Teen Ink

Mrs.Vienna

I walked into room 125 and inhaled the intoxicating smell of clay, paint, glazes and eraser shavings. The art room was always my favorite thing about Aurora High School; it spawned creativity and just had a relaxing feel to it. There were about thirty desks total, fifteen desks in the front of the room forming a square around a still life, and fifteen desks in the back of the room set up the same way. Making this room differ from most regular classrooms in this school is the cupboards that flanked the whole left side of the room, and the two storage rooms in the back.
Setting my books down at my desk, I felt a tap on my arm and spun around to see my drawing teacher Mrs. Vienna. She always wore blouses with floral print on it and had accessories to match, her hair was combed into a round shape atop her head, it was a reddish orange in color and you could always tell when she needed to re-dye it because a few grays would start popping out in places. The thing I loved most about her was her eyes; Mrs. Vienna never lies, ever. Her dark green eyes will never leave your gaze when she’s talking to you and she’ll always give you her honest opinion.
“So what did you think of the assignment last night honey?” Mrs. Vienna used the word ‘honey’ to address almost all of her students, I think its because she’s about fifty something years old. Sometimes the ‘honey’ gets annoying, especially when you’ve spent three years in the woman’s classes. Respectively I pulled out my ear bud when she spoke.
“It was too easy, when are we going to get to the oil pastels?” I asked, almost a whine. My talents we a bit more advanced than the freshmen or sophomores, I never understood why I didn’t sign up for drawing one sooner.
Mrs. Vienna gave a small laugh; “Oh you’re way ahead of the game sweetie. But if you’re done with that then you could start working on the still life there.” She pointed to a stack of boxes on the still life display desk that was in the middle of one of the squares.
“They’re boxes…” I didn’t mean to sound rude, but boxes were just so boring.
“Yes and they’re the next project. Think about it, you’ll be done with it before everyone else starts and you’d have more free time.” Mrs. Vienna smiled before going to the back of the room to make her tea. As tempting as that offer sounded it wasn’t actually good on my part, what she meant was, ‘you’d have more free time to help me clean up and move some things.’ The only way I know this is from experience. Last year during mid-term week I was hanging out with Mr. Stryker in the art room down the hall while waiting for my next exam time to start. Mrs. Vienna came in to ask him something and realized that I wasn’t doing much, so she made me go take down the still lives and put all of the items in the storage closet before going through all of the things on Mr. Stryker’s side of the room. (all the art teachers share each art room together) By the time I was done, I was nearly late to my exam.
“Well that sounds great, I’ll get working on it then!” I gave a fake smile and turned to take my seat, just as the new guy walked in. Of course of all art classes he had to choose mine, and better still, I, once again, had the only open seat right next to me… This had to stop happening. Rolling my eyes, I sat down and opened my sketchbook to start drawing the stupid boxes. Only my music could keep me quiet and sane. That’s another plus about art courses, the teachers don’t mind the use of i-pods. I put my ear bud back in just in time to hear Hellfire from Disney’s The Hunchback Of Notre Dome. Trying to focus on drawing three boring boxes is hard when you’re trying to silently sing to a Disney song while trying to hear what the new kid is saying to your art teacher. All I understood from their conversation is that his name was KC.