Not a Good Day

The classroom was stuffy. The lesson was boring. There was a heavy atmosphere in the room; everyone was tense wondering if the teacher was going to explode again, ranting and raving. The teacher, Mr Perry, was being as annoying as possible, talking in a deep, slow, flat voice, pronouncing each word as slowly and perfectly as possible. “So, if you multiply together these two numbers, and divide the answer by six, you get the answer to the question.”
It hadn’t been a good day for him so far today. His car had broken down this morning, he had loads of overdue marking to do, his year eight class earlier in the day had caused him a load of hassle and he had a meeting with his boss after he had finished teaching and he knew it wasn’t going to be good news. It was the end of the day and no-one wanted to be in the lesson. It was one of those beautiful, warm sunny summer afternoons outside, but inside it felt like the calm before the storm.
Earlier on in the lesson it hadn’t been pleasant. Anna had just been sitting at the back keeping herself to herself, at least she had been pretending to be, but when there’s an interesting piece of gossip going round, it has to be thoroughly discussed and looked at from every angle. It’s not really the best idea to write the note on a fluorescent pink post-it note, its not exactly subtle. Of course, he saw the note, stormed over, snatched it away and of course read it out loud to the class. The note had just been from one of Anna’s friends and it had just been asking if she was going shopping on Saturday. It was something innocent, luckily it had been, seeing as it was read out to the entire class. That had been about half an hour earlier.

“Sir, can I open the window please? I feel as if I’m about to faint.” whined Cassie.
“No.” was the short, sharp simple reply.
“Sir, can I pull the blinds down?”
“No.”
All of a sudden there was a loud crash. Someone had knocked their tin on the floor. Anna quickly bent down to retrieve her tin, it had been an accident, she didn’t mean to knock it on the floor.
“Who did that?” Mr Perry boomed, his voice echoing around the room, making everyone wake up. All of a sudden everyone was awake and alert and tense again wondering what his reaction would be. His first reaction made the situation worse. He was silent, he did nothing. Then slowly, he stood up and walked towards Anna, with his eyes boring deep into hers, cold and icy.
“Anna, could you come here a minute please?” he said as sweetly and non-threateningly as he could. “Er, sir, do I have to? The look he gave her in reply gave her the answer loud and clear. He marched over towards the door, and opened it and politely said “after you.” There was a muffled whisper of good luck from the back of the room as Anna disappeared out of sight.
There was more air out in the corridor, the fresh summer breeze felt good on her face, it was easier to breathe, and she went and stood by the open window, a luxury they weren’t allowed in the classroom. “What do you want sir?” Anna wanted to get straight to the point and know what she had done wrong.
“Is there something wrong Anna, at school, or at home maybe?”
“No, why?”
” I just wanted to know if there was something bothering you, something that you wanted to take your mind off. You seem to be becoming a persistent troublemaker and I don’t want you to be because you’re a good student the majority of the time. Recently though your behaviour has been starting to slip, you’re letting your standards drop. I don’t like troublemakers in my lessons. If you think that you are going to get away with any of this bad behaviour, you can think again about coming back to my lessons. You can go back inside now.”
He had a very strange expression on his face as he was saying this, he was frowning, it was as if something was puzzling him, and he just stood there completely upright with his hands on his hips. Anna on the other hand looked completely shocked as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, and what he was saying about her. Her mouth hung open a little bit and her eyes were wide and starring straight at Mr Perry. She was slouching and her arms just hung by her sides, as if she had no control over them and she couldn’t move.
Anna was left standing there, shocked and not entirely sure what to think or say. She wasn’t thinking straight now. Anger was boiling up inside her, and she didn’t know when she was going to explode. She walked back into the classroom as if she was on autopilot, and collapsed into her seat. She stayed like that for the next ten minutes or so and then……………………. “Sir, I don’t know what you think you were talking about out there. I am not a persistent troublemaker, I don’t have any problems here or home, and you know what?
I have been thinking about what you said and it is my pleasure to tell you that I will not be coming to any more of your lessons. You must be joking to think that I’d actually want to spend an hour each day with you, an hour of your bad tempers, an hour or your rude and insulting comments, an hour of your yelling and shouting.” Mr Perry looked up sharply, surprised and not expecting this sudden outburst. He wasn’t in the mood for dealing with troublesome teenagers. He was going through a bit of a rough patch, he had bills piling up, he was possibly going to get evicted from his flat, and he had his boss constantly hanging around and watching his every move. He wasn’t really thinking straight and he just snapped.
“THAT IS ENOUGH. GET OUT OF HERE NOW.”
He stood up from his desk and strode over to where she sat. He gave her that evil glare again but this time it was full of evil and hatred. He towered over her, shaking with anger “I SAID ANNA TAILOR, GET OUT OF HERE NOW.” He raised his fist, and that did it for Anna, she leapt out of her seat, and ran to the door screaming “You haven’t heard the last of this, I’ll be back you know, I swear that I’m going to get you fired.”
Mr Perry stood there, perfectly still and silent, realising what he had done as he stared at Anna disappearing down the corridor out of sight. The rest of the class was shocked, no-one said a word, no-one moved. Work was the last thing on everyone’s mind. Luckily, the bell went. Time seemed to have disappeared. Everyone packed their bags in silence and just crept out of the room. Mr Perry still stood in the exact same place, not moving at all with a frozen expression fixed on his face.