It’s English with year 10. I’m sitting watching my special little helpee scrawl his name graffiti-style across his folder. He seems oblivious that he’s turned the ‘i’ in the middle of his name into a giant penis complete with out-sized scrotum, it’s somehow fitting and I let him get on with it.
In front of me is Space Cadet and in front of him is the overhead projector that is projecting today’s post 1914 poem onto the whiteboard. The English teacher is annotating the projected image with difficulty because Space Cadet has a major twitch on and his outstretched leg keeps jogging the projector, each time moving the image away from the accompanying notes on the board. Despite the fact that the notes no longer match the text they were meant for, the rest of the class copies everything down robot-like and the English teacher soldiers on regardless.
Suddenly Space Cadet convulses with a sneeze that seems to lift the front of his face clean off. Everyone looks up, shocked by the enormity of the sound, and so everyone witnesses the horror that follows.
A shadow appears suddenly on the whiteboard, cast by something that has landed on the projector bed. Something that quivers and steams in the heat from the lamp.
Nobody says a word.
The English teacher continues to annotate the poem, being careful to avoid the hideous shadow. The students seem eager to complete their work, perhaps in the hope that they’ll be allowed to leave this room of horror early, and the sound of their scritching and scrawling continues unabated at a fevered rate.
The only one not bothered by this it seems is Space Cadet who merely sniffs and looks bored.
After a moment or two he turns to the unfortunate boy next to him, hikes his shirt to to his chin with both hands, bearing his torso and says, ‘go on, feel my lumps.’
The War poetry from the old syllabus was far less harrowing.
