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Sep. 2nd, 2016 08:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fry_sandhuAnother school year. The usual chaos at home - not helped by the fact that Brooke had managed to grow out of her polo shirt and summer dress since Mum checked it a month ago, and after much panic, ended up having to go in one of Fry's old white shirts.
Brooke did not look pleased by this, since the shirt had been rolled up over the sleeves and safety pinned at the back. Mum popped across the playground to explain to Brooke's new teacher, who was on playground duty, that she would take her to the second hand uniform shop tonight, and Brooke was soon surrounded by her friends.
Fry noticed one little girl, her hair done in immaculate plaits, staring at Brooke's shirt. A minute later, she marched up to the teacher.
"Miss Brimstone, Brooke's wearing the wrong shirt."
"Thank you Tilly, I am aware."
Tilly comes back and gives Brooke a smug look. Brooke pulls a grotesque face at her, just as Mum is coming back down the playground.
"Brooke's mum, Brooke made faces at me." Tilly complains.
Mum considers this, then sticks her tongue out at Tilly, pulls another face at Brooke, then kisses Coral on the top of the head and departs. Brooke laughs, and Tilly stomps off in a moody.
"Silly Tilly Tell-Tale." Brooke says to her friends. Her friends laugh, and copy.
Fry and Coral exchange a look, and decide to leave Brooke to it. Coral looks around.
"All the tiny people are so weeeeny!" she says. "I can't believe we were ever that small."
"You were smaller." Fry says, helpfully.
Coral smiles slightly. "At least I grew. Oh look at that poor little one!"
Fry follows her pointing (something he only learned recently) and sees a little girl about two, curled up in a corner, crying. Coral goes up to her and sits down next to her.
"Don't cry, it's okay." she says. "What's your name?"
The little girl looks up and sniffs.
"Esmwose"
Coral tries to repeat it, and fails.
"I want my mummy." the little girl says.
"Come on, let's find your teacher." Coral says, offering the little girl a hand. "I bet you're in Mrs Hewitt's class, she's very nice."
Fry decides that looking after stray toddlers is more Coral's skill than his, and looks around for some of his own class. He spies a group in one corner - George and Krishna seem to have allied with Ruby and Martha over the summer holidays (to replace Amy and Lucy leaving). Bethany and the other Lucy have replaced Ruby with Sophie. And both groups seem to be trying to recruit a pretty blonde girl, who he vaguely remembers was called Maisie.
This doesn't interest him, so long as he doesn't have to deal with any mess.
The bell goes, and they trail into the classroom. He puts his giant pile of extra credit on Miss Havisham's desk, in an envelope.
"Hey Fry." Xiao puts her own pile of extra credit with Fry's. "She's going to be pleased with us."
They put the rest of their stuff in their new lockers, and go to their places at the big table in the middle. After putting a very expensive looking bag in her locker, another new girl, Pixie, sits on Fry's other side, looking petrified, and doesn't say a word as everyone else filters in.
Miss Havisham walks through the door, and Fry is the first to remember that they are supposed to stand up when she walks in. Everyone else gets to their feet, except Bradley, who remains firmly in his wheelchair.
"Good morning, class." Miss Havisham says.
"Good morning, Miss Havisham." everyone choruses.
"You may sit." Miss Havisham says, casting an eye at Bradley.
"I don't have to stand. I've got a note." Bradley says, putting his hand up, then passing it along. Miss Havisham opens it and reads out loud.
"'Dear Miss Havisham, I hereby give permission for Bradley to participate in all class exercise including standing up when you enter the room.'."
There are a couple of giggles, which she hushes, before moving briskly on.
"In this class you will learn to reap the rewards of hard work, responsibility, and organisation. You will all achieve. You will all, at times, fail, and I will teach you to deal with that. I will teach you skills until you can do them without thinking. And you will be able to see your efforts on the credit chart.
