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Sep. 24th, 2019 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fry_sandhuOne thing Fry had been certain of, when starting secondary school, was that it wouldn't be easy. He was glad of it; tired of the stale curriculum of primary school and ready for a new challenge.
Even the social side he was not too worried about, since he would be starting Oaking with a few people he already knew, even if each came with a downside. There was Joram, who he got on well with but due to surname differences would not be in his class. There was George, who would be in his class, but he didn't like. And there was Patrick, who would also be in his class, but was not eligible for friendship on account of being Fry's arch-nemesis. Finally there was Maurice, who Fry had only met at entrance tests, was in his class and Fry actually liked, but came with his own issues.
Because they were seated alphabetically, Fry had initially been seated in the front row next to Sunita Sandhu, who had already been at Oaking for a year because she was in the gifted and talented program, with whom Fry shared some but not all of his classes. After making polite amused observations about having the same surname, Sunita asked him what he had been doing over the summer.
"Oh, we went to India." Fry said. She seemed interested and asked where they had been, so he told her. "We were there because my grandma died and then we took the sights in after."
"I'm so sorry." Sunita said.
"Don't be, she was a horrible old woman." Fry said.
Sunita looked taken aback, so he explained.
"She cut my dad off and sided with my abusive grandfather. She never had a nice word to say about any of us. We weren't even invited to the funeral, the only reason we traveled there was to make sure my aunt Anita was being looked after because she's now an orphan and she's only thirteen. And she is and she didn't want Dad involved so we went travelling. What did you do over the summer?"
"We went to India." Sunita said flatly. "For my great aunt's funeral. She was a wonderful woman, she went through so much pain."
Fry marveled at the coincidence and then remembered to offer similar condolances. Sunita spent all break on the phone to her mother, didn't speak to him for the rest of the morning, and then approached Miss Cartwright and asked to be moved, which Fry found incredibly odd. He asked Miss Cartwright about it, but she told him not to worry, and asked him if he had anyone in particular he would like to sit with.
Maurice was only too glad to move to the front row. He said the back row was too distracting and one of the lights was making a funny noise. Also, with the last name Russell, he had been stuck next to George, and she was more than glad to have Sunita instead because she found Maurice at least as annoying as Fry, if not more.
Fry liked Maurice. The only problem was that Maurice was at least as aspergic as Fry was (though officially on a two year waiting list for a diagnosis), which meant that he was no help whatsoever with the complexities of secondary school, and the two of them would end up trooping off together to find other sources of help.
Miss Cartwright was very helpful, and Fry liked her right away. She taught art, which wasn't his usual subject, but he decided that might now give it more of a go. Mrs Carter, the SENCO, gave him a useful card called a gold pass which allowed them both to use low traffic doors and skip the lunch queue to avoid crowd issues. She wasn't going to see him regularly like Mr Irons did, but said that he could come and arrange a chat if he needed, so she was also quite helpful.
Lenny, Fry's 'School Brother', took Maurice under his wing also and told them all the things the teachers didn't. And finally there was Keith Teeth (AKA Ginger) also from the gifted and talented program, who had kept his Form Captain role for another term; he helped them find some of the classes, including Advanced Maths.
The Advanced Maths teacher, Mr "Scary" Stamford, was unfortunately the one teacher Fry really didn't like. It wasn't the classes themselves; he was thrilled when Mr Stamford told him that they would start GCSE level material (though they could choose to wait to take the actual exam until later on if they wanted). But Mr Stamford was loud-voiced, generally irritable and difficult to impress. After years of teaching universally gifted mathematicians, he was unmoved by brilliance, and it was a mark of highest honour if he wrote 'good' on your work.
"What's Oaking like? Do you like it?" Coral asked Fry one evening, when Fry was working on Scary Stamford's long and difficult maths homework.
"Yes. It's very hard, but in a good way." Fry said.
"Do you think I could do it?" Coral asked.
Fry looked at her.
"You might manage the ordinary classes. With the right glasses on."
"Can I borrow your old past papers?" Coral asked.
"Knock yourself out." Fry said.
