2570. The last ostrich

This, children, is the last ostrich on the planet. They used to be a not uncommon bird in zoos and in the wild. There were even ostrich farms. But since the Long Neck Virus became prevalent it utterly decimated the ostrich population as well as the giraffes.

Yes, Nathan? “Prevalent” means they were common. Yes, I know I should use easier words if they are available. There’s no need for you to get pestiferous.

Somehow this ostrich here was impervious to the Long Neck Virus. He or she – I never know with ostriches – seemed to just carry on with life while all around it other ostriches collapsed and died.

Brian, stop hitting Sarah. You were. I saw you. You were poking her with that ostrich leg bone.

We are very lucky to have seen an ostrich alive, albeit the last in existence. It’s something you will be able to tell your own children and grandchildren about. In fact children, we will be the last people on the planet ever to have seen an ostrich alive. This after several million years of humans wandering the plains of Africa along with ostriches. Yes children! You are the last to see a living ostrich.

BANG! There! History has unfolded before you. Jeremiah, I’ve told you before when we saw the now extinct Somes Island Tufted Titmouse – don’t be greedy, take only one feather.

2551. Chemistry! Yawn!

Mr. Thomas Bonnington had the reputation of being the most boring teacher in the school – and he knew it. He taught Chemistry. You knew that the pupils who were yawning in his class were the few who weren’t asleep.

It came as a great relief to the class – and to Mr. Bonnington – when Sebastian Wyatt put his hand up in the air and asked, “What is the most efficient and undetectable chemical to use in a murder?”

The class woke up. Mr. Thomas Bonnington was pleased that at last someone had expressed an interest in Chemistry. In fact, he spent the whole class on it in considerable detail. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to teach a class that was alert. May he rest in peace.

2523. Cooking class

Margaret was an excellent cook, and so should she be as she was the cooking teacher at the local high school. She had just been employed and was excited to begin. Cooking had been introduced into the curriculum for both boys and girls because these days with both parents working it was easier to leave cooking lessons up to a teacher. After all, it was a school!

The school wasn’t riddled with multitudinous ovens, so cooking classes were restricted to fourteen pupils at one time using the ovens and the rest of the class creating a cold salad or dessert.

On the first class Margaret ran into trouble. There were fourteen boys and twelve girls. She decided to run a little competition: boys versus girls. The boys at first were given the task of making a cold salad. The girls were to make cookies of their choice from a pile of recipes. All went well.

“When you’re ready for the oven,” said Margaret, “don’t forget to set the timer. It will take about thirty minutes. When you are done, it’s the boys’ turn.

Pandemonium erupted after thirty minutes. The timer alarms all went off at different times. No one knew whose alarm was whose. Some girls’ cookies hadn’t cooked; other girls’ cookies were burnt.

Then it was the boys turn. Everything came out perfectly. Their cookies were perfection itself. The boys won the day!

Wesley was pleased with his new-learned skill; he could adjust girls’ timers and oven temperatures without anyone noticing.

2489. Guest Alien

It was terribly exciting. Sydney had never seen an alien from another planet before, and now one was coming to speak to his class at school. He had all sorts of questions to ask. He just hoped he’d be allowed to ask more than one question.

The day arrived! The hour arrived! The alien arrived!

The alien invited the children to call him Herman because his real name was unpronounceable to Earthlings and besides Herman was made up of Her and Man which was good because the planet he came from didn’t have boys and girls.

Natalie asked how come they had babies if they didn’t have boys and girls. Most in the class didn’t have much of a clue what she was asking about. Willie wanted to know what the weather was like on the planet and did they have any pollution.  Angela asked if they had horses because she had a pony called Marco and she wouldn’t want to go to the alien’s planet if they didn’t have horses. Not big horses, like race horses, but small ones like Marco. And Marco was white. And Natalie had been given it by her parents for her eighth birthday. She liked horses and her friend, Christobelle had one of those miniature horses that…

Herman couldn’t keep still. It was like he had ants in his pants. He walked up and down. Up and down.  As he passed where Sydney was sitting, Sydney did a terrible thing; he poked the alien with a sharp pencil.

