But who entered the room was not Mr Zaugg at all, neither was it a secretary as Monika didn't recognize him. The man wore a raggedy, gray suit with a bleached-blue tie. His hair matched his clothes in colour and was accompanied by thick eyebrows and a large moustache. Generally the impression he gave was that of a moving dust-cloud. He look round the class for a while, grumbled and turned around to face the blackboard. He slowly wrote “Latin” in rather large block-letters and finally spoke with a chuntering voice “Good morning, class. I'm Mr Montavon. As Mr Zaugg probably told you already I'll be stepping in for him for the coming two weeks.” Monika didn't recall any such thing and by the looks of the rest of the class neither did anyone else. Mr Montavon either didn't notice or didn't care and went on to continue with their material.
His manner was very calm and collected, but he moved at such a leisurely pace and combined with his voice it felt almost like he was trying to lull everyone to sleep. Monika struggled to stay awake, but definitely preferred a battle with sleep over the military-like lessons Mr Zaugg used to give. Being caught in a limbo between awake and asleep the double lesson went by almost unnoticed. As Mr Montavon left the room it was almost as if a spell had been lifted from everyone and gradually activity returned to the classroom. Monika noticed her stomach growling and quickly retrieved her lunchbox.
Energy recharged, Monika decided to try fixing the unfortunate horses again which had remained a nuisance in the back of her head all morning. This time around though she went at it with strategy, first trying to sketch them out from scratch on some note paper to get a better idea on how to correct it. Satisfied with her scribbles, she went on to gradually redraw each part on the desk. She looked upon the result with satisfaction, though the drawing now had barely anything left of the original. However, the more she looked at her achievement, the less it pleased her and the more faults she noticed. In a fit of scorn, Monika erased it all from existence. Sadly the eraser didn't have the same effect on her anger and she remained bitter for the rest of the lunch break, cursing herself over and over.
A chime announced the beginning of the last part of the day, a double lesson in French. At least this time nothing out of the ordinary happened, the tutor arrived on time and began as usual. Monika was not particularly thrilled by this, but at least French wasn't an intolerable subject. She only wished her usual seat neighbors had showed up to school so she could have used them as a shield from the inevitable questions Mr Kleiner would ask the class. While Monika didn't mind French itself too much she hated having to answer questions on the spot, even more so in front of the class, but especially so because she often tripped over the pronunciation and thought she sounded terrible.
Monika didn't manage to get away scot-free this time either, getting called up three times, each time only managing to stammer out a quick response. She was glad that they at least didn't have to read any passages or play any parts today, those were the worst.
Written by shinmera