With the start of a new school year comes the arrival of new and unfamiliar teachers. In this four-part series, we intend to introduce the new teachers to allow us, students, to get to know them better! This feature will be starring the teachers Ms. Lauren Lao, Mr. Elijah Marquez, Ms. Charlene Sarmiento, Mrs. Harmony Wang, Ms. Lucille Cui, and Mr. Aaron Gopez.
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It was an early September morning. The skies were rather cloudy from the earlier drizzles, and there was a slight breeze blowing through the empty hallways of the school. It was tranquil and cool, as there was almost nobody in the classroom.
One 6th floor classroom echoed with footsteps as Ms. Lauren Lalaine B. Lao gathered the things from her previous class, lost in thought about the verses she had planned to discuss with her cell group right before lunch. She grabbed her Bible and quickly headed to the cafeteria, noting the seemingly perfect weather conditions.
Ms. Lao quickly ran to the cafeteria. It wasn’t hard for her to spot her group as they quickly greeted her as soon as she came in. “Hello, everyone!” she quipped back. ‘One, two, three, four...’ Mentally counting their heads, she quickly noticed that one of the members was missing. “Does anyone know why we’re missing one person?” she asked. When she received a shake of heads, she immediately pulled out her phone to contact the student’s homeroom teacher. ‘Now, where could she be?’ the teacher thought as she prepared her icebreaker.
Meanwhile, in the JHA teacher’s room, a teacher suddenly heard a ‘ding.’ “Wait a minute, acappella doesn't use any instruments,” he thought. Taking off his headphones, Mr. Elijah John R. Marquez temporarily paused from grading his students’ work. After a cursory glance, he saw the source of the notification was from a phone on a usually unoccupied table with stacks of papers and even more books.
“That’s strange.” He absentmindedly wondered where that teacher was, but he quickly returned to watching the performance tasks, determined to finish grading the submissions from all four high school levels. However, the notifications continued over the hour, with each message sounding more and more urgent. ‘Who would be receiving this many messages during working hours? Maybe it’s an emergency?” After all, could the messages be of significant concern? All of a sudden, he remembered that a couple of JHB teachers had visited the JHA teacher’s room recently, right where the phone was ringing. Eventually, he decided to pick up the phone and head towards the Junior High School B teacher’s room.
Back in the cafeteria, thirty minutes had passed since Ms. Lao sent her first message. Since then, she has sent more and more, hoping for a response soon. She shifted her attention back to her students, who were looking at her with piqued curiosity. “They seem to know something… could they know more than they let on?” she thought. Mildly worried, Ms. Lao automatically plastered a smile onto her face, hoping it would mask her nervousness. “Girls, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that we’ll have to cut our meet-up short because of you missing a classmate. As an assignment, read Psalm 84:10. I hope that you’ll feel God’s presence as I did with that verse! Bye, everyone!” she said with a smile. As soon as she was out of the cafeteria, she picked up the phone to call Ms. Lucille Cui, the homeroom teacher, to no avail. She quickly shot another message as she hurriedly ran up the 5th floor in hopes of finding help.
While all the mess was occurring downstairs, the 5th floor was still experiencing the calm before the storm. Inside the teacher’s room’s pantry, three teachers were gathered together, holding a mini Bible study session.
“So… why did you guys decide to teach your subject?” Ms. Cui quickly asked the teachers.
“I’m sorry, but can you repeat that? You spoke very fast,” Ms. Charlene Sarmiento asked her.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m nervous. I asked what subject you’re teaching and why?”Ms. Cui replied.
“Well, I teach TLE, and it was my major in college, so I took the offer!” Ms. Sarmiento replied, “How about you, Mrs. Harmony Wang?”
Mrs. Wang rubbed her fingers nervously and shortly noted, “Chinese is the only subject I feel I can teach the best.”
They all turned their gaze towards Ms. Cui, awaiting her response. “Oh wait, I guess it’s now my turn to speak haha! I really enjoy teaching the beauty of the English language,” Ms. Cui explained, “I also find it very helpful in sharing the Good Word, so here I am!”
Just then, they heard someone knock on the pantry wall, causing them to turn around and see Mr. Gopez standing there. “Mr. Gopez! Why are you still here?” Ms. Sarmiento asked.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt your discussion, but I think I left my merienda here. I had to grade a few projects, so I had to stay a little later, but I got hungry.”, Mr. Aaron Joshua S. Gopez, the new ninth-grade Science teacher, explained.
“It’s no problem! Feel free to grab your snack.”, Ms. Cui replied. “How about you, Mr. Gopez? Why are you teaching Science?” she added.
“It’s just fascinating to know more about God’s creation, and I enjoy sharing it with others,” Mr. Gopez replied as the others nodded in agreement. He quickly bowed as he took his snack and began to refill his water. Before Mr. Gopez could even fill his cup, the sound of the door opening allowed them to turn their focus to the entrance of the teacher’s room. They soon realized that this silhouette of a figure was their co-teacher, Mr. Marquez.
“I found this in the other teacher’s room, and it kept on ringing. It might be important, and I thought it could be one of your students’ phones, so I decided to give it to you.” Mr. Marquez said very, very quickly, holding out the phone.
“Wait, this is my phone!” Ms. Cui confirmed. “Thank you for giving it to me! I must have accidentally left it earlier! I was in such a rush. Oh. That’s odd; why did Ms. Lao leave my phone with so many texts?”
Almost as if she was on cue, Ms. Lao came into the room, carrying a sense of urgency with her. “Ms. Lao! I’m sorry I missed your call; I was busy doing—” Ms. Cui attempted to explain before Ms. Lao interjected.
“I think someone from my cell group is missing.” With that statement, all eyes in the room turned to her. Ms. Lao caught her breath and explained the situation.
“I think something happened. We have to find her.“ said Ms. Lao as she ended her explanation. “I could help you find her!” Ms. Sarmiento offered. Concerned for the well-being of the student, the other teachers also replied.
“Oh, I’m definitely helping.”
“Yeah, I'm in!”
“If a student goes missing, it’s our responsibility to find him or her, so I’ll help as well,” Mr. Gopez said as he nervously wiped his forehead.
“Of course we’ll help!”
With the teachers’ genuine willingness, Ms. Lao felt encouraged and hopeful about the search, which was now led by a “makeshift search team.”
Little did this search team know that this was just going to be the beginning. All of them felt as if they had exited the eye of the storm and were now within the storm itself, where clashing winds and heavy rains reigned. However, each of them was comforted by their respective Bible verses: Ms. Sarmiento with Luke 1:37; Mrs. Wang with Psalm 46:1; Mr. Gopez with Hebrews 13:5; Ms. Cui with Romans 8:28; Mr. Marquez with Colossians 1:17; and Ms. Lao with Psalm 84:10.
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As for you, dear readers, what do you think will happen in part two? Is this disappearance merely an act of forgetfulness, or is it part of some bigger scheme?
Can you relate to our new teachers? Would you have handled the situation differently, or would you have acted similarly? Do you also have the same nervous ticks as some of them? How do you think you would have acted in this situation?
Feel free to type your answers in the comments section down below! If you want to know how this story ends, be sure to tune in for updates about Part 2 of this Special Feature!
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