Flash Fiction November

At the first of our November meetings we held another flash fiction night.  This time we all provided snippets of conversation we had overheard.

This is the first piece of flash fiction from Maggie.

The class was new to me. I had done several stints of supply teaching at this school, but this class, the drop-outs, the pull-outs, whatever words they used to describe the pupils, was a challenge.

The kids would not sit down. I did not dare yell at them. That would have been a negative start. Surviving the forty minutes lesson time was all I wanted to achieve. So thought I would try a trick, or rather, a technique. I took up some coloured pencils, some paper, a ruler a protractor. Sitting down next to the quietest boy in the class---they were all boys except chardonnay, who might have been a girl, it was difficult to tell with all the piercings, the loose sweater and the short hair.

"So what's your name?" I aid to my victim.

"Gordon, Miss." I could hardly hear him because of the noise the others were making.

"Right, Gordon. I'm going to show you some interesting patterns with these pencils and stuff here." I used their vernacular insofar as I was familiar with it, which was not very, "and I think you could do some too. It's quite easy."

"Yes, this,” he said, very submissive. What on earth was he doing in this class with a bunch of psychopaths?

I left him to seek another victim. Hardly had I left then Chardonnay moved over to Gordon.

"What are you doing, called? Can I have a go?"

Gordon was compelled to share his materials so I supplemented them discreetly.

I surveyed the class. The pupils -hardly an apt title- were milling around, imitating or re-enacting television programmes, war-games or something else quite out of my experience.

I tried my technique on a couple of others and it seemed to work on them too. A few were resistant to absolutely anything so I resigned myself to being the next best thing to a prison officer and smiled sweetly or shouted sternly as the occasions arose.

Chardonnay's voice became loud. "You mean you are a Christian, Gord? Cor blimey, you don't go along with all that stuff to you?"

"Well," said Gord.

"I suppose you do because you're white."

Chardonnay was black. She did not trust white people, teachers of any colour, or anyone in authority and in her mind that included religious people.

“I mean, you went to Africa and them places and stopped them eating each other and now they got nothing to eat and they’re dying, see?"