Leonie Jarrett lives in Melbourne, Australia with her Husband of more than 3 decades, her 4 adult children and her 2 Golden Retrievers. 

Leonie has variously been a lawyer and a business owner. 
Now that she is semi-retired, Leonie is loving writing about her life, her travels and her experiences together with writing poetry and fictional stories.

The Teacher who Hates her Students

Lunch duty was over and Melinda Richards was on the warpath again. She had had to referee a dispute amongst a few catty Year 6 girls and retrieve a footy kicked into a tree. Seriously, was this her life for the next few decades?

Melinda marched towards her classroom and steeled herself for the afternoon ahead. Year 5 teacher at Greythorne Primary in Melbourne, she had a few annoying “know it all” boys in her class. Their parents called the boys gifted. Other less biased people would probably have called the boys intelligent and inquiring. Melinda couldn’t abide “know it alls” and she wouldn’t have them monopolise her class. Melinda thought those boys were too big for their boots and that they would benefit from being cut down to size. Regularly.

“I have told you Matthew to PUT. DOWN. YOUR. HAND. I do NOT want to hear anything that you have to say,” hissed Melinda, scowling at him.

Ten year old Matthew looked confused as he always did when Miss Richards was mad at him. Well, she seemed mad with him anyway. All he was trying to do was participate in her lesson. But, if she didn’t want him to speak, then he wouldn’t. Maybe she would be in a better mood later?

Melinda turned her attention back to her Maths class and noticed another one of her “problem” students, curly-haired Nicholas staring out the window.

“Nicholas,” she shouted, moving alongside the boy. “You muffle-headed wombat. Turn away from the window and pay attention to the board.”

Melinda was a tall woman. She worked out in her first few weeks of teaching that she could use her height to her advantage and help with her classroom discipline. She was able literally to look down on her students.

In her third year of teaching, Melinda already knew teaching was the wrong choice for her. Not because she thought she was a bad teacher – she had plenty of confidence in her own ability – but because she hated it. More particularly, she hated the kids. Her students especially.

She hated the stupid questions, she hated that some of the kids were dumb, she hated that some of the kids were (too) smart, she hated yard duty, she hated the parents who all thought their kids needed special attention. All of it. Well, nearly all of it.

What Melinda did like was the leadership position she had wheedled herself into. Already, Melinda was already next in line for the deputy principal role. Melinda was good with adults.

Teaching was never Melinda’s first choice for her career. She’d actually wanted to study Law but her marks at school weren’t high enough. She’d thought about starting another degree and moving across to Law but she really didn’t want to spend that long at university.

What Melinda really wanted to do was leave her family home in country Ballarat as quickly as she could and move to Melbourne. There were plenty of teaching jobs in Melbourne and the holidays were good so the die was cast. Melinda would study teaching,

Not until Melinda started at Greythorne Primary did she realise the energy required to teach primary school students let alone to seem like she was enjoying it. As for the parent-teacher interviews, she needed a drink bottle full of gin and tonic to endure the hours of praising the qualities of each student to his/her parents. The endless “Johnny/Sally/Mitchell/Bella tries very hard” was stultifyingly boring (and disingenuous).

Back to the Maths lesson that day, Melinda had managed to quiet Matthew and Nicholas. She only had to endure a couple more hours until the staff meeting where she could continue to impress and then there was dinner with her new boyfriend. Melinda could cope with the class for two more hours.

London Calling

My face turned white with surprise and then flushed red as I replayed the caller’s words in my head:

“Congratulations Emily. You’ve won the 3ZZ competition to attend the Ashes Test Match at Lord’s. You and a guest will be flying Qantas all expenses paid. It’s a bumper prize. Hope you have a valid passport.”

“Ahhh, that’s impossible. Really?? I won??? Oh and yes I have a passport,” I stuttered.

“So who are you going to take Emily? Who’s the lucky person who will go with you to London?”

“Mum. I’ll take Mum.”

“She’s a lucky lady Emily. If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?”

