[Reviews - 19]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story |
Printer Chapter or Story |
ePub eBook Chapter or Story |

Has been viewed 1631 times

- Text Size +




Assume: To Make an Ass of You and Me
Lesson Plans


April 10th 2004

The students in the senior class majoring in Anthropology and Humanities at Rutgers tried desperately not to let their anticipation show. This was the very last class to get grades and try to weasel their way into a passing grade to graduate, before final grades were turned in. The professor had given them a bevy of choices to write their final fifty page term paper on.

Most of the students had chosen current and contemporary subjects to blab about. Ororo Monroe had gone a different route. She had chosen to write about three topics of the Hellenistic Age. Nothing at all spectacular, just basic rambling about arch building, Marcus Aurelius, and art trading. Ororo’s biggest problem was not boring herself while writing this.

Professor Evram was no slouch in the teaching department. She was amazing. Ororo remembered going to her office a few months ago to tell her how she had inspired her to be a teacher. Joy Evram had tears in her eyes. Ororo hadn’t understood that. This woman had the uncanny ability to explain the past in such vivid detail that it made her full audiences feel like they were there. Ororo hadn’t expected the rush of emotion from her hard as nails teacher. Joy seemed to be really enthusiastic about Ororo’s contribution to academics. She had given Ororo the card of a brand new private school that was currently hiring.

Ororo had really meant to look into it, but with the load of her classes, the work as a black jack dealer, and her sister needing help with her family the card had gotten lost some where along the way. Now as her classes where coming to an end, she wrote on her notebook to talk to her Professor again. Her other thoughts her paused when her teacher walked into the room.

She looked at her students and tilted her head up so that those sitting in the higher seats could see her.

“Alright class. There isn’t left to go over on the syllabus, so what I will do is allow a good friend and college of mine to speak, then I will hand out the term paper grades. Final grades will be posted after three today, so make sure you stop by for them.” She then left the podium and walked across the stage.

For a few minutes there was silence until a low buzzing could be heard. A powerchair carrying a bald man in his late thirties came to the center of the stage. Ororo automatically sat up in her chair to pay attention, as did her other classmates. Something about this man’s presence commanded attention. Maybe it was his crisp khaki suit or his patient demeanor. Whatever it was Ororo found herself captivated by his words of a progressive future. One where open minds secular ideas and conservative traditions could meet and be productive with impressionable minds. If this same speech had been given by any one else, they would not have had an interested audience. Ororo knew that there was something very special about this man.

As soon as the discussion ended, some of the more interested students stayed behind and rushed the stage to speak with the Professor. Joy had introduced him as Professor Charles Xavier.

Xavier!

Ororo slapped her own forehead. That was the name on the card. She highly doubted if that teaching position was still available. She just wasn’t that lucky. There was one way to find out. She gathered up her belonging and went to stand in the back of the eager group hackling Xavier.

Ororo actually had no intention of meeting the man until she felt his warm blue eyes bore into her; that’s when she felt compelled to stay. She was the last student left, and she felt that he was in no rush, and was very comforted by that.

“Hello Mr. Xavier. My name is Ororo.”

“Yes, I know who you are,” came the smooth slightly British deep voice. “I was slightly disappointed to not hear from you a little sooner.” He raised his brow at her in a slightly patronizing way.

Ororo just held her head down. Excuses would get her no where with this man. That much was obvious. “So, um Sir, is that position still available at your school?”

“That would depend on you, Ororo. Are you still planning on working with antiquities?”

Ororo had opened her mouth to answer when she realized that she hadn’t said anything about that. She looked back at her own Professor and she just shrugged. What she missed when she turned back around was Joy vigorously crossing her arms in a negative direction to signal Xavier to stop that line of questioning.

Ororo wanted to just shrug, but something else stopped her.

“Your fascination with the past is commendable, but how would you like to help define our future as a teacher, Ororo. That position is still available if you were still wondering.”

*Well, yes actually I was, thank you Charles,* she thought.

He gave her a friendly smile, and coughed softly in his hand. There was an awkward silently paused held by all until Charles broke it. “Go ahead, ask,” he encouraged her.

“Why me Professor?”

“First of all you may call me Charles. Second I believe in your...ability. Your not nearly as average as you think. You and I both know that. But, I fear that you don’t know what to do with your self.” He looked past her at his former colleague, and she was waving her white napkin at him as a sign of surrender. With a deep inhale he added, “I don’t think that televison meteorology is a path you should continue to consider.”

