Mystery train

Yesterday one of the teachers was making a dash down the stairs for a train that was standing at the platform with its doors just about to close, and she made it onto the train just in time. This was unfortunate, because it was the wrong train. She had caught the rapid express. It was supposed to be a local at that time, but the trains were running a few minutes late.

The train went a looooong way before it made its next stop, carrying a bunch of relaxed long-distance travellers and one increasingly despairing teacher. Station after station whizzed by. It was a very rapid express. It didn't stop at any of the stations the normal express trains stopped at, and as it left the city area behind, and she watched the urban sprawl turn to paddy fields and mountains, she wondered if perhaps she should get a mobile phone after all. She was on a mystery train, and didn't know when or where it was going to stop. Nobody knew where she was.

When the train finally pulled into a station she'd never heard of before, she headed straight for a public phone and called our boss. Her first class was due to start in five minutes, and I happened to overhear his end of the conversation. I started laughing. I probably shouldn't have laughed, but I was SO pleased it wasn't me. I'm not at my best in the mornings either.

I made a mental note that when I make that closely timed connection at the same station, I must always check the sign on the train before jumping on. I do that run down the stairs twice a week, and it never occurred to me there could be an express waiting instead of a local. Usually I run onto the train and ten seconds later the doors close. Henceforth I will use five of those seconds to double check.

I volunteered to take charge of her students until she turned up. This turned out to be a very good idea. Only six of mine came anyway (out of nine - I have a sparsely populated first period class on Thursdays. The school seems to have messed up class assignations for all second year required classes this year - some teachers were assigned fifty and I was assigned twelve, of which nine actually came at all). They are generally a dozy lot. I seem to have ended up with a bunch of night owls in a morning class, and it takes a while for them to get going.

My colleague's ten students, on the other hand, were galvanised when I told them what their teacher had done and why she would be late. They thought it was hilarious. I told them they would be joining my class until she arrived, and wrote on her blackboard:

"I have your students. Come and get them."

Then I turned to her students and asked, "Do you think I should ask for a ransom? How much do you think she'd pay for you?"

That made them laugh harder.

"Oh, but she loves your class," I told them. "She told me so." (This was true.)

Their laughter turned thoughtful as they followed me through to my classroom. They looked happy.

We had a lovely time. Her students woke up my students. My colleague was fifty minutes late, and had seen a little more of Japan than any of us by the time she arrived. None of us had even HEARD of the station she'd ended up at.

(I did get my ransom in the end. She paid for my dinner last night. Her students are worth at least a curry and a beer.)

But I'm thinking perhaps she and I should teach alternate weeks. The dynamic of both classes combined was really good, and surely they don't need two teachers? It would be nice to have a lie in every other week. It's not only my students who have a hard time waking up in the mornings.