*** Special Guest Post: The Gossip Mill ***

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Originally uploaded by Oblivia.

I happened upon our high school home economics teacher, Mrs Nichol, on the streets of North Sydney. Unsettling: she looks exactly the way she did 17 years ago and I don't mean exactly the way you would expect someone to look after a 17 year timespan. She was even pulling the same bum-face she always used to pull. I can't help but wonder whether she was actually not entirely offended by my hemstich back in '87 after all. Perhaps she's been afflicted with having a mouth that naturally screws up like a sphincter all her life and found a use for it in teaching. She was also looking remarkably crisp on a 38 degree (100 Fahrenheit) day and was tucked neatly under the arm of a dapper older man.

If mousy old Mrs Nichol (seemingly) still has her act together... where are the others at? An email demand for information to my mother (font of all gossip) yielded the following results:

* Mr B - "the short man of mathematics"; the sleaziest, most self important local councillor that ever was - had an affair and got kicked out of home by his wife. He now lives in a caravan (trailer, for the North Americans)

* Mr H - German language teacher who got a little too gemutlich (trans: cosy, friendly) for my liking - apparently still living with his mother in Eastwood

* Mr W - primary school principal - has now completed his community service for paedophilia

Further research is underway, but it looks like Mrs Nichol is a bit of an aberration, having her reputation in tact.