Aaron Connor (2 page)

I mean, Teachers are dicks
aren’t they? I can’t imagine why these people, who are meant to
determine our future, could be such horrible people. Every Teacher
I’ve ever come across has been a patronising, horrid, vile, smoke
stinking, whiskey swilling, pompous, stuck up and arrogant old
psychopath! They find joy in making you feel insignificant.

If you’re bullied, they don’t
do anything useful to stop it. All they do is “have a word with
them” which makes the bullies beat you up even harder for
snitching. I bet there are good Teachers out there somewhere, it’s
just a shame that I had all the nutters.

I and Teachers have never
gotten along. Do you really want to know why? Because they blamed
me for everything! If anything anti-social happened at the school,
it always seemed that the finger was pointed at me, whether I was
involved in the event or not. I never did stuff like that, but that
didn’t stop the Teachers from assuming that I was the guilty
one.

Just because of how you look or
act they make assumptions about you. It’s so contradictory, as they
spend entire assemblies going on and on about treating everyone as
equals, when they themselves are the most judgemental sods I’ve
ever known! If they smell cigarette smoke on the playground, they
search for the first bloke in a hoodie they can find and punish
them accordingly. No evidence, no jury, no plead for innocence just
straight forward punishment. It was like being stuck in a George
Orwell book!

Mr Bertgill was the worst of
those judgemental horrors. I wasn’t particularly smart. That’s all
there was to it. It wasn’t that I didn’t pay attention in class
because I bloody well did. I took notes and asked questions and
everything. The information just didn’t go into my little brain
box. It went into one ear and then buggered off out the other.

That didn’t matter though. Mr
Bertgill uses my dress code and background to create his own story
in his head. In his head I’m a delinquent who disturbs classes,
talks back to Teachers and plays games on his phone during lessons.
He believes that I’m not even bothering to learn but that’s not
true! I want a future as much as anybody!

That made no difference to the
depraved mind of Mr Bertgill. He wrote down that made up crap onto
my report card and, with full commitment, convinced everyone that
it was true. I’m just a lower class teen and he’s the Head Master
of a Secondary School. Who are the parents most likely to believe?
That’s bang out of order! You may say, but that’s so true in my
case. Mr Bertgill hated me. Not for any personal reasons, but for
what I was.

He, like many other ignorant
people, was taken in by the B.E.N (Black Eye News) representation
of us. That being the rule breaking, violent, ASBO earning thugs
that you see flooding the television screens these days. I have no
ASBOS myself. There was a bloke in my form who had seven ASBOS and
was very proud of the fact, even his parents were proud! But
because I wore the uniform of a scumbag and lived in a council
house, in his mind I was just “one of them” and not to be
trusted.

I walked away from the door and
towards the main hall for the assembly. I was feeling utterly
depressed. The corridors were quiet as classes were still going on
at this point. There was no point going back to class now, as I
only had about fifteen minutes left to go. As I still had some more
time to burn, I decided to go to Lizzie’s classroom first before
going straight to the main hall. We could walk to the assembly
together.

Lizzie was my only real friend
at St. Ians School, everyone else hated me because I was “boring”.
At School, “boring” means that you don’t drink, smoke, take drugs
or consider setting wheelie bins alight as a recreational activity.
Lizzie was the only one who actually liked that aspect of me, as
she was the same way herself.

She was lovely and proper fit.
She had fantastic curly hair that was died a shade of blonde that’s
so light it was almost white. She had amazing, big round eyes like
Tulisa. Her lips were shaped like a snog and her body was beyond
tight. God, I fancied her. But we were friends you see and at the
end of the day, I didn’t want it to ruin our friendship. So I’d
kept that info to myself for all the time we knew each other.

I’d memorized her timetable
almost inside out, so I knew for a fact that she had Media Studies
at that time. I walked through the cold empty corridors as I
thought about everything that Mr Bertgill told me. I was heading
for one of the portacabin classrooms that were just by the canteen.
For those who haven’t come across a portacabin classroom before,
they are basically cabins made of wood that are permanently parked
on the school site as extra classrooms. They were cold, damp and
poorly constructed . . . perfect for St.Ians.

