Chapter 12 - Losing My Rag

THE HONEYMOON PERIOD WAS WELL AND TRULY OVER. Ben McGuire was a constant thorn in my side. Barbara Cane seemed not to care. All she wanted was him contained in my classroom. I was soon loath to send him to her. On more than one occasion he’d come back from the Head’s office with a lollypop in his mouth.
“Stop making silly noises, Ben.” I said for the umpteenth time. “And get on with your work.” As I walked towards his table he jumped and ran to the back of the classroom. Feeling hot under the collar, I asked Katie to go and fetch Mrs Cane. I wanted Ben removed before I blew my top. As Katie left, I tried to ignore Ben’s raspberry noises from the back. A lot of children laughed and looked at me wondering why I wasn’t doing anything. I walked to the blackboard, silently seething. The classroom was hot and stifling.
A minute later, Katie returned. There was no sign of Barbara Cane. “She said she’s too busy.”
I tried my best to remain calm. Busy doing what? I was teacher in trouble. Surely I was more important than whatever paperwork she was currently doing.
I rubbed my temples. At the back, Ben was whistling and banging a ruler on the window. “I don’t have to do any work!” he quipped. He then gave me the finger. I turned back to Katie. “Go and tell Mrs Cane I want Ben out of my classroom right now!” Katie left for the second time.
“Ben,” I said. “Leave the classroom.”
“Nah.” Then he farted and climbed under a table. The summer heat made me feel as if I was losing the plot. The noise levels in the classroom were getting higher and higher. I saw Katie open the door once more. She was still alone. “Mrs Cane said she can’t come cos she’s in a meeting.”
Fucking Bitch! That was it; I threw down my piece of chalk and faced the class. “Everyone stop! Put your pencils down NOW!”
Everyone complied, except Ben. “Boring! Boring! Boring!” he shouted from the back. “School is crap! Mr Hunt is crap! I can do what I want.”
“Be quiet!” I roared.
“Nah! Make me!”
I walked over to him and this time he didn’t run. Grabbing him by the shoulders, I dragged him from under the table. He looked surprised but unconcerned. Somehow, this made me even angrier. I pushed him hard against the edge of the table, which at last, seemed to stun him.
“Aaaghh!” he cried out. “Knobhead!” There was a gasp from someone behind me. I paid them no heed. Grabbing his shoulders, I shook him like a rag doll. He was still grinning. My mind was a daze.
At that moment, Ben McGuire must have seen something in my eyes. When I looked down at him, he was no longer laughing; he was crying. I released him, allowing him to slump against the table. Real fear was evident in his eyes and I immediately felt sick. I’d just assaulted a seven-year-old boy. I turned to the rest of the class, telling them to get on with their work. They did so silently. Then I looked at Ben, who was still crying, and told him to get on with his work too. He looked defiant for a second, then went to his desk and sat down.
For the rest of the lesson, I didn’t know who to be angrier with: Ben McGuire or Barbara Cane. If she’d removed Ben when I’d asked her too, none of this would have happened. I went home in a sour mood.
At five to nine the following morning, I saw Ben McGuire and his mother walking up the corridor towards me. I began to formulate my defence but Ben spoke first. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. He looked down at his shoes, the epitome of remorsefulness.
“And what else, yer little bugger,” added Mrs McGuire.
Ben rolled his eyes. “I won’t be bad again.”
“That’s right, cos I’ll belt yer, next time!” She gave his head a shove for good measure. I breathed easily. I’d finally received the back-up I’d so desperately needed.
And Ben caused me no problem after this.

