"Where were you Mum? I have been trying to contact you for hours."
Mossy thought she detected a slight hint of embarrassment when her mother replied in a faltering tone of voice,
"Oh don't over dramatise Mossy. I have only had my phone off for two hours. What is so urgent that you had to disturb me on my one day of?"
Strange, thought Mossy, her mother sounded like she was out of breath from some exercising or running. Still being a near teen Mossy launched straight into her beef with piano lessons on a great weather day. So she said in a whining tone of voice,
"Do I have to go to piano lessons the new vet at the UN animal shelter has offered to let me help him calm the young animals. Please can I skip it this once?"
Her mother used the tone of voice with which she always answered Mossy's complaints. In a firm and unrelenting in tone Hera said,
"By my reckoning that makes ten missed lessons this year alone. Hardly a oncer as you suggested. But I know that the new vet at the shelter is seriously understaffed so I will let you skip today's lesson. Back home by six o'clock! Tomorrow is a school day."
Too delighted to have got her own way so easily Mossy forgot about her mother's out of breath opening remarks. Just as well because she only had to bring her natural gift online to realize why her mother would be short of breath at three o'clock in the afternoon.
Hera turned to the man lying beside her and kissed him. They had no inclination to move from this rare golden moment of happiness. But over the next hour both their smartphones would not leave them to peacefully enjoy each other's company. Finally Hutch took a call from his second in command. He had been stalling forwarding the details of a call from General Headquarters in the capital city. Colonel Lee had an urgent message for Colonel Hutchinson. And he was not going to be put off by some Major citing communication problems in locating his Colonel.
Sighing at the unfairness of life Hutch got up to get dressed back into his uniform. But Hera had other ideas. It took him forty minutes to finish dressing. Then he said in a loving tone of voice,
"I hate to say it at a time like this but I do have to go. My second will get roasted if he keeps blocking access by a full lieutenant Colonel. Sorry darling. You know I would not leave you for all the world. "
Hera looked with genuine love at this apologetic man. Then she said in a tender tone of voice,
"I will give you your liberty Colonel but only temporarily. Don't you think its about time we got married?"
Stunned beyond belief , Hutch could only get off these words in a grateful tone of voice,
"Oh darling beautiful Hera, if you only knew how long I have waited for those words to come from your lips."
Hera was beaming with pleasure when she said in a teasing tone of voice,
"Hutch Matterson I will take that as a yes. But I still expect an engagement ring. We can go and pick it out on our next day off. Do you really have to rush off now. I will get so lonely!"
Laughing as he had never laughed before in his whole life Hutch replied in a reckless tone of voice,
"Poor Major Babic! Still I will make it up to him. As for Lieutenant Colonel Lee, he can just go hang. I am not leaving you looking like that no way."
Luckily they were well away from the camp because the noise they made certainly scared all the animals away from their little nook.
Majority
Hannah Feelgood was in a moment of bliss but it was mental not physical. The national assessment test results had come in and her little refugee class scored the top band for literacy. This made up for all her long nights of lesson preparation. All the unrelenting stream of marking creative writing stories was now well worth her lost social life. Using her own phonetics teaching system Hannah had been able to overcome all her students' literacy problems. Now she was in the United Nations Refugee Camp's Education Center talking to the unit director. There was a lot of jealous comments coming from local state school teachers. They were ganging up on Hannah because their own classes had received poorer literacy assessment grades. The unit director was a teacher from Africa who knew all about the pettiness that could occur in these situations. Her name was Zeida Emem! She told Hannah that her last name meant 'a person of peace". Living up to her surname Director Emem said in a conciliatory tone of voice,
"You must remember that your students are less distracted by alternate activities. The country children around here go to school but live for the country lifestyle. Instead of doing vital homework they are more likely to have volunteered for extra chores on their parent's properties. Children respond to success more readily than they do to compulsion. Most country kids are not going to let phonetics homework stop them from their pony club activities."
Knowing that they were alone in the Director's office Hannah laughed before saying in a resigned tone of voice,
"These teachers just cannot see the benefits of my teaching system. But it really does produce the results if you stick to the pursuit of constant improvement."
Director Zeida Emem was a big fan of Hannah's teaching system. She had contacted the headquarters of the United Nations World Literacy Task Force. Four members from the African branch of the WLTF had arrived to study Hannah in action. Gorata Funaha the African Director, Tiego Maagi the group's statistician and Jabori the group's theoretician all had flown in over eight days ago. They were impressed with what they had witnessed and stunned by the results of separate testing modules. So Director Emem felt she was on solid ground when she said in a confident tone of voice,
"Your teaching system could be used as an accredited world's best practice benchmark."
Stunned by this news prediction, Hannah tried to be modest, shifting most of the credit for those excellent results back onto her students. She said in a delighted and proud tone of voice,
"After you teach them the basics it is the students not the teacher who sets the standards. All I do then is hold them up to the standards they set for themselves. Its their own efforts that make those necessary leaps of practice to obtain those literacy skill levels!"
Zeida thought that Hannah was being too modest so she said in a impressed tone of voice,
"You do not give yourself enough praise for what you have done with those students. I have sat in on one of your classes. It is obvious to the most casual observer that all your students love you and will do anything you ask of them. This is a great achievement just by itself."
Now Hannah was blushing but could not help feeling very proud of her students. If they did love her then the feeling on her part was mutual. So she said in a caring tone of voice,
"They are all special students. Each one has a unique approach to solving their own literacy problems. I am just their resource person."
Not buying that modest assessment for one moment ,Director Emem said in a determined tone of voice,
"If only more of my teaching staff were as dedicated as you. We would have the very top numeracy and literacy grades! Thank you again for all your remarkable