"Credits are given for hard work and excellent work. I will not set you a lot of homework, but I expect everything I set to be done to a high standard, and if you don't do something properly, you will do it again. If you don't do your homework, you will do it in break."
She doesn't look at Peter, who has been kept down from Year 4, but he flushes slightly, knowing that this instruction will be applied to him.
Miss Havisham continues.
"Credits are also awarded for being responsible and organised. You will all be able to volunteer to be a monitor, but if you don't ever put yourself forward I may from time to time appoint them myself. Our first monitors will be as follows. Milk Monitor - Georgina, Blackboard Monitor - Peter, Homework Monitor - Bradley, Fish Tank Monitor - Alexander and Tidy Monitor - Bethany. You will be monitors for three weeks. Form Captain this term will be Thomas."
Tommy, who had been grinning at Peter over his appointment as Blackboard Monitor, looks black at Miss Havisham and blinks.
"Y'wot?" he blurts, in surprise.
Miss Havisham raises an eyebrow. Tommy goes pink.
"I mean, pardon, Miss Havisham?"
"You will be Form Captain this term." Miss Havisham says. "You have natural leadership skills." She strides across the room and hands him a badge. "See me after class and we will discuss your duties."
Tommy mumbles his thanks. Fry notices he has an odd expression on his face as he pins the badge on his shirt.
Most of the morning is organisation - Miss Havisham gives them all a homework diary and lists of equipment that they should get out of their locker for each class. She then goes on to explain some of the things they will be doing.
"Every day, we do 'Word of the Day' first thing." she says. "You will have a spelling test every Friday with fifteen words - five of which are the Words of the Day, five related words, and five extra credit words. I expect you all to learn the first ten."
She gets the chalk and writes the word 'Proper'.
"Today's word of the day is 'Proper'. Look in your dictionaries for the word 'proper', and when you have found it, raise your hand. We will hear the definition, then you will all make three sentences with the word."
Fry notices that Pixie finds the word before he does, but doesn't raise her hand, instead waiting to see if someone else will say it.
As they start making their sentences with the word 'proper', Miss Havisham opens the envelopes on her desk. She looks surprised.
"Alexander, have you done all of the extra credit assignments?" she asks, flicking through the pile. "I hope you didn't think you had to, I said to take only a couple and only if you wished."
"I did forty two of them." Fry says. "I wanted to. Xiao did it too, we met up but we couldn't finish some of the harder ones."
Miss Havisham raises an eyebrow again.
"Well, I'm very impressed. I shall add credits to the chart when I have marked them, for assignments that meet a good standard."
Fry suddenly realises that the whole of the rest of the class is staring at him, and some of the other bright kids do not look happy At All. George puts her hand up.
"Miss Havisham, that's not fair, the rest of us haven't started yet."
Miss Havisham frowns.
"You think I should penalise Alexander and Xiao for working hard just because you didn't think of it?" she asks.
George hesitates. Miss Havisham continues.
"Life is not fair, Miss Runt. You all have privilege and opportunity, any one of you could have worked over the summer. If you did other extra work, bring it to me and if it is to my standard I may award credits. If not, tough." she tucks Fry and Xiao's work back into the envelopes. "Life is not fair." she repeats. "It is a mixture of ability, hard work, opportunity, and chance. You can't change your innate ability, or chance, so if you want to succeed, you better start asking yourself what you are going to do about it."
The words were familiar to Fry, who had read the old book of Havisham Classroom Survival the previous class had given to Tommy last year. He got the feeling that Miss Havisham made the same speeches every year.
It certainly shut George up. But at break, Fry finds himself getting uncomfortable looks from other kids who were a bit peeved at what he'd done.
"How come you told Xiao and not me or Noah?" Teddy asks, looking a bit hurt. "I won the star chart award last year, but I'll have to slog to catch up to you now.
