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Sep. 9th, 2017 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fry_sandhuLife in Mr Mags' classroom isn't all bad. In the first few days, they do vote on some actual classroom rules, and they decide the timetable together. Of course, they have to do things like maths and English, but their new teacher also schedules in ten minutes of yoga first thing in the morning, and some wooly-sort of things like 'Question Box', where he answers questions that you put in the box.
A few times a week, they work on their pretend country, Fortland, which as far as Fry can work out covers bits of history, geography, maths, art and nature. Fortland is growing on Fry, though he wishes Mr Mags could just decide all the rules himself. It is quite interesting, though, hearing about all the weird places Mr Mags has been to and all the different ways a country can be. And sometimes Mr Mags asks them interesting questions to get them thinking.
"So, what national language or languages should Fortland have?" he asks, one day. And there is a bit of a stunned silence for a moment, before Tommy pipes up.
"Well, English of course."
"Why?" Mr Mags asks.
"Well, because most of us speak it." Tommy says.
"How do you know most of you don't speak another language too?" Mr Mags asks. "I mean, like, if it suddenly turned out that three quarters of you spoke something else, wouldn't it be a cool thing to learn, so you could have secret messages other countries couldn't understand? Who here knows another language?"
Fry puts his hand up for Punjabi. Joram speaks Arabic, Kasha speaks Polish, and by the time Mr Mags has gone around the class, they find a handful of other languages. Pixie speaks Welsh, but keeps her mouth shut because she's not used to all the new people yet.
"But English is the most common language in the world." JJ says. Despite being new, he's not shy of saying anything.
"It's not actually, there are more speakers of Mandarin Chinese." Mr Mags says.
They have a vote, and decide to make English the official language, but decide to make everyone who speaks a second language an 'Official Translator of Fortland'.
Mr Mags seems happy with his work too, having high praise for Fry's bean project (though he wasn't the winner, as Pixie beat him by three points). Unlike Miss Havisham, Mr Mags loves technology, and uses the smartboard and devices for almost everything. To the class's delight, the main screen of his smart board is a model of their classroom, with little cartoon figures of each of them. Clicking on your miniature figure will bring up your scores in his various games, such as the maths and spelling apps he writes himself.
Nobody had ever completed the maths game until Fry was let loose on it; he beat every level in fourteen minutes. The next day, Mr Mags had created another ten levels. Fry likes that.
There's really just one thing Fry can't stand in the classroom, and that's the noise.
One of the new kids, Ben, is particularly loud - and also after their fight on the first day particularly keen to wind Fry up. Mr Mags doesn't appear to immediately notice, but after a few days suggests that one of them might like to move. Fry isn't big on moving, so he swaps only with Noah in the next seat.
"Ignore him, he's being a git." Teddy urges Fry the next day from his other side. "He's just annoyed because he's jealous of JJ."
"Jealous?" Fry asks.
"Yeah. When Ben arrived at the start of the week, he was the centre of attention as the cool new kid for all of five minutes. Then a moment later, JJ turns up, people recognise his famous father the footballer, and Ben's moment of fame is over." Teddy says, in a hushed tone. "You can tell by the way he looks at JJ."
Fry glances over at JJ, who is surrounded by all the kids he would consider to be fairly popular, aside from Tommy, who is a lifelong Holby United fan and wouldn't go to a Holby City FC match if you paid him. Still, Fry is indifferent to JJ for now, whereas Ben is thoroughly irritating.
"What's that got to do with me?" he asks Teddy.
"He can't take it out on JJ, so he's taking it out on you." Teddy says.
"That's stupid." Fry says.
"Yes. Just ignore him." Teddy says.
Fry tries. But even when Ben is not being so noisy, he still finds ways to wind Fry up. His favourite one morning being to go 'Shh, don't disturb the baby', which is earning him some giggles on his table behind Fry's. Fry eventually gets fed up with this same joke after the fourth time, and fifteen minutes before the end of the class excuses himself to have a time out. Mr Mags lets him do that, as he needs.
But there's a group lesson going on in the resources room, where the fish tank is, so he can't stay in there. Instead, he wanders into the corridor, looking for somewhere to get away from the racket. And that's when he notices something unusual.
There's a stepladder, leading up to a hole in the ceiling. A trap door that Fry has never noticed before. At the end of the corridor, a handyman is just going into the toilet, and the ladder is therefore quite, quite unattended.
He steps forward, climbs up the ladder, and disappears into the hole. It's nice and quiet up there. He steps forward and goes further into the attic. It's not a very big space, and not quite as exciting as he anticipated, but there is a fan to look at, and he watches that spinning around for a bit until he feels better.
And then, suddenly, there is a bang, and a click, behind him, and it goes pitch black.
Uh oh.
He gets his phone out and uses it as a torch. Where was that trap door again?
He hears the bell go for break. He can't climb down the trap door now, even if he finds it. He'll be seen. He starts checking if there's any other way out, climbing through and around a few things and suddenly he finds a very little door in the wall. He tries the handle, and it opens to bright sunlight. He crawls through the hole and looks around.