--------------------
Because Fry's new school started back a week earlier than Coral's, she had time for a bit of practice before starting in her new class. It was a real fresh start - a new teacher to the school, an unknown entity.
Before the start of school, Coral went in a little early and went up to the new teacher at her desk. She looked quite stern, which didn't worry her; having just spent a year in Miss Havisham's class, Coral was used to stern people.
"Hi... sorry, what's your name?" Coral asked.
"Mrs Stamford." the teacher looked at her over her glasses. "And you are?"
"Coral Sandhu. It's nice to meet you. Do you know a Mr Stamford who teaches at Oaking?"
"Yes, he's my husband." Mrs Stamford said. Coral was glad she hadn't called him Scary Stamford.
"I want to take the Oaking gifted and talented program exam this year. I might not pass because I'm dyslexic, but I think it would be a good practice for taking the general exam next year." Coral said.
Mrs Stamford nodded. If she was pleased, it was hard to tell.
"Very well. We'll see if any more of your class are doing it and arrange some practices. You understand that there are eight applicants to every place?"
"Yes, my brother just started Year 7, he's clever but they didn't feel he would be good in the program because his autism means he's not as good at English as he is at maths. He doesn't think I can do it, so I haven't told him I'm trying out for it."
At that moment, the bell rang, and everyone else trooped in. Coral waved Mae over, so that they could sit together, and got her book bag out ready to start the day.
She opened the bag.
She searched her bag.
Her dyslexia glasses were missing. She sat in silent panic as Mrs Stamford handed out the first assignments of the day.
"Why are you squinting like that?" Mrs Stamford asked her, after five minutes.
"My dyslexia glasses aren't in my book bag."
"Well, that's not a very good start to the year, is it?" Mrs Stamford declared, launching into a lecture to the whole class on being responsible and prepared. Coral bit her lip and tried not to cry. The glasses were there last night, she knew they were.
At break time, she went to find Gil, who was playing some sort of Mummy and Daddy game with Esme-Rose, except that at least one of them was a dog.
"Gil, did you take my green glasses to play with?" she asked.
"Nopie." Gil chirruped.
"Promise? The other day you wanted to play Wizard of Oz with them."
Gil shook his head solumnly.
"We didn't see the wizard." Esme-Rose said. "We twavelled to Bananaia instead."
Coral sighed. That left one suspect.
----------------------
Brooke was enjoying her first day of her new school, mostly because there had not so far been any lessons. She was seated in a back row desk, next to her friend Nat from hockey, with her feet on the desk, telling a group of interested people about her pet spider, Killer.
Through the crowd, Smiggle Girl appeared. Her bag was Smiggle. Her pencil case was Smiggle. She wore designer shoes and a disgruntled expression.
"Hi Olivia." Nat said, with the innocent expression of someone who has just moved themselves and their friend into someone else's usual spot.
"You're in my seat." Olivia said, glaring at Brooke.
"Why, did you piss on it to mark your territory?" Brooke asked.
There was a roar of laughter from the surrounding kids. Olivia shoved Brooke on the shoulder, which was completely ineffective because Brooke was significantly bigger than her.
"Lay off her Livvy, it's her first day." Nat said.
Brooke took her feet off the desk and assumed a very sweet and innocent expression. "Yeah, I'm off limits for at least twelve hours."
Olivia threw a general tantrum, making various references to Brooke's general appearance, only stopping when their class teacher entered the room.
"Olivia! That's no way to treat a new student, come and sit at the front."
That was the first thing that Brooke liked about Mr Winston.
The first morning he took her aside for some one to one time at the front desk, and asked her how she got on with classwork.
"Oh, I'm very severely dyslexic." Brooke said.
"You are? Your parents didn't mention it." Mr Winston said.
"I can hardly read at all. I have these glasses." Brooke produced Coral's green dyslexia glasses as evidence. "They kicked me out of private school because I'm too stupid."
She held her breath, hoping that he hadn't received a report from Cherry Tree to disprove this incredible lie. But he only frowned slightly.
"You're not stupid, Brooke." Mr Winston said. "Dyslexia is nothing to be ashamed of. I'll make sure you get to meet our SENCO, okay? We can work through this together. I'm sure you'll be very happy here."