"I had to do work over the summer too." Noah says. "My parents went right back into home schooling mode. I hope she counts it. I wish you'd told us." But then he smiles slightly. "But I know you didn't mean any harm. I'm sure we'll catch up, Teddy."
Seeing Noah put out makes Fry feel a bit more uncomfortable. Noah is about the most good-natured person he knows, especially considering how much he gets teased for talking about Jesus without ever losing his temper.
"Who cares about the stupid chart?" Bethany jeers, overhearing them. "It's just a trick to make you work harder."
"Aren't you meant to be finding out what you have to do as Tidy Monitor?" Xiao asks.
"Already done it." Bethany fibs, having forgotten that she was meant to stay behind a few minutes. "Not that it's any of your business."
As they stand talking, the third new girl approaches, a bright red birthmark staining most of her face.
"Um, hi, I'm Anna." Anna smiles. "Congrats on being made monitors." she adds to Bethany and Fry.
Fry glances at Bethany.
Bethany looks with apprehension and disgust at the birthmark, before shrugging. "Thanks." she says, "You should make friends with Xiao though, she didn't have any in her old class, so she came into ours to show off."
Xiao flushes and walks off. Fry and Teddy and Noah are about to leap to her defence, when Anna speaks up.
"That was mean."
"She deserved it." Bethany shrugs. "I guess you can hang out with me and Ruby and Sophie if you want." Beat. "We're good at make-up, maybe we could help you cover that thing on your face..."
"Shut up, Bethany." Fry glares at her.
"I was just offering." Bethany protests.
"No thanks." Anna gives a long-suffering sigh. "I have stuff that can cover the mark, but I have to do that enough as it is, and I'm not doing it for school. It's just a birthmark, I'm not ashamed of it."
She turns and follows the way Xiao went, stopping briefly to wave at the small toddler Coral was helping earlier, before going inside the school.
"You shouldn't pick on new kids, that was a horrible thing to do." Teddy says to Bethany.
"I wasn't picking on her, I just don't want to be seen with her with that thing." Bethany protests.
Fry leaves them arguing and goes to find a quiet corner. He has a feeling that with all these new faces, it's going to take some time for everyone to settle again.
Brooke did not look pleased by this, since the shirt had been rolled up over the sleeves and safety pinned at the back. Mum popped across the playground to explain to Brooke's new teacher, who was on playground duty, that she would take her to the second hand uniform shop tonight, and Brooke was soon surrounded by her friends.
Fry noticed one little girl, her hair done in immaculate plaits, staring at Brooke's shirt. A minute later, she marched up to the teacher.
"Miss Brimstone, Brooke's wearing the wrong shirt."
"Thank you Tilly, I am aware."
Tilly comes back and gives Brooke a smug look. Brooke pulls a grotesque face at her, just as Mum is coming back down the playground.
"Brooke's mum, Brooke made faces at me." Tilly complains.
Mum considers this, then sticks her tongue out at Tilly, pulls another face at Brooke, then kisses Coral on the top of the head and departs. Brooke laughs, and Tilly stomps off in a moody.
"Silly Tilly Tell-Tale." Brooke says to her friends. Her friends laugh, and copy.
Fry and Coral exchange a look, and decide to leave Brooke to it. Coral looks around.
"All the tiny people are so weeeeny!" she says. "I can't believe we were ever that small."
"You were smaller." Fry says, helpfully.
Coral smiles slightly. "At least I grew. Oh look at that poor little one!"
Fry follows her pointing (something he only learned recently) and sees a little girl about two, curled up in a corner, crying. Coral goes up to her and sits down next to her.
"Don't cry, it's okay." she says. "What's your name?"
The little girl looks up and sniffs.
"Esmwose"
Coral tries to repeat it, and fails.
"I want my mummy." the little girl says.
"Come on, let's find your teacher." Coral says, offering the little girl a hand. "I bet you're in Mrs Hewitt's class, she's very nice."
