The Hero Guard!

He choked on the sip of tea he had just taken when he saw the third student stumble while jumping off the wall and nearly land on his head. After coughing a little, Mason Teacher wiped his mouth with a tissue he pulled from his pocket and muttered:
“One day these kids are going to kill me.”

The back side of the garden wall, visible only from the very last window of the school’s top corridor, was a spot where some students liked to sneak off for a cigarette. Without finishing the tea that had spilled halfway down his shirt, Mason Teacher tossed the paper cup into the nearby trash can and set off, intent on taking revenge on his now tea-stained shirt.

As Erden finally managed to catch his breath after laughing so hard, he turned to Burry, who was brushing dust off his pants, and shouted:
“Dude, you almost landed on your head! You would’ve cracked your skull open!”

Burry, who had scraped his hip against the dusty part of the wall when his foot caught, kept brushing the dust off as he replied, still out of breath from the thrill of nearly falling:
“If you keep yelling like that, the teachers will find us and smash all our heads!”

Barely able to hold back his laughter, Soner pulled a cigarette from his pack and waited for Erden to finish with the lighter. Once Erden lit his, he tossed the lighter carelessly toward Sinan without looking. Sinan just barely caught it, shooting Erden a look full of curses for doing it on purpose. Burry, lighting his own cigarette, called out when their last partner didn’t appear from the other side of the wall:
“Where the hell are you? Harvey, say something!”

As Sinan exhaled his first puff, he snickered:
“He must’ve seen you almost fall and got scared. He’s not coming.”

Burry defended himself:
“Come on, this wall is ridiculously long! Feels like a prison, not a school.”

Erden cut in before taking another drag:
“Not long, you idiot—high!”

Just then, a voice that was familiar but clearly not Harvey’s startled them:
“I’ll agree with that! This wall really is high, not long!”

All three looked up at the owner of the voice crouched on top of the wall. Sinan let out a squeaky noise before stammering:
“M–Mason Teacher…”

In sudden panic, he flicked his cigarette butt onto the dry grass nearby. Realizing it could start a fire, he rushed over to stamp it out and made sure it was completely extinguished. Then he turned back, eyes wide as saucers, frozen in front of his teacher. The other two, equally stunned, were also crushing out their cigarette butts with their shoes.

Mason Teacher, enjoying the amusing scene, watched for a few more seconds. Then, with surprising agility for his age, he leapt down from the wall. He extended one hand toward the boys, placed his other hand on his hip, and closed his eyes.

When the boys didn’t react, he coughed as if clearing his throat and impatiently wiggled his outstretched hand up and down. Finally giving in, the students one by one pulled out their cigarette packs and handed them over. Pocketing them, Mason Teacher crossed his arms and asked:
“Is that all?”

The three looked at each other, confused. Summoning his courage, Erden asked:
“All of what, sir?”

Without answering, Mason Teacher closed his eyes again and waited. Burry caught on quickly and, snapping to attention, pressed his arms to his sides and shouted loudly toward the sky:
“S–Sorry, Teacher!”

The other two quickly followed suit. Though Mason Teacher missed Burry’s comically exaggerated apology, when he opened his eyes and saw all three still standing at attention like soldiers, he was entertained. Noticing the lighter in Sinan’s hand, he gestured for that as well. Sinan reluctantly handed it over.

Curiosity got the better of him, and he asked:
“Uh, so… where’s Harvey?”

As Sinan passed by, Erden smacked him on the back of the head:
“You idiot! Maybe he didn’t get caught. Why would you mention his name?”

Burry protested:
“But if he saw the teacher and ditched us without warning, he deserves to be snitched on.”

The boys flinched at their teacher’s sigh. Leaning back against the wall, Mason Teacher pulled out a cigarette from the confiscated packs and lit it with Sinan’s lighter.
“Do you really think you have time to worry about others?” he asked.

They all looked at their teacher with anxious faces. Erden, forcing a tense smile, asked, “What are you doing, sir?” Just as Mason Teacher was about to light up, he pulled his head back from the lighter, looked at the boys and said, “What do you think I’m doing? I’m using the best punishment method I’ve found in twelve years of teaching.”

Smoking a cigarette confiscated from the students right in front of their young, stunned faces had always been strangely entertaining. He drew his first puff — and immediately began coughing. He just never got used to that damn thing. He gave his students a mock-angry look as they snickered at the ruined revenge.

Trying to stifle his laughter, Burry changed the subject: “Why is your shirt wet, sir?”

For a moment Mason Teacher, who had forgotten that he’d spilled tea on himself minutes before, took a ragged second drag and looked down. “Because you lot ruined my precious tea break,” he replied.

Sinan, still rubbing the place where Erden had smacked him earlier, cut in: “You shouldn’t have tried to change the subject, Burry. And—Teacher—you’re smoking somebody else’s cigarettes without permission.”

Mason Teacher didn’t hesitate: “Tell me that when you start earning your own cigarette money, okay?”

More comfortable with the habit, he inhaled a third drag and blew the smoke out with a bit of swagger. The three boys couldn’t hide how much that answer annoyed them. Erden muttered as he looked away, “What kind of punishment is this?”

Their teacher, hearing the murmur, shot back: “What did you expect? For me to make you stand on one foot like Mahmut Teacher? (This teacher is a movie character. He makes his students stand on their one foot.)

Startled that his teacher had heard the mutter so clearly, Erden said aloud: “That’s why your nickname is Bully Mason! If you were like Mahmut Teacher from the movie, they’d call you Bald Mason!”

Sinan laughed out loud: “Give it a few years, you’ll be bald too.”

Feigning offense, Mason Teacher glared at their jokes and stubbed his cigarette hard against the wall behind him — but he didn’t toss the butt away.

Thinking they’d taken the joke too far, the three boys watched him nervously. He straightened up from the wall, stretched his shoulders, and muttered, “I’m thirty-six, my hair’s like a brush, and I’m a man yet.”

Burry snickered, “And still single,” and promptly got smacked on the head with the lighter. Mason Teacher continued: “And I don’t intend to be a hero like Mahmut Teacher.”

Burry, cradling his aching head between his hands, muttered, “You can’t be a hero with that nickname anyway.”

Mason Teacher didn’t answer this time. He smiled gently at his students, then turned back without breaking his composure and began to study the wall he had just climbed. He was thinking whether he would be able to get over it again — he didn’t want what’d happened to Burrry to happen to himself.

He was surprised to see Burry standing by the wall, slightly bent forward, hands clasped in front of him like a step. As if asking what he was doing, Mason Teacher looked at him. Burry, who had the wall behind him and his eyes closed, and seeing no movement from his teacher, said: “My arms are strong, sir. Step on me and climb over the wall. Don’t fall.”

Mason Teacher stared at the young man for a few seconds with his eyes narrowed in astonishment. Then, in one sudden move, he leapt forward and landed right in front of him.

Burry, eyes closed and expecting to be used as a step because of the sound of footsteps, tensed up completely. Instead, he felt the place on his head that had been hit by the lighter a moment ago being stroked gently. He opened his eyes and saw his teacher’s smiling face. As Mason passed by him, he said, “It’s nicer to pat the heads of heroes than to be a hero.”

With a single motion he sprang up onto the wall. Turning to the three students watching him in astonishment, he said, “Don’t be late for class. Help each other get over the wall without falling,” and then he was gone.

A few seconds of silence broke when Burry said first, “For a bully, he was pretty cool.” He remembered the spare pack of cigarettes in his back pocket and pulled it out. He could smoke now. He took a step forward with the pack in his hand — but smoking right after someone called him a hero felt wrong. He crumpled the pack and shoved it back into his pocket.