"Bobby! Pay attention!" he heard his teacher say. He snapped out of his reverie and looked up to see her glaring at him. "Did you hear anything I've been saying?" she continued.
Bobby shrugged his shoulders. Prior to being disrupted, he was daydreaming that he could freeze time, and before that he was imagining himself navigating the classroom if he was only 5 inches tall.
The teacher continued to rant at him, just as they all did, then she placed him on detention Friday night after school.
Why is it that schools are so intent on crushing a child's imagination? What is it about creative kids that piss so many teachers off? They punished him for sketching or writing stories in class. They punished him whenever he slipped into a daydream. His artwork wasn't the right style for his art teacher; his music was too modern for his music teacher, and he was even forbidden from using mnemonic techniques to revise for exams. Whenever he strayed from their formula and their methods, he was punished and told he would never amount to anything.
At the end of the school day the kids rushed towards the gates, saying goodbye to all their friends and classmates. Nobody said goodbye to Bobby though. They barely noticed him unchaining his bike for the lonely ride home.
As he approached his teens, he was finding it hard to connect with other kids and was used to being excluded. Bobby's only companion was his diary, in which he confided his thoughts and feelings. Every night before bed, he would make an entry...
Dear Diary,
Another shit day at school. Wandered the playground alone. Picked up another detention Friday night.
On the plus side, there are some great Xbox games coming out this month.
Bobby
The following day transpired much the same...
Dear Diary,
I hung around the boys in my class today, watching them play football. I thought they were going to ask me to join in, but they just wanted me to fetch the ball. I decided to spend my break time in the library instead.
Got into an argument with mum and dad again. I told them I'm on detention tomorrow night and they threatened to take away my books and Xbox. If they did that my life wouldn't have much point.
Bobby
The following day at school Bobby made an effort to focus on his classes. Every time he caught his mind drifting away, he'd try to snap his attention back to the words of the teacher. That lasted all of 15 minutes before he slipped into another daydream.
When the school bell signalled home time for the kids, he made his way to the detention hall. At least here nobody was telling him what to think about. The supervising teacher read a book while Bobby and two other boys stared at the walls until their hour was up. When he was done, he headed outside to unchain his bike. It had started to rain and dark clouds hung in the sky making it feel much later than it was.
Bobby rode his bike along his usual route home, over the wet deserted roads, but before he could reach the home stretch, he noticed a gang of older boys lurking in one of the streets. They looked like trouble so he chose to circumvent them via a patch of wasteland behind the houses. The pavement gave way to a rocky and uneven dirt track at the foot of a tall grass bank. He steered onto the grass to avoid some broken bottles, but it was soft and slippery from the rain. The front wheel slid out of control, throwing Bobby over the handlebars. He landed on his back, knocking the wind out of him.