Fry decides that looking after stray toddlers is more Coral's skill than his, and looks around for some of his own class. He spies a group in one corner - George and Krishna seem to have allied with Ruby and Martha over the summer holidays (to replace Amy and Lucy leaving). Bethany and the other Lucy have replaced Ruby with Sophie. And both groups seem to be trying to recruit a pretty blonde girl, who he vaguely remembers was called Maisie.
This doesn't interest him, so long as he doesn't have to deal with any mess.
The bell goes, and they trail into the classroom. He puts his giant pile of extra credit on Miss Havisham's desk, in an envelope.
"Hey Fry." Xiao puts her own pile of extra credit with Fry's. "She's going to be pleased with us."
They put the rest of their stuff in their new lockers, and go to their places at the big table in the middle. After putting a very expensive looking bag in her locker, another new girl, Pixie, sits on Fry's other side, looking petrified, and doesn't say a word as everyone else filters in.
Miss Havisham walks through the door, and Fry is the first to remember that they are supposed to stand up when she walks in. Everyone else gets to their feet, except Bradley, who remains firmly in his wheelchair.
"Good morning, class." Miss Havisham says.
"Good morning, Miss Havisham." everyone choruses.
"You may sit." Miss Havisham says, casting an eye at Bradley.
"I don't have to stand. I've got a note." Bradley says, putting his hand up, then passing it along. Miss Havisham opens it and reads out loud.
"'Dear Miss Havisham, I hereby give permission for Bradley to participate in all class exercise including standing up when you enter the room.'."
There are a couple of giggles, which she hushes, before moving briskly on.
"In this class you will learn to reap the rewards of hard work, responsibility, and organisation. You will all achieve. You will all, at times, fail, and I will teach you to deal with that. I will teach you skills until you can do them without thinking. And you will be able to see your efforts on the credit chart.
"Credits are given for hard work and excellent work. I will not set you a lot of homework, but I expect everything I set to be done to a high standard, and if you don't do something properly, you will do it again. If you don't do your homework, you will do it in break."
She doesn't look at Peter, who has been kept down from Year 4, but he flushes slightly, knowing that this instruction will be applied to him.
Miss Havisham continues.
"Credits are also awarded for being responsible and organised. You will all be able to volunteer to be a monitor, but if you don't ever put yourself forward I may from time to time appoint them myself. Our first monitors will be as follows. Milk Monitor - Georgina, Blackboard Monitor - Peter, Homework Monitor - Bradley, Fish Tank Monitor - Alexander and Tidy Monitor - Bethany. You will be monitors for three weeks. Form Captain this term will be Thomas."
Tommy, who had been grinning at Peter over his appointment as Blackboard Monitor, looks black at Miss Havisham and blinks.
"Y'wot?" he blurts, in surprise.
Miss Havisham raises an eyebrow. Tommy goes pink.
"I mean, pardon, Miss Havisham?"
"You will be Form Captain this term." Miss Havisham says. "You have natural leadership skills." She strides across the room and hands him a badge. "See me after class and we will discuss your duties."
Tommy mumbles his thanks. Fry notices he has an odd expression on his face as he pins the badge on his shirt.
Most of the morning is organisation - Miss Havisham gives them all a homework diary and lists of equipment that they should get out of their locker for each class. She then goes on to explain some of the things they will be doing.
"Every day, we do 'Word of the Day' first thing." she says. "You will have a spelling test every Friday with fifteen words - five of which are the Words of the Day, five related words, and five extra credit words. I expect you all to learn the first ten."
She gets the chalk and writes the word 'Proper'.
"Today's word of the day is 'Proper'. Look in your dictionaries for the word 'proper', and when you have found it, raise your hand. We will hear the definition, then you will all make three sentences with the word."
Fry notices that Pixie finds the word before he does, but doesn't raise her hand, instead waiting to see if someone else will say it.
As they start making their sentences with the word 'proper', Miss Havisham opens the envelopes on her desk. She looks surprised.