I walked through the main
foyer. To the left of me was the Wall of Fame. On here were
newspaper cuttings from local papers, all of which concerning
pupils from this school. There was kids who had won baking
contents, poetry writing and others who had got A** scores on their
exams. Lucky sods, I wished so much that I could be as clever as
that. Maybe then I wouldn’t have been as useless as Mr Bertgill
made me out to be.

I walked on past the wall,
through the double doors and out onto the playground. The air was
cold. It was July and we were about to break up for the summer.
Summer was very rarely a big deal for me. There wasn’t much to do
with all that time they gave you. Nonetheless it sounded far better
then staying here, where I’m constantly reminded of how worthless
I’ am by grown ups.

I was only sixteen but even
then my view of the future was very bleak. There was nothing. Just
a black void of uncertainty where I knew I must one day venture
into without a torch. I had no real qualifications, I didn’t have
enough grades for Sixth Form and I had no basic work ethic or
skills. What would I put on my CV?

CURRICULUM VITAE

WORK EXPERINCE – NONE

PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT – NONE

EDUCATION – GRADE C = GCSE
ART,

INTERESTS – KIM KARDASHIAN’S
BOTTOM

It doesn’t exactly scream
“employ me now” does it? Oh well, I was sure that could get me a
job somewhere. Car garage perhaps, for repainting fading old cars
while looking at posters of Kim Kardashian on the wall. That’s the
only possibility I could think of at the time.

Anyway, I was walking across
the tarmac towards the portacabin. The wind blew across discarded
empty crisp packets, which caused them to fly across the
playground. Occasionally a collection of crisp packets would get
caught by a swirling wind and spin around like a tornado. It was so
quiet at this time of day. Within a few hours this space would be
full of kids again, joyfully heading home and escaping education
until they had to return after a couple months of holiday.

I quickly ran down the steps
and jumped the last few. I walked past the technology classrooms
which were producing loud scraping and roaring sounds from the wood
cutting machines. Walking around the corner I came across someone
wearing a face mask, like one a doctor would wear, while spray
painting a door for art (because of the fumes, you’d have to do
this kind of work outside). He was doing a stencil of Big Ben (NOT
Elizabeth Tower thank you very much!) in red paint, it was pretty
good actually.

I passed the bike racks, where
a boy in a green hoodie was trying to break the chains from one of
the bikes with a tiny pen knife. Climbing over the grass I passed
the basketball/football courts, where some poor overweight kids
were having a P.E lesson. Passing the Geography buildings I finally
arrived at the ugly portacabins.

I leaned up against the wall
just by the stairs to wait for Lizzie. There was only a minute or
so of the lesson left to go, so I wasn’t going to stay there long.
The cold wind blew against my face and sent icy chills across my
skin. The shadow cast by the portacabin made me feel even colder.
The world felt cold and grey. Everyday seemed to be cold and grey.
I hated it.

Moments later a teacher came
out of the main building, saw me and approached me. She was skinny,
grey haired and had the face only a mother would love. She peered
down at me through her tiny glasses. She looked at me in disgust,
as if I were a giant bug or something.

“
Why aren’t
you in lesson?” she asked,

“
I an’t got a
lesson” I replied, “I just had a meeting with Mr Bertgill and I’m
now waiting for a friend to come out”

“
Yes, yes, a
likely story. You’re bunking off that’s what you’re doing. I know
it’s your last day, but it’s still a school day
nonetheless.”

“
Honestly,
madam I’m telling the truth!”

“
Why should I
believe you, you little trouble maker. I’m in a hurry and I need to
get to class. I don’t want to see you here when I come back, do you
understand me?”

