He picked up his worn mug, with the word
STRESSED
written across it in bold black lettering. The rim had a sizable chip in it, exposing the rough ceramic under the glaze. He’d heard such chips and cracks were a playground for bacteria. He decided to ignore the advice. He raised the mug to his lips and enjoyed two large and lingering mouthfuls of the steaming brew.
Mmmm…lovely.
Frank adored coffee. The magical elixir helped him through the arduous days, giving him the strength to cope with a heavy workload and irate kids. Anne complained he drank too much coffee. She nagged him that his blood pressure—already a worry—would sky rocket. Members of staff also had reservations over his caffeine intake. Less concerned about his health, more annoyed at his bare-faced cheek of drinking all the coffee they all had to pay for.
But he needed it more than them, so: end of discussion.
“Mr Harper?”
Frank sighed and replaced the mug on his desk, finding a free space between unmarked homework, worksheets and text books.
“Yes, Samantha?”
“It’s not working.”
“It never does, does it?”
He stood from his desk, exposing his whereabouts to the whole class. They paid no attention, all more concerned with doing their own thing. Kyle Heyes was making something out of paper, a plane probably, to be pitched at the girls sitting in front of him. Andrew Sneddon idly flicked through a glossy magazine. The cover showed a blonde in a bikini draped over a blue sports car. Helen Braithwaite sat on the back row talking into her mobile phone.
Her mobile phone, for God’s sake!
In front of each pupil lay the components of an electrical motor. Only the three girls on the front row seemed motivated to tackle the problem.
“Right, Samantha,” Frank said, walking around his desk. “What seems to be the problem?”
“It’s just not working, sir. I think the power pack’s dodgy.” Her partners nodded in agreement.
“Do you know for sure? I don’t want to bother the technician for a replacement just for you girls to say that it still isn’t working. Have you done a systematic check to be sure it’s the power pack that’s faulty?”
The girls looked at him like he spoke ancient Greek.
He sighed again.
Are these three really the brightest in the class?
“It’s the power pack, sir. They’re all dodgy. The school should get new ones.”
“I would love for us to get some new ones, Samantha, but it’s not that simple. We have budgets to adhere to, you know.”
“That’s not fair, sir.”
He longed for the exchange to end before his coffee cooled down.
“The Catholic school gets brand new equipment,” the girl continued. “And they get to play with lasers. And-”
“And it’s all stories,” he finished for her. “They’re on the same budget as us and have the same problems.” He glanced at the scattered pieces of motor on the desk. “Get building the rest of it. If it still doesn’t work, then I’ll call the technician.”
“Yes, sir.”
Idiot kids.
Frank returned to his desk and sat, the coffee cup instantly raised to his lips.
Physics had such a stigma about it, deemed the most boring of all high school subjects. Frank conceded defeat before the pupils had even walked through the door. He loved the subject. To explain the universe, to understand that the earth is hurtling through space and why everything doesn’t fly off fascinated him. Anne nagged that he spent too much time seeing the world through the eyes of a physicist. He confessed to her that while running a bath, he tried to imagine a model, a formula even, of the interaction between the rates of the water coming from the hot and cold taps. Combining this with the difference in degrees, he was confident that he could calculate the final temperature of his bathwater.
She said it was stupid.
But now she knows better than to speak back.
Frank glanced around his classroom.
Andrew Sneddon hit the girl beside him with his magazine, which had been rolled up into a more effective weapon. From overheard conversations, Frank knew the Sneddon boy and the girl had slept together several times, despite being only fourteen. He hoped the little slut got pregnant, and Sneddon caught some nasty STD that turned his dick green. He chuckled. Swift justice. It really would teach them.
His classes never used to be this disordered. He’d once thrown a chair at a first year boy, and ran onto the football pitch during a school match to apprehend a pupil. Back in those days, reputation and hearsay kept classes in control.
Now, the kids had no respect for anyone: teachers, parents, not even themselves, as the Sneddon boy and his floozy showed. Teachers left like rats from a sinking ship.
But not me. No way.
