What Latin Does to Me
Anna Huang
YA Fiction
Ms. Goodenberger
19 October, 2023
The Peasants Rebellion Chaper: What Latin Does to me
I locked the door before I left because Mirth had not come back from the market. If I waited any longer for her, I would probably be receiving a behavioral mark for arriving late to school for the 4th time this week. My bookbag pounded against my side as I raced down the path that led to the school house. Even after nearly a year of reconstruction, it was still nothing great to look at. The bricks were still a wrong shade of red and the grass around the building seemed to wilt even more than the unkempt grass at Mirth's cottage. Hellenna was already in her seat when I rushed in class and turned around in alarm when she heard the door slam open. It wasn’t just her, I think the entire class must have craned their head in my direction except for Mr. Ashley whose head was bowed over a pile of the previous week's homework.
“Sorry sir,” I mumbled before making my way to the seat next to Hellenna’s.
The teacher replied with a huff but continued to shuffled papers.
I looked to my right and noticed the seat on the other side of me empty. Usually Jeremy got here before I did.
I tapped on Hellennas shoulder, “What do you think he’s up to?”
Hellenna side-eyed his seat and said, “I bet Mr. Watson had enough of his snooping around and cut him to pieces to feed his dogs.”
“No, Mr. Watson is smarter than that. He’d feed half to his dogs and use the other half to fuel his fires.”
A movement from the teacher's desk caught my attention and I looked up to see him raise his boney arm and glance at his faded wristwatch. Mr. Ashley stood and managed to make his chair squeak more ferociously than chalk on chalkboard. He cleared his throat, grabbing his pointer stick which he used to tap on the board three times to get the class's attention. He now did this routinely because upon his first days of teaching, his gravelly voice did very little to calm the class.
On the board he had written a phrase in latin that we had to translate. But instead of handing out our pamphlets he looked at us calmly until he had all our attention.
“Some of you may have already noticed that Jeremy isn’t in class today. He will no longer be attending classes”
“What happened?,” shouted a squat blond boy sitting in the wrong behind me.”
“He was recruited by the king's guard and will be serving the country directly now.” the teacher said. “Now, let's begin our lesson.” Jeremy was a rather bulky kid and would have been ideal for the army.
Whispering, I told Hellenna, “So he’s actually worse off than being cut to pieces by Mr. Watson.”
Mr. Ashley heard and glared in our direction before passing out pamphlets one for each pair of pupils. On the black board was the phrase:
“Docendo discimus”
I handed the slate to Hellenna and put my head down on the desk. From my left she asked tersely, “You’re not going to help?”
“I don’t think I’m going to be much help here.”
“Well, it’s not like I know how either.”
I raised my head from my arms and looked in confusion. The pompous rich school forgot to teach you that?”
“I’m sure they did, I wasn’t in school enough to have learned.”
“You, not in school,” That time my eyebrows raised.
“My father took me on hunting rounds so I was able to skip school often.”
Suddenly, a sharp pain pulled on my ear and my head jerked backwards. I saw Mr. Ashley was also gripping tightly on Hellenna’s ear. He gave both our ears another tug and Hellenna cried in alarm. “It sounds as if both of you have finished translating the phrase.” He backed up and continued, “Why don’t you two go up to the board and translate the phrase for the class.”
Hellenna stood up first and after a moment's hesitation I followed her to the board.
“What do we write?”