She then turned on her heels
and click-clacked back into the Geography building. I’d behaved
quite well while I’d been at school. Yet all of the Teachers
thought I was a nasty little trouble maker, by making an assumption
based on how I looked. This also meant that whatever I’d say would
instantly be diagnosed as a lie. I could point at a cat and say:
“That’s a cat” and they’d reply: “don’t give me that you bad pup,
that’s obviously a parrot!” and they’d be right in that argument,
as they’d be in suits and I in a tracksuit. That was my lot in
life, as unfair as it may be.

I wished that my Mum would buy
me some other clothes, she didn’t though. She kept on buying Adidas
and Reebok brand makes, ready to fuel my Teachers for some more fun
sessions of putting me in my place as lower class scum. I was so
fed up of the entire world bullying me. All of modern society hated
people like me. Of course, there was nothing I could do about it .
. . yet.

The school bell rang finally
and kids flooded out of the many doorways from all directions. From
the doorway of the portacabin I could see Lizzie’s class file out
and climb down the stairs before walking off into the distance,
towards the main hall for the final assembly. At last Lizzie
emerged in her favourite purple hoodie jumper and came down the
stairs to join me.

“
Hey Aaron!”
she said cheerfully, “we were just watching Finding Nemo, I love
that movie”

I still don’t get what it is
with girls and Disney. Us lads grow out of it and start watching
Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith movies. Girls still seem to
be able to watch Disney movies without any ridicule. It’s like,
normal for girls to still like Disney when they’re older. If a guy
admitted that he still liked Disney, he’d get a nice big punch in
the face.

Just by looking at me, Lizzie
could tell something was bothering me. She had known me for so long
that she recognised the signs of all of my funny moments. She knew
when I was upset, angry or depressed. It was like having a human
mood ring as a mate. She could tell by my expression that I was
feeling quite low. Her humorous smile was replaced with an
affectionate frown of concern.

“
Is something
up?” she asked,

“
Just come
back from Bertgill” I said, that was all I needed to say as she
then gave me a nice warm hug,

“
I still don’t
know why he keeps picking on you! You haven’t done anything
wrong!”

“
Just the way
of some people” I replied sadly, “how are you? Are you
ok?”

“
Yeah I’m
fine. Let’s go then, before Bertgill yells at you some
more!”

She wrapped her arms around my
right arm and we linked. I could smell her perfume, it was
fantastic. It smelt like strawberries. I couldn’t help but smile. I
looked into her incredible eyes with a weak smile. She gave me a
cute little peck on the cheek which made me feel a lot better. I
could feel my cheeks going red, I blushed like they do in an old
cartoon. I know, embarrassing init?

Lizzie giggled and pulled me
along to make me walk with her. We walked together towards the main
hall. School was pretty boring all year round. But the end of year
assembly was so boring, that you began to lose the will to live
after the first few minutes.

No doubt there will be a long
winded speech from the Head Master which will make us feel more
desolate then before. Another certainty was that the assembly would
feature some performances from the drama students. They’d probably
do some drama piece about slavery, or the holocaust, or drug
addition or some other depressive rubbish.

I knew this was going to be a
“barrel of laughs”.

CHAPTER TWO

We filed into
the main hall one by one in a long line, winding and bending our
way through the corridors like a river. Every face was full of
dread as the doorway leading into the hall drew nearer. I and
Lizzie were at the back of the line, where we played
Angry Birds
on her phone
while we shuffled along.

At the front of the line were
Teachers who were all gesturing us into the hall like they were
landing a plane. To them we were no more then cattle. They’d been
here for years and they’d seen hundreds of kids like this. We were
all the same in their eyes. They’d never remember us afterwards.
Ha! As if they’d wanted to remember us.

Soon we began to approach the
front of the line, so Lizzie turned the phone off and put it into
her handbag. The last thing she wanted was a telling off,
especially on the last day of school before the summer holidays.
She was just about as prone to being told off as I was.

We eventually got through the
doorway into the main hall. We split up to go and sit with our form
groups. I hated this. All of the people in my form were all smart
arsed arrogant sods who hated me. I wanted to sit with Lizzie, but
Lizzie also had to go and sit with her form full of dickheads.