During another show and tell, Josh put his hand up to come to the front. “On the weekend,” he stated. “Me dad’s mate got me a lizard.”
I looked at the rest of the class. They were all listening, even Ben. I looked at Josh. “A lizard? As a pet you mean?”
“Yeah. Me dad’s built a cage for it. It’s in me bedroom.”
“Wow!” I said, hamming it up for the occasion. “I don’t suppose you know what sort of lizard it is?” I remembered as a child being intrigued by reptiles.
“Yeah,” said Josh, nodding. “A dragon.”
There were some murmurs from the rest of the class. They were openly discussing the fact that dragons didn’t exist. Josh noticed the dissent.
“Josh,” I said. “Dragons aren’t real, they’re just make belie—“
“It’s not a real dragon. It’s a Komodo Dragon.”
I was taken aback. Firstly, I was surprised that Josh had even heard of a Komodo Dragon. They were the largest lizards on Earth, coming from Indonesia or somewhere. And no one could possibly have a seven foot lizard as a household pet, could they?
“It’s this big,” he said, moving his arms as far apart as he could. “Might be even bigger. Looks a bit like an alligator.”
I nodded. “And where did you get it?”
“Me dad’s mate. He works in a zoo.”
My eyes widened a fraction. From a zoo? Might there be an element of truth in Josh’s story. Had someone stolen an exotic lizard? Or smuggled one in from Asia? No, surely not. I still couldn’t believe it. I asked Josh what he fed to the creature.
Josh shook his head and exhaled deeply. He portrayed exactly someone with big news to tell, something so unbelievable, that even he, himself, didn’t quite believe it. “He eats owls.”
“Owls?” said a boy sitting on the carpet. “Lizards don’t eat owls, do they, Mr Hunt?”
Before I had chance to answer, Josh spoke up in his own defence. “Mine does. He swallows them down and growls like this.” Josh mimicked what I took to be a Komodo Dragon belching with owly satisfaction. It sounded quite authentic to my ignorant ears.
Before the class broke down into disorder, I thanked Josh and replaced him with a girl talking about her birthday party at McDonalds. I couldn’t take much more reptile madness.

Perhaps because of the Ben McGuire incident, I gained a reputation with children around school. I was the teacher not to be messed with. Hardly a day went by without someone being sent to me from another class for poor behaviour. Some children even cried as they were brought in; such was their fear of my wrath. I loved my new found infamy, though not the source of it.
With a week to go before the summer holidays, I was summoned into Barbara Cane’s office. “I see you have developed into a good disciplinarian. But what good is that when you arrive at twenty-five past eight and leave at twenty-past three?”
I said nothing, not computing the relationship between the two.
Barbara stapled her fingers. “Everyone else gets here before you. Everyone leaves after you. I demand professionalism in my school.”
I spoke up in my defence. “I can’t help it. It’s the trains. They don’t arrive until—”
“Get an earlier train!” Barbara snapped.
“But if I got the earlier train, I’d get here at ten past seven. I’d have to get up at half five in the morning.”
She shrugged. “That’s no concern of mine. I’ll be taking note of when you arrive and leave from now on. It will be logged for future reference. You may go.”
I left her office bewildered and angry.
The next day I went to talk to Jane Harris. I told her about the meeting. She closed her classroom door. “It was bound to happen eventually,” she said. “It always does.”
“What does?”
“People falling foul of Barbara. She’s a bully. I don’t know how she keeps getting away with it. She does it to everybody. Especially Monica.” Monica Denson was the Deputy Head. I asked Jane to explain.
“On the outside she seems really nice. That’s what everyone thinks at first. I know I did. But after a while you’ll do something to annoy her. And that’ll be it; she’ll have it in for you. So just be careful from now on.”

On the last week of term, Burton Edge held the annual Shuffle Up Hour. It was an opportunity for teachers to meet their new classes for an hour. As Year 2 entered in total silence I regarded my future class. Twenty-seven of them. All looked sacred to death. Good.In a school like Burton Edge, the only way to achieve discipline was to start of mean. I had learned this very quickly.
Because I hadn’t said anything, a lot of children simply stood about in the classroom, milling about in an uncomfortable manner. Two girls loitered by the door, looking like they might burst into tears at any moment. Then one boy did just what I wanted. He sat down.
“GET UP!” I roared, causing the boy to have a near fatal coronary. I regarded him balefully. “Remind me who gave you permission to sit down?”
“Er…no one,” he whimpered. “I just…” Then he started crying.
“Well don’t,” I said. “Do not do anything unless I say so. Got that?” The boy nodded. It was precisely the reaction I’d hoped for.
“Right then,” I said. “You can all find a seat.”
The whole class sat down and folded their arms in silence. It was that easy. My reputation had indeed come before me. Year 2 didn’t make a single peep for the next hour. And then the summer holidays rolled around. I was knackered. I’d been working fifty-five hour weeks for the first time in my life. I needed the break.