“13. I’m 13 and Mum isn’t lucky at all. Not really. But she loves the cricket. So do I. She’s always wanted to go to Lord’s. That’s why I entered the competition. Can’t believe I won it. Thank you.” Lucky I remembered my manners at the last minute or Mum would have killed me!

I felt the colour starting to come back into my face and I thought briefly about ringing Mum straight away but she’d be at work. Anyway, better that I tell her face to face.

I kept walking home from school and I tried to let my win sink in.

I called Dad. As always now, it went straight to his recorded voice message – “This is Jack Morgan. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Ta.”

“Hey Dad, you’ll never believe it but I won that radio competition. I’m going to take Mum to London like I said I would. I know, I know, we’ll cheer for the three of us! Got to go Dad. Luvya.”

When Mum came home from work, I was so excited that the news literally burst out of me.

“Mum, guess what? You’ll never guess. You know that radio competition. The one about going to the Ashes Test at Lord’s. Well, I won it! I actually. WON. IT. And guess what else? I’m taking you with me. So you’d better email your boss and ask for the time off. Because we’re going to London. You and me.”

Mum just stared at me, mouth open. I should have snapped a photo. She hates it when I take ugly pictures of her! Then she started crying and telling me that I was too good to her.

“Don’t be silly Mum. Be happy. This is great!”

“I know Emily,” Mum whispered. “I am happy but I just wish your Dad was still here. He was the real cricket fan. He would have done anything to take you to Lord’s.”

“Yeah, I know Mum,” I said. “Don’t worry. I talked to Dad about it. He said that, if I won, we’d need to cheer for the Aussies for the three of us. He said he’ll be watching from Heaven to make sure that we’re cheering loud enough.”

River Dreaming

5.30am. Wayan’s alarm beeps. He marks today off on the calendar beside his bunk. Exactly one more month and his nine month contract with Viking River Cruises will be finished. Viking will pay for him to return home to Bali and he will have three months off.

Dressing in his uniform, Wayan looks at the framed, silhouette artwork of his girlfriend, Dewi, which sits on his bedside table. He blows a kiss to the image, hurriedly eats a banana and goes up to the ship’s restaurant.

Wayan is 26 years old. He left Bali when he was 18 to work as a kitchen hand with the Royal Caribbean cruise line. He worked six contracts for them and was promoted to a waiter in the restaurant. Two years ago, he had moved to Viking as a waiter. A few colleagues from Royal Caribbean had told him that working on a river boat was easier than working on an ocean ship and they were right.

You worked every day on an ocean ship with the occasional few hours off when you were in port. That shore time was spent hooking onto whatever free WiFi you could find as you had to pay for the onboard WiFi which was rubbish coverage anyway. It made keeping in contact with home hard. Instant messaging and calling over WiFi was so much better than emailing. Also, the ships were large – thousands of people to wait on and to please – and a labyrinth to find your way around.

On the river boats, you had a full day off every 14 days and WiFi was included. Plus, there was less than 200 passengers so there was a lot less work.

Wayan and his colleagues had set the tables for breakfast last night after the dinner service was finished. They just needed to take the passengers’ orders and keep clearing the tables. Wayan works diligently as always and makes sure to greet as many passengers as he can. By name if possible. The passengers like that and some of them tipped him. He also earned bonuses if a passenger survey mentioned him.

Wayan liked the river cruise job but he liked Dewi more. He intended to propose to Dewi when this contract ended. Sick of the long distance relationship and sick of being homesick, Wayan wanted to give up the cruising life and work in Bali. Then, he and Dewi would no longer spend months apart. They could have a normal, family life together.

Whenever Wayan thinks about going home and settling down with Dewi, his mood soars. Filled with euphoria, Wayan scoops up a pile of dirty plates. He turns towards the restaurant kitchen and bumps straight into a passenger who was walking blind, glued to her iPhone.

The plates and the phone fly into the air and fall on the floor. The plates smash. The phone survives. Oh dear, this could be a bad survey for Wayan. Time to deploy the charm offensive.