Today was a first time
experience for me, the first time I actually witnessed something I would never
think imaginable. My French teacher was away.
My French teacher… how
do I begin to explain my French teacher? She has the immune system of a
buffalo. I hear she used to play national Women’s rugby in France for Paris.
She hasn’t missed a class in two years – as punctual as a panda and as
consistent as a carp. She’s been known to break the necks off of wine bottles
with a single snap. One time she came into class wearing a raccoon cap and told
us that she skinned the animal herself… it was awesome.
I respect her, but
mostly what I feel is fear. As I flushed the cowardice out of me (she can smell
fear) and prepared to enter class it became noticeable as the seconds ticked by
that she was late. Now… she’s not the type to be late. There’s only one time I
recall that she came to a lesson five minutes after the bell went and it was
apparently because her car broke down and she had to cycle to school… from
Pymble to Stanmore. For those of you who don’t know Sydney, that’s a fucking long way.
So yeah, it turns out
she never came to class at all and I still don’t know why. Death isn’t even an
option – I can’t possibly fathom a speeding car, microscopic antigen or lead
bullet that could faze this bourgeois
wonder-woman. Maybe instead of wearing that metaphorical cape today, she wore a
real one and is saving the third-world as we speak. Maybe she finally muscled
up the calf strength to leap over the Indian Ocean to her home country because
she felt like an authentic baguette this morning. Maybe she intimidated the
school’s establishment into giving her the day off and paying her double. Maybe
she just rode her bike into a well.
Whatever has happened,
all I can say looking back on my experience is that c'était génial de ne pas avoir français aujourd'hui.
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