School had never really been Aniz's forte, but he would be lying if he said he had never fantasized about being the one chalking the blackboard; in other words, the teacher. He would finally get his chance today though, when he found an interesting request on the guild's bulletin board, that is, he was asked to fill in the role of teacher for the day at the local school. The teacher, who was off visiting her sick mother, already had the lessons planned, but then again, it wasn't drafting up the curriculum that attracted Aniz to the art of teaching. He was far more interested in disciplining and holding the youth of tomorrow with the correct values.

His guild mates had chuckled profusely when he insisted that he could accomplish this through the wonders of math. Only very slightly flushed, but still adamant his task was achievable, Aniz headed for the school.

He was standing in front of his young charges now, but most of them seemed reluctant to return his gaze. Go figure. Their regular teacher was a petite woman with an ample bust and criminal curves, or so he had picked up from their brief meeting when she handed him her notes. In comparison, Aniz was tall, muscular and packing a neutral death glare, so it was only natural that the kids would be averse to him. The lashes of a girl, who had the misfortune to be sitting in the front row, had been considerably dewed, and while it softened Aniz's heart, such sentiments did not reflect in his hardened features in the slightest. That only seemed to frighten the girl more.

"Addition is very easy," he suddenly said, without warning, causing about three quarters of the class to be taken aback. They seemed to be under the impression that whenever he opened his mouth, his intention was to gobble one of them up. "You should all be familiar with counting, right? Addition is simply counting up. If we have six fairies, and we add another fairy, we'll have seven, right?" the question was greeted by a disinclined chorus of agreement. They seemed to understand, and were even warming up to him too. Maybe he was cut out for the teaching life, after all?

6 + 5 = 11

He scribbled it down on the black board quickly before deciding to start explaining another basic mathematical concept. "Then subtraction is the exact opposite, see? If we have six fairies, and someone takes one away, then you'll only have five left," the idea of using fairies in the examples seemed to be working, so Aniz decided to stick with it. The children did not reply this time, nor did anything to suggest that they understood the conception of subtraction. They seemed to still be looking at the sum Aniz had written down. Sensing he was onto something, he began to scribble something else on the blackboard.

6 - 5 = 1

He slammed the blackboard with more force than he had intended, but fortunately, did not break anything. "Does everyone get it?!" and they replied with an inspired chorus of ''yes sir!" and ''yes, teacher!", which was more or less enough to satisfy Aniz. Just moments later, the bell rang to signify the beginning of a short break.

Division and multiplication would be challenges, he knew.

The substitute teacher for the day sat at the edge of his desk, hand in chin as he contemplated the best way to explain the basics of multiplication and division to the kids, who had just finished their lunches and were steadily streaming out of the room for recess. The fairy motif would need to stay, Aniz decided, as it seemed to be the best way of getting through to them. When the children eventually returned from their playing and whatnot, Aniz was standing by the blackboard already, and his example sum for multiplication was written there in white chalk. He already had in mind what he was going to do for division, also. As they took their seats, Aniz gestured for them to turn their attention to the blackboard.

5 x 5 = 25

"If we have five fairies, and we multiply the amount of fairies we have by two, we'd have ten," he began to say, knowing that perhaps they would not be able to understand anything by this kind of explanation alone. "This is because another five fairies will appear from the first five fairies. If it was five multiplied by three, then we'd have fifteen, because an extra five fairies would appear," this seemed to work on the kids, although Aniz was almost one hundred percent sure that this was not the correct method to be teaching multiplication. If they understood his way though, then he decided not to complain.

"Division is how much of a number can go into another number. You'll be left with remainders, but that's not something you have to worry about now."

He was starting to sound like a real teacher, and somehow, that worried him somewhat. He turned his back to the children and began to write down one final example, 10 ÷ 2 = 5, and when he was done, he directed his gaze back towards them. "If we have ten fairies and we divide them by two, we essentially count in twos until we reach ten. In this case, it'd be 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, which is five different numbers," and that was that. The kids seemed to understand most, if not all of it, that Aniz had begun to wonder whether they had learned all of this already or not. They earned a rest though, mostly for putting up with his horrible teaching, so he decided to dismiss them. When the last of them were gone, another teacher entered the classroom and left his jewel payment on the table.

"Good work today, teacher," she said, although the sarcasm in her voice was very badly hidden, if at all.

"I don't feel like I did a very good job," was Aniz's overly honest reply.

This caused the other teacher to laugh, as her eyes began to scan the empty desks. "This is an advanced math class. Even if you were horrible, which I'm sure you were, these bright kids would have no trouble," she relieved.

Aniz wiped some sweat from his brow. "That's a relief."



1074 WC