#mirabel breaks things in the room for leverage because she doesn't look intimidating

[mediasurf]

The Madrigals in “Substitute Teacher”, updated

“All right, listen up y’all. I’m your substitute teacher, Madrigal. I experienced a serious civil conflict in the rainforests of Colombia. So don’t even think about messing with me…”

*

“GOD, SON OF A BITCH!” -Isabela, snapping another clipboard in the room full of middle-class white students

“Mischievous and deceitful! Chicanerous, and deplorable.” -Félix sending the troublemaking Aaron out of the room

“I got my eye on you, Jacqueline.” -Luisa

“You about as Spanish as Rihan Seacrest. With your big-ass Fraggle Rock hair.” -Luisa

“Is there a Stargate in your bedroom? Can you travel through time, Jacqueline?” -Mirabel

“You say your name right, right now.” -Félix

“I’m gonna throw you out the goddamn window. …What, Jacqueline.” -Luisa

“YOU DONE MESSED UP, AARON! Now you take your ass on down to O’Shaghennessy’s office right now and tell him exactly what you did!” -Mirabel

“LIKE THEY GON HAVE A CLUB DEDICATED TO A TV SHOW!” -Pepa

“Fake announcement.” -Pepa

“GET OUTTA MY GODDAMN CLASSROOM BEFORE I BREAK MY FOOT UP IN YOUR ASS!” -Isabela

“Timothy.” (”Present.”) “Thank you.” -Félix

“Now does anyone have a valid reason for leaving this classroom? Timothy.” “I gotta pick up my daughter?” “You’re excused.” -Pepa

*

Now I add things.

*

“YOU DON’T KNOW HARD UNTIL YOUR TÍA THROWS THE HOUSE INTO A FIRE TORNADO BECAUSE YOU SPILLED AREPA CON QUESO ON HER DAILY CROSSWORD!” -Isabela

-

“Fifteen years old thrown into a civil conflict, and now I’m here working substitute teacher for you middle-class ripe-for-picking suburbanites!” Aaron: “...Wait, did you say you’re fifteen?” “GOD SON OF A BITCH!” -Mirabel snapping another clipboard to regain authority as well as vent general frustration

-

“I am calm, I am an example, everyone is depending on me, I don’t need any more reason for Jesus to stop loving me.” -Pepa muttering, worrying the students

-

“Well if it was a civil conflict then didn’t you eventually sit down and reason it out?”

“REASON IT OUT? SON OF A FUUUUUUCK!” -Mirabel karate-chopping the front table with her leg, simultaneously throwing the plastic globe and Polo the plastic seal in the air.

“IS THIS A JOKE TO YOU, JACQUELINE? TAKE YOUR ASS TO O’SHAGHENNESSY’S OFFICE RIGHT NOW, BEFORE I THROW CIVILLLLL ALL OVER THIS GODDAMN CLASSROOM!”

-

“WE ALL HAVE TO MAKE ENDS MEET, JACQUELINE!” -Luisa

-

“This is worse than the time Mom sent us to that conversion camp.” -Luisa “Do you know what it is to look your mother in the eye after four weeks and tell her the camp she sent you to was not about economics?”

-

“You want to meet up at your club for yearbook photos? That might work on other substitutes, but I experienced a serious civil conflict in the Colombian rainforest. And your reason for exodus is about as paper-thin as the facade at the front desk from when my sisters and I were forced to go to conversion camp.” 

Isabela stands back. A pause occurs as she looks around the room.

“Ain’t none a’y’all old enough to go to the damn club! Ridiculous.”

-

*students getting concerned when Pepa starts pacing around the room in a sheet of freezing rain*

-

Félix, laughing: Okay, okay, I get it, mi estudiantes pequeños. You want to leave my class early for some yearbook photos at the club. But you can’t pull one over on me!

He slams a nearby desk, making the students jump.

“They try lulling you into security, and then CRACK! Ti-ti-ti-ti brack, boom, you’ve been bamboozled! So tell me, Aaron, why should I let you and your classmates leave for a club that you’re all too young to be in?”

The false calmness of his last sentence indicates that whatever Aaron says will cause an eruption.

Aaron: Um, they’re student clubs.

“GAWWWWWWD WHAT’S NEXT, FIELD TRIPS FOR THE BAND?”

-

*Luisa forces everyone to do quiet reading so she can breathe into a paper bag*

-

Pepa muttering in a growing rain cloud, wringing her hands and hair: Focus on the schoolwork focus on the schoolwork they are not to suffer, not to know, they are simply normal, innocent, uninvolved suburban students thinking they can pull one over me but they can’t haha, Pepi it’s the nature of youth, leave your worries at the door, just focus on the lesson, clear skies, clear skies...

The cloud finally dissipates, and she slowly turns back to the class, soaking wet with a demented smile.

-

Mirabel walks into a secluded closet during the lunch hour. She freaks out at the flashbacks.

“Prostrated in front of the other town’s elder, offered as a peace bargain if only I help him convert his finances!”

*a tormented roar shakes the hall*

-

Pepa can no longer take being the substitute teacher. The rain cloud has returned, dark and thundering, and she stares sullenly at the whiteboard. The students are silently bracing for what will come next.

Pepa: Do you know what they called me, then? They called me ‘The Razing Storm’. They feared me. Targeted my family, my home. Oh, and how could I explain to you that it was not we who started the conflict.

Denise: Wait, so it was like a civil war?

Thunder crashes in the room as Pepa whirls around, her face contorted in fury and haunting. The lightning makes her all the more terrifying. Rain falls, sleet slaps the floor, and her hands claw at the air as she horrifies in her one-woman storm. Water is beginning to run across the floor. Over the cacophony, the students can barely hear: “FORTY-NINE DAYS! FORTY-NINE DAYS!”

-

Luisa finally cracks and cries out her feelings in an awkward sudden moment of vulnerability. Finding themselves shifted in responsibility, the students help her through. When she has finally dried off the tears, she takes a deep breath at the front of the room and opens the teacher’s copy of the history textbook.

“What the--? This is fake.”

-

Dolores somehow hearing this from the Encanto: ...

-

In another district, Bruno peeks in, opens the door to enter the room, and lets it shut awkwardly behind him. He looks around at the students in his Bruno way, and they look at him. He shuffles to the front desk and they have a normal productive elective class.

*

What the freak I’m talking about.