Labyrinth Of Love

Labyrinth Of Love

There are not many people like Sarah. I can imagine if you ever met the Goblin King you’d fall in a faint. Then, once you’ve gotten over the shock, you would ask a great deal of questions as to why a man dressed in very strange clothes could juggle a number of crystal balls in his hand and transport you to a giant maze in less than a second. But not Sarah. She never asked questions, nor did she seem then slightest bit shocked when Jareth first infringed upon her daily life. She accepted whatever the world brought her and dealt with it as if it happened to everyone everyday. It was no surprise that she managed to sail through life since the day she returned from saving her baby brother. Miss Williams graduated high school with ease. Soon after, she effortlessly landed herself as an infant school teaching assistant, a job she loved very much, which was pretty surprising since most of the teachers were really quite mean to Sarah. They didn’t include her in their ‘adult’ conversations. They didn’t treat her as one of them. Obviously they were jealous of her. The kids adored Sarah more than any other teacher and they had every reason to be. She was younger, prettier and much more friendly. Mrs Taylor, teacher of the second grade, often ogled Sarah with the corner of her eye, wishing that her long dark shiny hair belonged to her. She was one of those people that victimized someone just for the fact that she simply didn’t like them. Every wrong move Sarah made gave Mrs Taylor the chance to reprimand her in front of all the other teachers.

“Miss Williams! Miss Williams are you listening?” yelled Mrs Taylor for the third time. She had been asking Sarah to gather the children for five minutes.

“Hmm. Oh, sorry Jean, I’ll do it right away” replied Sarah who quickly stood up from the mud-spattered ground wiping the dirt off her jeans. Then she walked over to the pack of kids who had already gotten filthy just from walking a few yards to the pond at the back of the school field.

“It’s Mrs Taylor. Don’t use my first name in front of the children” she shouted after her.

“Sorry” she shouted back. Then soon enough Sarah had tamed the disorderly children and they were walking single file down to the pond much to Jean Taylor’s astonishment. Everytime she tried to discipline the kids they would rebel against her even more. She wasn’t like Sarah at all. Sarah adored teaching children for the simple reason that she could relate to them. Unlike most adults, Sarah had managed to hold on to her youthful imagination. Her dreams and fantasies didn’t sift through her brain like the other teachers she worked with. That was why the children liked Sarah the best. She could make the dullest of stories seem exciting.

“Here we are then” said Sarah who immediately began to get all the kids kneeling beside the pond, marvelling at the wonders of nature. “That’s a water strider. It skates across the water by using it’s long legs…and look over there at that pond turtle. He looks like he’s just woken up doesn’t he. Look at his lazy eye.”

The kids all laughed but the hilarity was broken by the divertive cough that Mrs Taylor produced.

“Granted, you’ve done your research Miss Williams but that is not how we do it in this school. The children need to be first taught the outside safety rules, then we need to place them into an appropriate seating arrangement. It is only then that we can begin to teach them about the nature of wildlife” said the teacher.

Sarah stood up looking more than humiliated.

“Sorry Mrs Taylor. I’m new to this whole field trip thing. I’m sorry for jumping ahead. I should know better” Sarah said.

“That’s okay Miss Williams. Just watch how I do it and next time you might actually get it right.”

For the next half hour Sarah remained quiet. She watched as Mrs Taylor bore the life out of the second-graders. She spent almost twenty minutes telling them what not to do when observing pond wildlife. Sarah knew that the kids could have learnt so much about nature in that time. Eventually they began to look at the water. Some of the kids got thoroughly excited when they saw all the different kinds of animals. Occasionally they would look back at Sarah and share a secret smile with her, laughing at the fact that Mrs Taylor was saying words that children at that age could not understand and would definitely not remember.

“Oh don’t worry honey, I’ll reach and get it for you” said Sarah who knelt beside the pond and began to stretch out her arm to try and reach Cindy’s sheet of paper.