"Thankyou sir. But, I haven't even prepared a les-..." Matthieu began, but he hardly had time to finish his sentence when he was ushered out of the office.

Matthieu stopped outside the door, a look of utter puzzlement on his face. He was glad the meeting had been a simple affair, if a little abrupt, and even more glad to be accepted into the school. He held in his hand a scrap of paper, which was covered with a neatly printed timetable. His name was at the top, hastily written in ink. Below was a brief note from the principal, his signature and the date. Two sections of the timetable were highlighted; one was "Vampiric history", the other "Defensive powers".

"Let me see..." he muttered to himself, "Vampiric history first." With that, he began to walk to the classroom, his mind racing with how best to begin his lesson.

He entered the classroom, placing his briefcase thoughtfully on his desk. He opened it, took out a textbook, and began to flick through it swiftly. Then he closed it, and began to rifle through other items in his briefcase. It was largely filled with mementos from his travels, which he expected would be more interesting than simply retreading old mythology that these students had doubtless heard a hundred times before. He sat back in his chair, and waited for all of his students to arrive.