Like a ripe melon.

I know its Friday, but I've had a fairly happy week, so why is it I nearly hurled a small kid through a plate glass window this afternoon? Let's examine the events preceding the moment I stood, teetering on the edge with all the probability of falling of a brand new expensive glass from a unique set of six.

Friday, 5.30pm. In come the next six students. Five are lovely. Five are no trouble. But the sixth? I'm sure he's spawn of the devil. Or rather, several devils. You know, like Bruce Campbell's demon in the X-Files. Except he's no progeny of a fair-minded, misunderstood Hell-dweller. Oh no. He's the direct decendent of the devil himself – Al Pacino style. You know The Devil's Advocate, where he says he dunt make people do bad things, he just sets the stage and lets human nature get on wi' it? Yeah, that's the fucker.

So we go over some tenses revision, and we're doing alright. The wee kids are giving good verbal examples of when to use the present, simple past, future (not including "going to") and present continuous. And I hear this little shit, who shall be known on this public blog as 'Wee Shite', say summat in Cantonese.

I have few rules in me classroom, as they know. But one absolutely unshakeable, diamond-cut rule is that you only speak English. The older kids understand its cos their parents have spent shitloads on extra-curricular education at a dedicated teaching centre. The younger kiddies are told it's cos I don't speak Chinese or Cantonese. It works, on the whole.

So, back to this demon-child. He mutters some kind of joke, the other kids shout "oooo!" and point at him, calling out "he spoke Chinese! Teacher! Teacher!" like the good Sherlock Holmes' they are. So I tell him in no uncertain terms that that was his first strike. Two more and, quite literally, he's out.

We continue. We're onto the consolidation exercise. In between arsing about tapping pencils on the table, snatching rubbers from classmates, banging his feet against the table legs etc. (earning him no less than five "Stop!"s), he turns to the frazzled classmate next to him and demands to know his answers – speaking to him in Cantonese, of course.

I tell him that's number two, and please - please - could he do it again, as I dearly want to boot him out. He understands – he gets that look in his eye of all learners, the 'I seem to have done something wrong, and she ain't joking' look. We carry on. He carries on annoying the fucking hell out of every other bugger int room, the little noises, vibrations, irritations building on everyone else's nerves. I tell him to stop playing wi the rubber, stop snatching other people's papers in a desperate attempt to catch a glimpse of an answer, and tell him if he dunt know then all he has to do is bloody-well say so and I'll help. It's my job, after all.

Then it comes. Inevitable as rain on a Bank Holiday, he protests me rough tongue in Cantonese.

That's it! At last! Wee fucking Shite is out on his fucking ear, and good riddance to the annoying little cunt!

I order him out. He does the unthinkable. Just sits there and, in his best learnt-from-his-dad-the-devil manoeuvre, just says: "Wot?" with one of those excrutiatingly fucking innocent looks on his face.

Suffice to say, I were less than convinced.

"That's it! Enough! You are disrupting everyone! You've been warned twice! No more! ~ You! Out! Now!" I bawl. The other five students, proper shocked – they've never had reason to hear me shout at anyone – just freeze and stare, eyes bulging. Wee Shite? Sits and refuses to even let himself smile in satisfaction. He'd done what he'd set out to do, and that were to piss me off so badly I'd lose me temper.

After a look like that there were only one choice to be made – get arrested fer slapping seven shades of shite out of his head (which, believe me, would have happened to me if I'd ever acted like that when I were a nipper), or call on a higher power. Hmm, personal tanning session, or summat with far longer, deeper consequences? Now, I'll admit, the tanning choice were somewhat tempting. But even in me red-hued daze I realised I would be over-stepping the mark, like. So I folded and went fer the help of a higher power.

The boss. Five foot-something, thin as a rake and a tongue like a fish-hook, she is not to be crossed. I popped me head out the door, gave her a half-minute update (after she'd asked why I'd shouted like that, as she's never heard me shout either), and she walked quietly into the classroom. She summoned him out, and again he didn't move. She said the sentence every child in the world dreads: Don't make me call your mother. He dutifully got up and walked outside.

It's fair to say I closed the door behind him quite soundly. Now fert damage-limitation; I've got five kids staring at me like I'll carve a hole straight through the next living thing that makes a noise. Not conducive to a nice, free, learning atmosphere. It was helped, in a strange way, by the boss giving Wee Shite outside such a tongue-lashing that at first we were grinning maliciously at each other. At it went on, however, the compassion drew in like warm beer dregs, and we ended up wincing at the words, the meanings, nay, the very sound of her voice roasting him alive in shame and sweat.

Felt fucking good, though.

He came back after ten minutes, red-faced and watery-eyed. He sat and tried to be friendly and nervously playful wi the other classmates an' meself. We couldn't give a fuck; we were having none of it.

Twenty minutes later and he were back to normal. And the whole time he's looking at me like "I undermined your authority and you know it, bitch".

I couldn't send him out again – I wanted him to sit and suffer in eternal damned torment. So me and other kids played Monopoly – chosen cos it's his favourite game – while he had to sit in the corner, facing the wall, and not say a word. And he had the fucking balls to say "I'm telling my mum", the little cunt.

"Yeah? Please do – I'd love a five minute chat with her," I replied nicely. He shut right up. I got little smiles from three of the others, and the one student I've been working on to make him speak fert last three weeks looked at me and said: "I go to same school as he. I talk to her later."
"You're getting an A today," I winked. We played on. He whinged. We didn't care.

On the bright side, I'm Jack Sparrow. Things can't be all bad, I spose. Still waiting to see Pirates 2 though – all cinemas are full till Christmas over here.



Which Pirates of the Caribbean character are you?

Soopytwist.

Tags:
students ~ Bruce Campbell ~ X-Files ~ Al Pacino ~ Devil's Advocate ~ Cantonese ~ English ~ teacher ~ Monopoly ~ POTC2