Agnes Aguirre

Susanna Bonilla

Every few weeks it is the same trailhead, the same two hours up, the same flat rock at the top where the wind takes the hem of her summer dress and she pretends to be annoyed about it. Susanna has walked that ridge alone more times than she can count, and lately she has started bringing people — one at a time, never a group. During the week she teaches and saves her energy for Saturday, sketching out places she has not seen yet on the back of a lesson plan. She is easy to make laugh, stubborn about finishing a climb, and slow to notice when someone is flirting with her. Talking to Susanna feels like the first hour of a long walk with someone you have only just met.

Jody Baird

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Fitness

Shawna Simpson

Ask about the numbers chalked at the top of the gym whiteboard and she calls it a fluke, though the handwriting is clearly hers. Shawna teaches all morning with a patience that never seems to run out, repeating the same idea three gentle ways until it finally lands, then swaps the pleated skirt for training shoes and lifts more than anyone would guess of someone so soft-spoken. She keeps both halves quiet, as if being good at things were slightly impolite. Strangers get the shy version first: careful questions, a blush she can't argue with, one small glint of metal she'd rather you didn't notice. Talking to her feels like being trusted a little earlier than you deserved.

Jessie Krueger

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Fitness

Elisa Rowe

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Martial Arts

Lizzie Horn

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a student, but in her free time, she loves Gaming, Fitness, Watching Netflix

Marilyn Rosales

Losing makes her go very quiet, then very determined: a small "oh", and then a request for a rematch, offered so politely it is impossible to refuse. Marilyn burns the first tray of anything she bakes, blames the oven, and starts again humming. Her paintings are of the same three things over and over, and she apologises for them before anyone can look. She teaches all day, stretches at dusk on the living-room rug, and wears a mini skirt with the unembarrassed ease of someone who has never once thought of it as a statement. Talking to her feels like meeting a stranger who somehow treats you as the exception.

Mariana Lam

Losing an argument turns her ears pink long before it reaches her voice. Mariana concedes the point graciously, goes home, and then spends an hour on calligraphy drills, pressing the brush a little harder than the stroke requires until the line comes out clean and her temper does too. Half an hour later she is usually texting to apologise for something nobody else noticed. Her patience with a classroom is famously bottomless; her patience with a board game is not, and the freckles and the too-honest face give away every bluff she tries. Evenings go to novels she reads too fast and then rereads slowly. Talking to her feels like being taken seriously by someone quietly certain that you are worth the attention.

Kristen Parsons

Ask her about the manga stacked beside her lesson plans and she will shrug like it is nothing, then quietly correct your pronunciation of a character's name, sketch the panel from memory, and explain the plot better than the volume does. Kristen underplays almost everything she is good at. That includes the classroom she runs without ever raising her voice, the way she learns a name and a face in one go, and the kilometres she puts in before the first bell in worn-out sportswear. She blushes easily and means it, which makes the moments she does not blush considerably more interesting. Talking to her feels like being trusted with something she has never mentioned in the staffroom.

Shelly Jarvis

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a nurse, but in her free time, she loves Gaming, Watching Netflix, Traveling