Herman went POP! and that was the end of that.

2437. A paradigm of pedagogy

(Pre-note: I’m not overly happy with this story because it’s too political, but I’m old and tired and will post it so as to get on with writing more murderous ones).

Evangeline was a highly qualified school teacher. She (pronoun of choice) was, to say the least, a state-of-the-art teacher. What she didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing. How she taught was the paradigm of pedagogy.

Persons! Persons! she would say. We are coming into Summer Time and there’s a mnemonic to help us remember. Spring back; Fall forward. It will tell us how to reset your phones. Say it together: Spring back; Fall forward. Or is it the other way around? Who cares? The phone company will change it for you automatically without your needing to do a thing.

Now for the calendar. Thirty days has September, August, March, and December. It’s something like that but facts don’t really matter so long as you know when your birthday is.

Now I will give you a little lesson in memorizing things. Always rhyme a word in your head. You will remember the rhyme and won’t forget the thing you have to remember. For homework I want you to make a list of every naughty word you can think of. Tomorrow we will make a combined list and find words that rhyme with them. That way you will remember them. There is to be no help from parents, is that clear?

Now, finally, Cornelius found a prophylactic on the patio. Yes Warwick? What is it?

Warwick: What’s a patio?

Evangeline: Never mind about such things, Warwick. I want you to go out into the corridor and tell the white kids they can come in now. But first, would everyone move over to the other side of the room.

2423. A memorable performance

Bronwyn hired a bubble machine for her class’s stage performance. It was “Grandparents’ Day” at school. The children were to stage a little play to entertain the grandparents. When the performance was over they would have a cup of coffee made of course by the class.

One of the exciting things Bronwyn had done with the class was to make stilts. During the play all the children had mastered stilt walking and would do a little dance. It was quite safe as the stilts weren’t very high.

The curtains opened! The play began! The bubble machine began to shower the stage with glorious bubbles. There wasn’t a grandparent who didn’t ooh and aah. It was time for the stilt dancers to enter.

Oh dear! The soapy bubbles had made the floor very slippery. Three stilt walkers slipped and broke legs. Grandpa Ned went up on stage to rescue them. He slipped and did his hip in. Bronwyn rushed on stage to turn the bubble machine off. She slipped and broke her wrist.

All in all it was a very memorable performance. Coffee was cancelled.

2218. The chemist

Have you heard of the communist tyrant responsible for millions of deaths?  He was a chemist and at some stage, after lurking anonymously in the background of power, was able to poison three quarters of the population. No one knew who he was but it was believed that the person was still alive and perhaps living in luxury.

Which brings me to a simpler scene: an ordinary chemistry class at school. Young Harry has asked his chemistry teacher a simple question. Ms Braxton was a tyrannical chemistry teacher. She was to be feared. Not one of her pupils learnt Chemistry out of love; they learnt it out of fear. Ms Braxton had been teaching Chemistry for so long that several generations had passed through the school despising Chemistry. Rumour had it that she knew who the tyrannical communist chemist was; perhaps even she had taught the murderous persecutor.

Young Harry’s question was simply this: Why does bread go brown when it is toasted? Ms Braxton had explained that the starch under heat reflected light to the right (“dextra” was the Latin word for “right” so the brown bit was called dextrin). That made the toast look brown. It’s why the crust on a loaf of bread is brown.

Ms Braxton certainly knew her stuff. She was very learned. She lived alone in a very big house and drove a very expensive car. The question young Harry (and most of the impressionable teenagers in the class) really wanted to ask was “How come you’re so rich?” In fact, he did ask her. She got very angry and told him to mind his own business. Her reaction was certainly proof of something don’t you think?

1991. Alien Class

Okay Class, now settle down. Good morning.

This is the third introductory class to life on Planet Earth. To think that it’s only five months before you begin your “visitation” to Earth, so we have lots and lots of work to do.

