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First off, apologies for not posting for ages. I've really not been writing much lately either, and it's kinda getting me down. However, a certain someone gave me a much needed kick in the arse last night... so here we go.

This is the (tentative) beginning to a short story, likely to be about 4,000 - 5,000 words when I'm done. I'm thinking this might be what I hand in for my Prose Workshop 2 submission, so as ever contructive criticism more than welcome!

Rip into it, guys... ;)


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A short story (Excerpt)

She looks at Mr Thompson, Mr Thompson looks at her, and everybody else looks at me. The girl, who has just opened her mouth for the what seems like 14^th time this lesson, has deliberately not turned around to face me.

“It’s not that I don’t understand…” I say to the back of her head, loud enough for the whole class to hear, “it’s just that I fail to see the point.”

Now she turns around, and speaks very carefully to me.

“I just think you’re being deliberately… awkward.” Her voice is measured and her eyes stay fixed on mine, wide and accusing. Her heavy make-up draws me in, and I stare back at her eyes, intently, but I wish I didn’t. I want to look past her, at Mr Thompson, but I don’t.

“Why would I do that?” I whisper this time, looking down at my notebook, and the writing in it, that has nothing to do with our lesson.

“Because you don’t get it,” she sneers, “Do you?” I look back at her again to see her pretty face twisted in nastiness. I want to say something back, but I hesitate too long so Mr Thompson ventures in. “Can we just… return to the text please, Jessica?” he says, and she turns back round noisily.

The rest of the lesson I spend staring over at Stacey Carver, three rows forward and two rows across. Usually my view is blocked, but the two people who sit between us are absent today, and I can see Stacey’s legs, dressed in tight jeans and boots, tucked underneath her chair. At one point she uncrosses them; placing her feet more firmly on the floor before putting up her hand and making a point about the character we are studying this lesson. It’s a very good point; one I had noticed last week but couldn’t be bothered to mention it. Mr Thompson says “Well done, Stacey,” and she tucks her legs back underneath, turns around to Rob sitting behind her, smiles and puts a stray strand of hair behind her ear, before turning back to her hunched posture over her desk and her book.

No one looks at me, looking at her.

“James, what do you think?”

He has deliberately picked on me. I try to think of what the question was, of what the class has been talking about, but I can’t. I look around the room before admitting I haven’t been listening.

“Sir, sorry… I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

He puts his glasses on. “You weren’t listening?”

“No.” I say.

A hand goes up, the next row to my right and two tables forward. Without waiting for Mr Thompson to acknowledge the hand, a voice says, “Well, I think…..”

I watch as Mr Thompson sits up in his chair. “Yes Derek, thank you. But I think I was talking to James…”

“Like he’s going to…” Another voice, directly behind me.

“Thank you, Mr Smith,” Mr Thompson says as he gets up from the desk. He walks out into the class, nearer to me. He perches on the edge of an empty desk, between me and Stacey Carver. “Do you have anything to say about this, James?” He points to the book in his hand. I say nothing.

Mr Thompson sighs, takes his glasses off, and cleans them. He puts them back on and says, “I’d like to see you after class please.”

“It’s not like you, James,” he tells me, when I see him later. I’m not sure what he means, but I go along with it.

“Yeah, I guess not…” I suggest. I’m looking out of the window, at the construction work going on across from the block, where the new Centre for Learning is being built.

“James…”

“Sorry.” My eyes meet his, then the floor.

“James…” he continues, “you’re not interested, aren’t you?”

“My grades are good, Sir…” I hope that this is the right kind of answer.

He sighs.

“I’m trying to get through to you…” my teacher tells me, like I’m in therapy or something. He gets up and begins straightening the chairs that my classmates have left stuck out from under their desks. I notice that mine isn’t tucked in either.

“… but you won’t tell me what you think.” He isn’t looking at me while he says this. “So, I’ll tell you what I think. I think that you’re rude, uninterested, and deliberately not trying. She may be a dunce and a slut but I think Jessica White has you spot on.”

“Sir… that’s not very…”

“Nice. No… but that’s what you think too, isn’t it? You don’t like her…”

“Sir…”

“James,” and Mr Thompson sighs, and his face doesn’t show the same emotion that I thought he was feeling, “I have a class to teach. You need to learn this book, and soon, and you need to sit down in the exam and write about it and get a good mark. That’s how this works…”

“And…”

“And you’re making it bloody difficult, to be honest James…” He’s now looking at me, from across the classroom. “You keep disrupting my class like this…”

“I’m sorry.” I tell him. “I am.”

Mr Thompson stops, his hands firmly gripping the back of what happens to be my chair.

“What’s your problem? You haven’t been like this before…”

“It’s the book, sir. I’m… just… not interested in it…”

“Well, it’s our text, so… you need to know it.”

“But I do know it. It’s not hard… the whole class are getting it. Even Jessica. I get it… the exam will be easy. But… I’m bored of it.”

There is a loud crash from outside and we both turn to the window, watching the construction. I turn back, and but Mr Thompson is still looking out the window. He takes off his glasses again, but doesn’t clean them this time. He places them down on his desk, and I notice his eyes look tired.

“I’m sorry, but that’s not the point. I’m sorry you don’t like the book, but we all have to put up with it.” Mr Thompson begins to tidy up his desk, then looks up at me as though he has forgotten that I’m here.

“Um, you can go now James. See you tomorrow.”

“Thanks, sir…” I say quietly, and leave.