It's the flat roof of the school.
Okay. No need to panic, all he needs to do is figure out a way to get down without being seen...
A few times a week, they work on their pretend country, Fortland, which as far as Fry can work out covers bits of history, geography, maths, art and nature. Fortland is growing on Fry, though he wishes Mr Mags could just decide all the rules himself. It is quite interesting, though, hearing about all the weird places Mr Mags has been to and all the different ways a country can be. And sometimes Mr Mags asks them interesting questions to get them thinking.
"So, what national language or languages should Fortland have?" he asks, one day. And there is a bit of a stunned silence for a moment, before Tommy pipes up.
"Well, English of course."
"Why?" Mr Mags asks.
"Well, because most of us speak it." Tommy says.
"How do you know most of you don't speak another language too?" Mr Mags asks. "I mean, like, if it suddenly turned out that three quarters of you spoke something else, wouldn't it be a cool thing to learn, so you could have secret messages other countries couldn't understand? Who here knows another language?"
Fry puts his hand up for Punjabi. Joram speaks Arabic, Kasha speaks Polish, and by the time Mr Mags has gone around the class, they find a handful of other languages. Pixie speaks Welsh, but keeps her mouth shut because she's not used to all the new people yet.
"But English is the most common language in the world." JJ says. Despite being new, he's not shy of saying anything.
"It's not actually, there are more speakers of Mandarin Chinese." Mr Mags says.
They have a vote, and decide to make English the official language, but decide to make everyone who speaks a second language an 'Official Translator of Fortland'.
Mr Mags seems happy with his work too, having high praise for Fry's bean project (though he wasn't the winner, as Pixie beat him by three points). Unlike Miss Havisham, Mr Mags loves technology, and uses the smartboard and devices for almost everything. To the class's delight, the main screen of his smart board is a model of their classroom, with little cartoon figures of each of them. Clicking on your miniature figure will bring up your scores in his various games, such as the maths and spelling apps he writes himself.
Nobody had ever completed the maths game until Fry was let loose on it; he beat every level in fourteen minutes. The next day, Mr Mags had created another ten levels. Fry likes that.
There's really just one thing Fry can't stand in the classroom, and that's the noise.
One of the new kids, Ben, is particularly loud - and also after their fight on the first day particularly keen to wind Fry up. Mr Mags doesn't appear to immediately notice, but after a few days suggests that one of them might like to move. Fry isn't big on moving, so he swaps only with Noah in the next seat.
"Ignore him, he's being a git." Teddy urges Fry the next day from his other side. "He's just annoyed because he's jealous of JJ."
"Jealous?" Fry asks.
"Yeah. When Ben arrived at the start of the week, he was the centre of attention as the cool new kid for all of five minutes. Then a moment later, JJ turns up, people recognise his famous father the footballer, and Ben's moment of fame is over." Teddy says, in a hushed tone. "You can tell by the way he looks at JJ."
Fry glances over at JJ, who is surrounded by all the kids he would consider to be fairly popular, aside from Tommy, who is a lifelong Holby United fan and wouldn't go to a Holby City FC match if you paid him. Still, Fry is indifferent to JJ for now, whereas Ben is thoroughly irritating.
"What's that got to do with me?" he asks Teddy.
"He can't take it out on JJ, so he's taking it out on you." Teddy says.
"That's stupid." Fry says.
"Yes. Just ignore him." Teddy says.
Fry tries. But even when Ben is not being so noisy, he still finds ways to wind Fry up. His favourite one morning being to go 'Shh, don't disturb the baby', which is earning him some giggles on his table behind Fry's. Fry eventually gets fed up with this same joke after the fourth time, and fifteen minutes before the end of the class excuses himself to have a time out. Mr Mags lets him do that, as he needs.
But there's a group lesson going on in the resources room, where the fish tank is, so he can't stay in there. Instead, he wanders into the corridor, looking for somewhere to get away from the racket. And that's when he notices something unusual.
There's a stepladder, leading up to a hole in the ceiling. A trap door that Fry has never noticed before. At the end of the corridor, a handyman is just going into the toilet, and the ladder is therefore quite, quite unattended.
He steps forward, climbs up the ladder, and disappears into the hole. It's nice and quiet up there. He steps forward and goes further into the attic. It's not a very big space, and not quite as exciting as he anticipated, but there is a fan to look at, and he watches that spinning around for a bit until he feels better.
And then, suddenly, there is a bang, and a click, behind him, and it goes pitch black.
Uh oh.
He gets his phone out and uses it as a torch. Where was that trap door again?
He hears the bell go for break. He can't climb down the trap door now, even if he finds it. He'll be seen. He starts checking if there's any other way out, climbing through and around a few things and suddenly he finds a very little door in the wall. He tries the handle, and it opens to bright sunlight. He crawls through the hole and looks around.
It's the flat roof of the school.
Okay. No need to panic, all he needs to do is figure out a way to get down without being seen...