"Me too, Mr Winston."
Even the social side he was not too worried about, since he would be starting Oaking with a few people he already knew, even if each came with a downside. There was Joram, who he got on well with but due to surname differences would not be in his class. There was George, who would be in his class, but he didn't like. And there was Patrick, who would also be in his class, but was not eligible for friendship on account of being Fry's arch-nemesis. Finally there was Maurice, who Fry had only met at entrance tests, was in his class and Fry actually liked, but came with his own issues.
Because they were seated alphabetically, Fry had initially been seated in the front row next to Sunita Sandhu, who had already been at Oaking for a year because she was in the gifted and talented program, with whom Fry shared some but not all of his classes. After making polite amused observations about having the same surname, Sunita asked him what he had been doing over the summer.
"Oh, we went to India." Fry said. She seemed interested and asked where they had been, so he told her. "We were there because my grandma died and then we took the sights in after."
"I'm so sorry." Sunita said.
"Don't be, she was a horrible old woman." Fry said.
Sunita looked taken aback, so he explained.
"She cut my dad off and sided with my abusive grandfather. She never had a nice word to say about any of us. We weren't even invited to the funeral, the only reason we traveled there was to make sure my aunt Anita was being looked after because she's now an orphan and she's only thirteen. And she is and she didn't want Dad involved so we went travelling. What did you do over the summer?"
"We went to India." Sunita said flatly. "For my great aunt's funeral. She was a wonderful woman, she went through so much pain."
Fry marveled at the coincidence and then remembered to offer similar condolances. Sunita spent all break on the phone to her mother, didn't speak to him for the rest of the morning, and then approached Miss Cartwright and asked to be moved, which Fry found incredibly odd. He asked Miss Cartwright about it, but she told him not to worry, and asked him if he had anyone in particular he would like to sit with.
Maurice was only too glad to move to the front row. He said the back row was too distracting and one of the lights was making a funny noise. Also, with the last name Russell, he had been stuck next to George, and she was more than glad to have Sunita instead because she found Maurice at least as annoying as Fry, if not more.
Fry liked Maurice. The only problem was that Maurice was at least as aspergic as Fry was (though officially on a two year waiting list for a diagnosis), which meant that he was no help whatsoever with the complexities of secondary school, and the two of them would end up trooping off together to find other sources of help.
Miss Cartwright was very helpful, and Fry liked her right away. She taught art, which wasn't his usual subject, but he decided that might now give it more of a go. Mrs Carter, the SENCO, gave him a useful card called a gold pass which allowed them both to use low traffic doors and skip the lunch queue to avoid crowd issues. She wasn't going to see him regularly like Mr Irons did, but said that he could come and arrange a chat if he needed, so she was also quite helpful.
Lenny, Fry's 'School Brother', took Maurice under his wing also and told them all the things the teachers didn't. And finally there was Keith Teeth (AKA Ginger) also from the gifted and talented program, who had kept his Form Captain role for another term; he helped them find some of the classes, including Advanced Maths.
The Advanced Maths teacher, Mr "Scary" Stamford, was unfortunately the one teacher Fry really didn't like. It wasn't the classes themselves; he was thrilled when Mr Stamford told him that they would start GCSE level material (though they could choose to wait to take the actual exam until later on if they wanted). But Mr Stamford was loud-voiced, generally irritable and difficult to impress. After years of teaching universally gifted mathematicians, he was unmoved by brilliance, and it was a mark of highest honour if he wrote 'good' on your work.
"What's Oaking like? Do you like it?" Coral asked Fry one evening, when Fry was working on Scary Stamford's long and difficult maths homework.
"Yes. It's very hard, but in a good way." Fry said.
"Do you think I could do it?" Coral asked.
Fry looked at her.
"You might manage the ordinary classes. With the right glasses on."
"Can I borrow your old past papers?" Coral asked.
"Knock yourself out." Fry said.
--------------------
Because Fry's new school started back a week earlier than Coral's, she had time for a bit of practice before starting in her new class. It was a real fresh start - a new teacher to the school, an unknown entity.