Today’s topic could be construed as being a little sensitive; at least the humans on Earth might regard it as being sensitive. It’s about a function they have or do that we simply don’t have. Nature has evolved us in a complexly different direction. We expel waste in a hygienic, constant, and unnoticeable way through what the Earthings would call our “skin”. The Earthlings however expel waste through a completely different process called…

Excuse me, Hottopius. Just settle down. I’m not telling you this for your entertainment…

Yes, Gloteressa? You have a question? You have been reading about it? You know all about it already? What is it you’ve read about?…

No! No! Gloteressa! That’s not how it happens; not how it happens at all! Goodness knows where you dug that up from. That’s not how they expel waste on Earth. Not in the slightest. The person who wrote that is living in La-la land.

Usually humans will leave, and sometimes rush from, the room away from others and go into a little cubicle reserved specifically for this function. It’s extremely private, which is why we know so little about it. Constipolorus, our great scientist, hid a camera in a cubicle and recorded what exactly went on. So we now know a thing or two. The video of activity I’m afraid I can’t show you because it is classified material, but I can perhaps describe it for you in detail…

Yes, Buckanorsis? You what? You’ve seen the videos? You saw the videos on Disgracebook? What did you think?…

Disgusting? You thought it disgusting? Well I’m not surprised. And if in five months you are to make a “visitation” to Planet Earth then you had better get used to what humans do in that little cubicle. Everyone there does it. It’s part of what happens on their planet.

You have a question, Blubberteria? Yes! Yes! You’re right. I was about to say by what names the expulsion of waste materials by humans goes under. They have many different words for it – such is the sacredness (or should I perhaps say secretness?) of the process. The most common expression I believe is “heave your guts out”. Some books refer to it as “psychedelic chunder”. Others simply say “throw up”.

Here’s what I want you to do before next class: take your Roget’s and dictionaries and make a list of all the words and phrases that Earthlings use to describe this fascinating private cubicle activity.

Class dismissed.

1976. First class

It was the first class that Owen had ever taught as a qualified teacher. He had spent a few years getting a university degree and passing the required training at Teachers’ College. He had no trouble finding employment. He would teach English to High School students.

Discipline was the catch cry. Discipline! Let the students get away with murder and they’ll be murdering the teacher for the rest of the teacher’s career. Be stern – at least for the first week or two. Owen was well prepared. He was nervous, but having thoroughly prepared lessons lessens the unpredictability of the classroom. He would walk into the classroom and announce work! Work! Work! Work! Let the students know from the beginning that he meant business.

Owen strode into the room carry a class set of “King Lear”. After introducing himself, he would hand each student a copy of “King Lear” and say “Turn to page 24”.

The teacher’s desk was on a small rostrum. Owen tripped on the rostrum step, fell, and threw the pile of twenty-two books into the air. The students roared with laughter. Owen himself laughed! After all his preparation and that happened!

The students saw him laugh. Yes! He was a jolly good fellow. He enjoyed his first class. He never had any problem ever with class discipline. Teachers who can laugh rarely do.

1879. Really, really dumb

Let’s face it: Melvyn was dumb. Even his teacher, who tried her best to be nice, thought he was dumb. “Your child is dumb,” she said to Melvyn’s parents. “Really, really dumb.” It made no difference, because Melvyn took after his parents. They were dumb too.

His teacher would spend half an hour explaining to her students why grass was green, and at the end of all this Melvyn would put up his hand and ask, “Miss, why is grass green?” Not just dumb, but aggravating. Away with the fairies.

His exercise books were incomprehensible. They were a mess of doodles and numbers. Call that arithmetic? Goodness gracious! The sooner this child left school and got a job clearing the city’s sewerage system the better.

Then one day, Melvyn put up his hand and asked the teacher, “What happens if, when you loop one quantum particle around another, you don’t get back to the same quantum state?”

The teacher told Melvyn to get back to doing his work.

Let’s face it: the teacher was dumb. Even Melvyn, who tried his best to be nice, thought she was dumb. “My teacher is dumb,” Melvyn said to his parents. “Really, really dumb.”

And indeed she was – in more ways than one.