He swallowed another gulp of coffee. Having already drank half, he dreaded leaving the class for a top up.
A loud
smack!
rang out from the rear of the class.
Frank looked up.
Sneddon brought the rolled up magazine down on the blonde girl’s head a second time. She cried out and shot him a vicious look, rubbing her scalp through her golden locks. The Sneddon boy grinned.
“Andrew!” Frank barked. “There is a time for pranks like that, and it’s not in my lesson. Do we understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Other members of the class giggled and whispered.
Frank lowered his gaze to the contents of his desk again. The pile of coursework needed to be marked by the end of the week and-
Smack!
“Ow! Sir, tell him!”
Frank slammed the coffee mug down onto the desk. Some of the contents swilled out and stained a pile of freshly photocopied worksheets.
“I
did
just tell him, Patricia!” Frank bellowed. “This is your final warning, Andrew!”
The boy, sporting a cocky grin, let the rolled magazine drop to the desk top. It uncurled among the untouched motor parts.
“Okay, sir. Jeez, take a pill…”
Frank’s tension rose like the steam in a boiling pot. The beginnings of a dull ache inside his skull sharpened to a throbbing peak at the centre of his forehead. His hands pulled into tight fists to keep them under control. A quick breath whistled from his nostrils.
“I don’t appreciate people answering back,” Frank said, desperately trying to keep the volume of his voice steady. It wanted to rise and shoot across the void between his mouth and the idiot child. It wanted to knock Sneddon back in a sonic wave, so the boy could feel the instructions vibrate through his bones… “Please, get on with your work.”
Sneddon looked down at the task and fidgeted with a couple of magnets. “Relax!” he muttered. “Don’t do it…”
“When you want to go to it…” the rest of the class murmured in unison, all wide eyes and mocking smiles.
Frank’s chair toppled backwards as he bolted up from his desk, with his fists clenched tight. The throbbing headache flared, like a chisel had lodged into the front of his skull and a sadistic sculptor banged away with a large hammer.
“If I hear that song one more time in this classroom, you will all be kept behind after school! Do I make myself clear?”
The three girls on the front row, who had now put most of the motor together, bowed their heads, appearing guilty for the crime they barely committed. Sniggers and hushed comments drifted around the room.
Sir’s lost it again.
Did you see his chair fall?
The Frankie Goes to Hollywood song played in Frank’s head; the song that swept through his classes like a forest fire after one eagle-eyed student had seen his first name on a folder.
Relax…don’t do it…when you want to go to it…
His heart raced and his anger bubbled higher.
“Right, you goddamn-”
The door to the classroom swung open, and a round face appeared around the light wood. The head of the science department smiled, his round spectacles rising on swelled cheeks.
“Mr Harper, could I have a quick word?”
Frank blew out a long and steady breath.
“Certainly, Mr Quackenbush.”
Frank bent down and righted the chair, pushing it under his desk. Downing the dregs of his coffee, he locked eyes with the beaming Andrew Sneddon.
“Maybe it would be best in the store room,” Quackenbush suggested, nodding towards the plain, white door that stood to the side of the black board. “In private, eh?”
Frank placed the empty mug on his desk and, without saying a word, turned around and slammed the door open. The class exploded into spontaneous conversation behind him. The chorus of
Relax!
started anew, led by Sneddon.
The dingy physics store room was lit by a strip of lighting along the middle of the stained ceiling. The curtains, thick and black, had been tightly drawn across the windows. The room smelled of shaven metal and rotten wood, most of the dank odour coming from the aged shelving lining every wall. The shelves contained various sets of apparatus used across the physics curriculum. On one shelf, a miniaturised steam engine sat covered in dust. Another shelf had been overloaded with bulky oscillators, the units that displayed electrical signals, but the kids always thought were heart monitors. An experiment was underway on a rickety table in front of the window; a narrow beam of light from a ray box was being bounced off two facing mirrors. A protractor and a page filled with measurements sat beside it.
Probably Jim the technician having a play,
Frank thought.
I hope he remembers to open the curtains and put the equipment away when he’s done.
