."
"Yes, I bet. Just between you and me and anyone who comes strolling past."
