Learning

[R. Broath]

He would swish into class scanning the rows for absentees, his long nose twitching at the smell of thirty boys sweating at the anticipation of his arrival. One moment we were an unruly rabble, full of last night's TV and swapping lies, then he came and we silenced like a midnight playground.

'Right. Today we move to long division. Kevin, bring me a green, a red and some white chalk.'

We knew, and he definitely did, that Kevin was colour blind. Out he came from the little store room with a chalk from each box. We dutifully laughed. He rolled his eyes in pantomime horror then cuffed Kevin's head before choosing from the proffered rainbow.

His blackboard scrapes were swift and elegant.
For ten minutes he explained the process. We copied each stroke, each crossing out and carry.

'Any questions?'

One or two of the brave, or stupid, asked him to repeat the exercise. He repeated the complicated series, underlining his final working out with a long, thick swipe of finality before erasing the examples and posting three test problems.

'Find answers, boys. Write them in your jotters and I will take a look.'

The slanting sun highlighted motes of dust. Tongues protruded and the silence of learning settled on us like light. In twin desks the slow followed the bright and the gorgeous sound of pencils slid across virgin paper. He glided through the room quiet as a bat, a clean fingernail tapping at the page until errors were realised and corrected.

'That's very good. You all seem to have got that. Now we'll have the procedure shown to us by some smart candidate.'

Again he cleaned the board before posting a new, more difficult, example. He turned to appoint his victim.

He paced the classroom as if in contemplation of some far off mystery. We focussed on the board. His slow steps, up and down, up and down, worried some, excited others. A show of hands might have ensured a correct answer, but he preferred to taunt us with a pretence of randomness.

'Charles', he purred, his thin lips wrinkling into a false smile, ' your answers, I notice, are surprisingly correct. Take us through this quagmire of numbers.'

Charlie? His place was at the back. When we did anything as complicated as this he was usually issued with a fistful of crayons and told to draw. Poor Charlie, he couldn't do this. He had copied the answers. We knew it, and so did our pious instructor.

'Please, Brother...' the panicked boy gasped, his eyes beseeching us to help.

'Come out, Charles. You seem to have grasped the intricacies of long division more easily than I expected. Please illustrate your new... capacity... to the class.'

Brother John's little Christian eyes pierced the terrified boy, but seemed inwardly focussed. as though on some private Gethsemane of torment.

[Ros]

Nooo, you can't stop there! Where's the rest? I was getting quite involved!

[David]

This could almost have come out of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Maybe it has - just a different artist. Ros is right, you do want to read on.

[R. Broath]

Thank you both. Maybe sometime these little tales will lengthen to something more substantial but for the moment I am aware of the privilege of having anyone read them and fear that length might equate to having them remain little orphans in the Prose section. Even as is most prose seems destined to scant attention so it is gratifying to me that you have taken time to read and comment. Thanks again.

Jimmy

[BenJohnson]

I liked it, the end as usual felt right, although it arrived too soon. The little Christian eyes suddenly put a whole new focus on this. Everything felt so perfect. I'm sure one day all these snippets are going to form a fantastic patchwork quilt.

[R. Broath]

Who knows, Ben? My tendency to keep things minimal is already explained and anyway, they say it is good to leave readers wanting more; a rare phenomenon with any of my scribblings. Thank you for the read, much appreciated.

Jimmy