"Alexander, have you done all of the extra credit assignments?" she asks, flicking through the pile. "I hope you didn't think you had to, I said to take only a couple and only if you wished."
"I did forty two of them." Fry says. "I wanted to. Xiao did it too, we met up but we couldn't finish some of the harder ones."
Miss Havisham raises an eyebrow again.
"Well, I'm very impressed. I shall add credits to the chart when I have marked them, for assignments that meet a good standard."
Fry suddenly realises that the whole of the rest of the class is staring at him, and some of the other bright kids do not look happy At All. George puts her hand up.
"Miss Havisham, that's not fair, the rest of us haven't started yet."
Miss Havisham frowns.
"You think I should penalise Alexander and Xiao for working hard just because you didn't think of it?" she asks.
George hesitates. Miss Havisham continues.
"Life is not fair, Miss Runt. You all have privilege and opportunity, any one of you could have worked over the summer. If you did other extra work, bring it to me and if it is to my standard I may award credits. If not, tough." she tucks Fry and Xiao's work back into the envelopes. "Life is not fair." she repeats. "It is a mixture of ability, hard work, opportunity, and chance. You can't change your innate ability, or chance, so if you want to succeed, you better start asking yourself what you are going to do about it."
The words were familiar to Fry, who had read the old book of Havisham Classroom Survival the previous class had given to Tommy last year. He got the feeling that Miss Havisham made the same speeches every year.
It certainly shut George up. But at break, Fry finds himself getting uncomfortable looks from other kids who were a bit peeved at what he'd done.
"How come you told Xiao and not me or Noah?" Teddy asks, looking a bit hurt. "I won the star chart award last year, but I'll have to slog to catch up to you now.
"I had to do work over the summer too." Noah says. "My parents went right back into home schooling mode. I hope she counts it. I wish you'd told us." But then he smiles slightly. "But I know you didn't mean any harm. I'm sure we'll catch up, Teddy."
Seeing Noah put out makes Fry feel a bit more uncomfortable. Noah is about the most good-natured person he knows, especially considering how much he gets teased for talking about Jesus without ever losing his temper.
"Who cares about the stupid chart?" Bethany jeers, overhearing them. "It's just a trick to make you work harder."
"Aren't you meant to be finding out what you have to do as Tidy Monitor?" Xiao asks.
"Already done it." Bethany fibs, having forgotten that she was meant to stay behind a few minutes. "Not that it's any of your business."
As they stand talking, the third new girl approaches, a bright red birthmark staining most of her face.
"Um, hi, I'm Anna." Anna smiles. "Congrats on being made monitors." she adds to Bethany and Fry.
Fry glances at Bethany.
Bethany looks with apprehension and disgust at the birthmark, before shrugging. "Thanks." she says, "You should make friends with Xiao though, she didn't have any in her old class, so she came into ours to show off."
Xiao flushes and walks off. Fry and Teddy and Noah are about to leap to her defence, when Anna speaks up.
"That was mean."
"She deserved it." Bethany shrugs. "I guess you can hang out with me and Ruby and Sophie if you want." Beat. "We're good at make-up, maybe we could help you cover that thing on your face..."
"Shut up, Bethany." Fry glares at her.
"I was just offering." Bethany protests.
"No thanks." Anna gives a long-suffering sigh. "I have stuff that can cover the mark, but I have to do that enough as it is, and I'm not doing it for school. It's just a birthmark, I'm not ashamed of it."
She turns and follows the way Xiao went, stopping briefly to wave at the small toddler Coral was helping earlier, before going inside the school.
"You shouldn't pick on new kids, that was a horrible thing to do." Teddy says to Bethany.
"I wasn't picking on her, I just don't want to be seen with her with that thing." Bethany protests.
Fry leaves them arguing and goes to find a quiet corner. He has a feeling that with all these new faces, it's going to take some time for everyone to settle again.
