Ram Goat
Last time you may recall I was caught reading what back then was termed ‘illicit material’ in school an offence punishable by suspension. The little rat that turned me in was one of Angel’s admirers, it turned out, a guy who worked hard to gain her favour for some time I was told but got nowhere. Yes the slime was Luther!
The thought that I Brian a virtual nobody, a recluse and a hermit of no mean order, was able to engage Angel in conversation for much longer than one second, made me smile in the face of my imminent damning circumstances. I felt less concerned about the fate I was destined to suffer by the end of that day but more about how small, unimportant and worthless Luther must have felt whenever Angel rolled those beautiful big brown eyes away from him and walked off to a more comfortable space.
I was in Ms Francis’ geography class looking intent and participating in a session on the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone), don’t ask me what that means today but I remember the discussion and seeing the headmaster walk up to Ms Francis and whisper into her left ear. I pretended to be cool, to be unconcerned with the busy headmaster who loved the sound of his own voice, being in my class whispering to my geography teacher. I kept up the pretence by burying my head in my exercise book and scribbling some gibberish down to look keen on the subject. Unfortunately all of that drama was to no effect as both Ms Francis and the headmaster looked up over the heads of most of the guys in front across to me in the back row and the headmaster invited me to follow him to his office. For a split second the earth stood still, I was out of breath, I couldn’t see, nor hear, nor smell nor touch my desk…I had lost all my senses and just sat there in some rare form of paralysis yet to be discovered.
It wasn’t long before the headmaster realised he was walking down the corridor alone and he shot back into the class poised to bellow my name for the entire school to hear it. Luckily for me I had overcome the ‘paralysis’ and made it to the threshold where he met me and jumped slightly at the sight of me standing there. The thought of me witnessing the almighty headmaster jumping out of his skin infuriated him and he barked at me to get my backside to his office on the double. I realised very quickly I had done myself no favours and was probably going to suffer the full extent of his authority for the Playboy reading offence.
I managed to get to the headmaster’s office before him but there was no reward; his secretary motioned me to a seat close to his office. The wall opposite must have brought him much pride as it boasted photographs of him and several island scholarship awardees. Beneath them were a few sterling silver trophies for basketball, athletics and volleyball won by very talented previous students.
Before I could get comfortable with my surroundings I heard the loud pitter patter of the short stocky Caucasian headmaster Father Mathew making his entrance. I knew it was my judgement day come on earth and I thought…Life Sucks!!! Ram Goat
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