A simple farmer receives a horse from the gods, a man sells ice creams named after missing schoolkids, the demolition of a hotel brings an old horror to light, a wounded soldier finds the real enemy is in his own camp, a family inherits a peculiar r...
"MR KEMP. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE WITH THE CLASS WHAT YOU FIND SO FASCINATING?"
I turned back from the classroom window to find Miss Radcliffe standing right in front of my desk. I don't know how she'd got there without me noticing. I stared back at her and gulped like a bullfrog. The class laughed.
It was so unfair. It's not like I was the only one looking out the window: Amelia Jenkins in the front row had been too, and she didn't get in trouble. But Miss Radcliffe had hated me from the very first day of Grade 3. Hated me with a passion.
I knew as soon as I opened my mouth that I'd made a terrible mistake, but once I'd started I couldn't stop. "Is it a crime to look out the window?"
The class went quiet. You never answered Miss Radcliffe back.
And this was why.
"DETENTION!" she shrieked, her eyes bulging out of their sockets. Miss Radcliffe never spoke at the usual volume: she just shrieked at you, and thwacked a ruler on a desk to drive the point home. She did this now.
Thwack!
I quickly pulled my hands back behind my desk. Not that she would ever hit you with the ruler – that wasn't allowed – but you could tell she liked to imagine doing it.
Now she leaned over my desk. Her face filled my vision. I could see her horrible little black eyes behind the thick lenses of her glasses, and the red lipstick on her teeth, and the crop of black hairs on her upper lip. Her earrings danced like hanged men. She didn't shriek this time, but she still spoke loud enough for the whole class to hear.
"If you answer me back again, by the time you get out of here you will be old enough to drive."
I didn't know about that, but I knew that by the time I got out the Ice Cream Man would be gone. My heart sank. One chance to get ice cream all week and I'd blown it.
"My condolences," my friend Jay whispered from the seat to my right. Jay was always using big words like "condolences." It made me laugh.
"IS SOMETHING FUNNY?" I don't know how Miss Radcliffe had heard my little snort of laughter over the noise of the classroom. "Perhaps you would like a WHOLE WEEK of detention? Perhaps you would like to be in detention until you're FORTY YEARS OLD?"
The class roared with laughter. No detention for them though.
I put my head down and picked up my pen and pretended to do long multiplication – really pretended, because I'd never got the hang of it. I'd probably be doing long multiplication all detention. Miss Radcliffe had a knack for zeroing in on things you couldn't do. She'd sniff them out like a bloodhound, then make you do them over and over until you thought you would go mad with frustration. Some teachers just have that gift.
No other teacher gave out detentions. At worst they'd send you to the Principal's office. The Principal was a soft-hearted old bloke who genuinely loved kids and kept a jar of sour worms in his office. His other great love was building model aircraft. They were hung all over his office and parked on top of book shelves and in pieces all over his desk. There was always a strong smell of glue in the room. He'd chat with you for twenty minutes about the latest plane he was building, then you'd leave with a couple of sour worms and a working knowledge of the B-29 bomber.
Until I got to grade three I hadn't even known detentions were a thing: they'd been only a rumour about high school heard from people's older brothers and sisters. Miss Radcliffe wasn't going to make us wait until high school though.
You've probably already guessed why we were looking out the classroom window. If your guess was that we were looking out for the Ice Cream Man, you would be right.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Some teachers just have a knack for zeroing in on things you can't do, like long multiplication, and shutting the hell up.