“I don’t know...I’m sorry what! How did you know? I...I haven’t told anyone about that, not even my sister knows. That’s the second time you’ve read my mind. What the he...what’s going on here,” she said as she began to back up. She turned around to look at her teacher for help and saw that she was just casually eating her late lunch of a wrapped sandwich. Ororo gave an indignant huff. “Your not here to hire me because of my academic ability are you.”

“Ororo, I do not like the idea of deceiving people. So, let me start at the beginning. I know that you are an ecopath.” She gave him a questionable look. At this time Joy had finished eating and walked up to join the conversation.

“Charles, stop with the code speak. Ororo, we know you’re empathetic to the weather. I have to admit I took advantage of that by being particularly nice to you on days I wanted to go to the shore.”

“JOY,” both Charles and Ororo exclaimed.

“What?”

“Very funny,” Charles said flatly. “Ororo, I’m not reading your mind. Your projecting your thoughts. Think of it like wearing a sign of what you’re thinking. If I tried to your thoughts I would have a fairly difficult time. The lighting that’s stored in your body makes your mind a static minefield. Relax. Your are not alone. As you guess, I am a telepath. We are...”

“Ehm ehm,” Joy interrupted.

“I haven’t forgotten about you, Joy. Your professor is unique too. She has an ability just like the two of us. And very much like you, it’s a rare one indeed.”

“Yes, Ororo. Let me explain. Do you know what precognition is?”

She nodded.

“What I can do is something like reverse precognition. Instead of seeing the future. I can see the past. It’s strange, the older I get the further in the past I can see. That’s why I became a history teacher. Sure, there are plenty of things I could have done, but I wanted to teach and inspire.”

Charles wanted to finish his previous thought. “Ororo, the three of us are on the brink of evolution. We are mutants. Humans that have the ability to shape and mold themselves or their own environment. It is adaptation in its truest form. There are millions like us. Some of us have extremely powerful mutations, and others have some on a more mundane level. I need staff to help me shape and mold young mutants so that they may wield their abilities efficiently and with a code of ethics. I was hoping that you would consider it, Ororo. While you think about it, walk with me to my car, alright. I can answer more of your questions.”

She was accompanying him across the parking lot when she felt strange. She stopped and turned around. There campus was alive in normal activity. There was just something a miss.

The two men who were stalking the rich man in the wheelchair attacked the moment the tall woman turned her back. The first punk knocked the heavy chair over and clamped Xavier’s mouth shut. The second man started digging in his pockets and hit the jackpot when he got the wallet. He nodded to his friend to start to run.

They had no idea who they were messing with.

The moment Xavier felt the rush of the blow from the first man, he telepathically told Ororo to keep her back turned and to through a wind tunnel around the parking lot. When the two punks got to the edge of the parking lot, neither one could move. Both were over taken in a fit of coughing from the super humid air blanket that had been thrown around them. Soon enough both collapsed. Ororo calmly walked over and retrieved the wallet.

*Well done, Ororo. They didn’t get sixty feet.*

Ororo smiled brightly at the warm voice in her head. “So, Charles can we discuss a contract.”

Both people ignored the small but vocal crowed astonished by the crazy insane weather that overtook the would be thieves.

“My school hasn’t opened yet. No students, or curriculum. For now all I can offer is a meager salary, but free room, board and food. As well as the opportunity to create it.”

“No students yet? When do you plan on opening the classes?”

“My recruitment process is unique. And no, we won’t be charging a tuition. I’ll explain more in detail when we get there.”

“Isn’t this going to me a bit much for the two of us? I know I can’t be the only staff you’ve had in mind.”

“Your not. There is another...instructor. He may or may not be there this evening. I told him to join us for dinner. He seems to have a problem with authority and he isn’t much of a people person.”

“Are you kidding me? You want this man around children. Older children at that!”

Charles simply chuckled. “I would much rather have him on my side than anything else.” She raised her brow at him. “You’ll see what I mean. Should you decided that you want to work for me, don’t let him push you around.”

“If my sister hasn’t been able to turn me into a pop culture drone, than this man is going to be ice skating up a wall if he tries anything.”

“We’ll see.”





You must login () to review.