As
we stepped through the door into my form room I never could have anticipated
what my friends had done for me. There were balloons strewn everywhere and
someone had written WELCOME BACK SOPHIE on the board. I felt the tears form in
my eyes and I tried to blink them back but to no avail. They really came when
my other close friends gave me a present. Books and chocolates, they know me so
well. Everyone formed a penguin hug with me in the middle. I saw tears trickle
down so many faces. I couldn’t comprehend the trouble everyone had gone to for
me. It felt unreal.
It
was only the arrival of my form tutor that popped the bubble. It was when he
started speaking to me that I got annoyed. I just turned my head away and let
Sam speak for me. I don’t know what Sam said but it must have worked because Mr
Jones just turned around and walked away. ‘I hope you’re there to say that in
all my lessons!’ I scribbled into my notebook and Sam only smiled. The reality
was that everyone would be like that, especially those who weren’t aware. I
knew the teachers who tried to talk to me were going to get to me though.
They’ll just think I'm the same as the next tall, long haired girl. Ignore the
memos that I knew had been sent around but there was no hope as not even my
form tutor remembered.
Every
teacher was the same; they all began talking to me just like any other student,
until someone from my form shut them up by saying who knows what. All the
teachers except for one. My history teacher printed off everything she was
going to say to the class just for me, wrote everything on the board just for
me, had learnt how to say yes, no and hello in sign language just for me. I had
never liked history, always agreed with the concept of ‘they’re all dead anyway
so why does it matter?’ I also didn’t think my teacher liked me. She proved me
wrong, I learnt more in that first lesson that I ever had. Mainly because I had
to concentrate… One other teacher wrote things on the board for me but he still
made the mistake of trying to say hello as I walked in. Ignorance often
presents itself as stupidity as I then realised.