Quackenbush closed the door behind him. It blocked out most of the laughs and jeers, and the chorus of that damn song. Quackenbush smiled, like the eternal fat kid trying to win over a bully with chubby charm. Frank noticed his comb-over was exceptionally precise, the few remaining hairs atop his head uniformly spread for maximum cover.
He must have seen some mighty important people this morning.
“Frank,” said Quackenbush. “I’m sorry to disturb your class this way.”
“Don’t worry about it; they were already wasting my time. What can I do for you?”
“Well, this isn’t really that easy for me to say, Frank…” Quackenbush fingered a coil of wire on a shelf at his side; a nervous sign, like his darting eyes. He looked scared half to death.
“Bloody hell, man, spit it out. I don’t want to have another rumour start about me by loitering in the storeroom with you! You know what the kids are like, anything to make fun.”
Quackenbush nodded too eagerly. His cheeks wobbled. “Y-yes, I agree, yes.”
“Then what is it?” Frank’s voice had started to creep upwards once more.
For the love of God and the prophets, someone get me a coffee, ground roasted, two sugars.
“I had some of the governors in this morning, had to find cover for my first period, it’s so hard to find someone who…”
Frank glanced at his watch and then to the closed door leading back into his classroom. It sounded in uproar, Sneddon’s voice rising above the rest of the class.
Quackenbush apparently took the hint and continued.
“Yes, well, there is, like I said, no easy way to say this…”
Frank stared at the flustering fat man. “Well?”
Quackenbush looked up and met the cold gaze. With a determined swallow, he pushed his spectacles up his nose.
“There have been complaints about you, Frank, very serious complaints indeed. The governors are concerned about the pupils in your classes.”
Frank frowned.
Governors? Complaints?
“I’m sorry. I seem to be having trouble understanding you. Complaints? About…me?”
“Yes, Frank. I’m sorry it has come to this. I blame myself, I saw the signs, and I should have done more for you, I…”
Frank closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. The sculptor was back with his hammer and chisel. He wasn’t going to leave until his masterpiece of suffering was finished. Frank winced from the pulsing ache.
“Wait a minute. Signs? What are you going on about?”
“It happens to the best of us, Frank. The job, the kids, the workload. It’s getting to you.”
“Rubbish!”
Seeming to have hit his stride, Quackenbush continued regardless. “There have been complaints from several children regarding your outbursts and the governors take all complaints very seriously. And after the fiasco during the school football match-”
“That boy should have been in my detention,” Frank spat.
“There was a time for that!” said Quackenbush. “You dragged him off the field in front of his peers and his family. Do you know what that did to him? He was devastated and hasn’t played since. You could’ve handled the situation better.”
“Oh, so now we are expected to let the snot-nosed little brats get away with everything? That boy was caught cheating on a test, an important test! And I was supposed to let it be for the sake of a football match?” Frank boomed.
Quackenbush flinched.
The class had grown quiet, the occupants probably sitting in silence to catch every word.
“This is what I am talking about,” said Quackenbush, regaining his composure. “You have a temper. We all know that. You know that! It’s just that lately you really have been losing control. The other members of the department and myself have discussed this and-”
“How dare you! Sitting in the staff room in your little huddled group talking about me behind my back? Why don’t you all come out and say it? You all think that I’m not up to the job anymore!”
“Please. Please, try to calm yourself.”
Frank turned from the portly head of science and leaned against the table. He arched his back and took a long, slow breath.
That beam of light
, he thought, looking down at the apparatus.
I can calculate its speed. I can work out how much energy its photons contain. I can reflect it, diffract it, refract it through a prism. If I can control something this universal, how could I have let my own life fall to pieces? When did it start to take control of me?
“We are concerned about you, that’s all. We don’t want you out and we are not trying to get rid of you. Look, it’s the Easter break in a fortnight. If you would like to take an extended holiday, I’m sure that the rest of the staff and I can cover your classes. We’re worried about you, Frank. You, Anne and the kids. Stuff the governors. This should get them off our backs. You can come back refreshed and raring to go, and we will never discuss any of this again. What do you say?”