Before the start of school, Coral went in a little early and went up to the new teacher at her desk. She looked quite stern, which didn't worry her; having just spent a year in Miss Havisham's class, Coral was used to stern people.
"Hi... sorry, what's your name?" Coral asked.
"Mrs Stamford." the teacher looked at her over her glasses. "And you are?"
"Coral Sandhu. It's nice to meet you. Do you know a Mr Stamford who teaches at Oaking?"
"Yes, he's my husband." Mrs Stamford said. Coral was glad she hadn't called him Scary Stamford.
"I want to take the Oaking gifted and talented program exam this year. I might not pass because I'm dyslexic, but I think it would be a good practice for taking the general exam next year." Coral said.
Mrs Stamford nodded. If she was pleased, it was hard to tell.
"Very well. We'll see if any more of your class are doing it and arrange some practices. You understand that there are eight applicants to every place?"
"Yes, my brother just started Year 7, he's clever but they didn't feel he would be good in the program because his autism means he's not as good at English as he is at maths. He doesn't think I can do it, so I haven't told him I'm trying out for it."
At that moment, the bell rang, and everyone else trooped in. Coral waved Mae over, so that they could sit together, and got her book bag out ready to start the day.
She opened the bag.
She searched her bag.
Her dyslexia glasses were missing. She sat in silent panic as Mrs Stamford handed out the first assignments of the day.
"Why are you squinting like that?" Mrs Stamford asked her, after five minutes.
"My dyslexia glasses aren't in my book bag."
"Well, that's not a very good start to the year, is it?" Mrs Stamford declared, launching into a lecture to the whole class on being responsible and prepared. Coral bit her lip and tried not to cry. The glasses were there last night, she knew they were.
At break time, she went to find Gil, who was playing some sort of Mummy and Daddy game with Esme-Rose, except that at least one of them was a dog.
"Gil, did you take my green glasses to play with?" she asked.
"Nopie." Gil chirruped.
"Promise? The other day you wanted to play Wizard of Oz with them."
Gil shook his head solumnly.
"We didn't see the wizard." Esme-Rose said. "We twavelled to Bananaia instead."
Coral sighed. That left one suspect.
----------------------
Brooke was enjoying her first day of her new school, mostly because there had not so far been any lessons. She was seated in a back row desk, next to her friend Nat from hockey, with her feet on the desk, telling a group of interested people about her pet spider, Killer.
Through the crowd, Smiggle Girl appeared. Her bag was Smiggle. Her pencil case was Smiggle. She wore designer shoes and a disgruntled expression.
"Hi Olivia." Nat said, with the innocent expression of someone who has just moved themselves and their friend into someone else's usual spot.
"You're in my seat." Olivia said, glaring at Brooke.
"Why, did you piss on it to mark your territory?" Brooke asked.
There was a roar of laughter from the surrounding kids. Olivia shoved Brooke on the shoulder, which was completely ineffective because Brooke was significantly bigger than her.
"Lay off her Livvy, it's her first day." Nat said.
Brooke took her feet off the desk and assumed a very sweet and innocent expression. "Yeah, I'm off limits for at least twelve hours."
Olivia threw a general tantrum, making various references to Brooke's general appearance, only stopping when their class teacher entered the room.
"Olivia! That's no way to treat a new student, come and sit at the front."
That was the first thing that Brooke liked about Mr Winston.
The first morning he took her aside for some one to one time at the front desk, and asked her how she got on with classwork.
"Oh, I'm very severely dyslexic." Brooke said.
"You are? Your parents didn't mention it." Mr Winston said.
"I can hardly read at all. I have these glasses." Brooke produced Coral's green dyslexia glasses as evidence. "They kicked me out of private school because I'm too stupid."
She held her breath, hoping that he hadn't received a report from Cherry Tree to disprove this incredible lie. But he only frowned slightly.
"You're not stupid, Brooke." Mr Winston said. "Dyslexia is nothing to be ashamed of. I'll make sure you get to meet our SENCO, okay? We can work through this together. I'm sure you'll be very happy here."
"Me too, Mr Winston."
