@ A GOOD DAY AT SCHOOL

# By Andrew Campbell 1994


 Danny Hunter wasn't a popular kid. Nor was he a shy outcast. He had 
his own little circle of friends with whom he liked to hang around and
his relationship with the teachers - including Mr Harrison - was 
notably clean and stable.
 Katie Helens had been allocated a seat next to his. Both kids were 
the most talented students in the class and had been assigned the
joint task of preparing an atmospheric background painting for the
lower-school's drama recreation of "Jack and the Beanstalk". 
 It was an enjoyable job of drawing thick green leaves and swirling
trunks across rough, brush-splintering chip-board. The sheet of wood
was enormous and would overlook the entire stage once complete.
 Katie was secretly writing her initials in the paint where ever she 
dared. Danny was giggling at her amusing game, yet neither of them had
spoken a word to each other.
 Katie Helens was a thin, ghostly girl. She had wiry, uncombed blonde
hair that lashed out in all directions. Her school uniform was baggy
and untucked and a pair of blue-rimmed National Health spectacles were
balancing precariously on the tip of her freckled nose.
 Danny knew she was also a lonely girl, constantly harassed by her
peers for being a "square, ugly little scruff".
 But Danny knew better. He knew she was far from what her peers had
labelled her. Quiet, shy and not the best looking young girl in the
world, perhaps, but "square, ugly and scruffy"? No way.
 It was getting near to Home Time now, and the stability of the class 
of over twenty five children was slowly but surely converting sides...
from law to chaos.
 Donald Beswick, an enormous ginger-haired boy, broke the ice by 
walking over to the classroom waste basket. When Beswick made a
non-teacher-influenced move the class had come to assume, you could do
basically anything you wanted.
 When Beswick began to sharpen his pencil over the dustbin, a real
classroom nightmare began.

 The bin was directly behind the chair on which Katie Helens was sat.
(Thinking through the happenings some days later, Danny would realise
the horrible irony - Katie Helens, scruff, filthy, ugly bitch, sitting
by the dustbin where she belongs). Beswick moved in so close to Katie
that both she and Danny (who was also very much aware of the evil
presence at that time) held back their giggles - not without a lot of
effort - and pretended to concentrate on their painting.
 Danny was just filling in a leaf when Katie drew in breath. Her once 
sharp and precise hold on her paint-brush deteriorated; globdules of 
paint, rather than neat waves, soaked into the chipboard.
 Danny, every last giggle stolen from him, stared at Katie, puzzled.
 Beswick was leaning over her left shoulder, examining her work with 
what seemed to be great curiosity. His left hand was rested harmlessly
on the table. His right, however, was clenched into a fist.
 Danny realised Beswick was stabbing his freshly sharpened pencil into
Katie's bottom through the lower gap in her chair.
 At first Danny remained still, his eyes fixed on the horror of what
he could see. There it was - the half-submerged point of the pencil. 
It had gone through Katie's skirt, definitely her underpants, and it
just HAD to be digging into her flesh.
 Yet she didn't scream. She continued to work, face reddening, lips
tightening.
 Danny said, "You're hurtin' her." 
 A few heads dotted around the classroom rose up wondrously, but 
Danny hadn't attracted the majority of the crowd. Not Yet.
 Beswick twisted the pencil. The girl shuddered. Her glasses slipped
from her nose and landed lense-down on top of her wet, half-finished
Beanstalk.
 "No," Beswick whispered to Danny, smiling wickedly. "You're hurtin'
her, freak face."
 Katie's eyes closed tightly and her teeth fell together. The needle-
sharp pencil twisted once more. This time, Katie released a feeble 
sob and whispered, "Ouch... o-ouch..."
 "Why're you doin' that?" Danny said softly, unable to understand.
 Beswick, all teeth, said, "Why not? She's just an ugly, specky tart."
 "She's not!" Danny exclaimed, eyes big and round.
 "If you don't quit talkin," Beswick whispered, his mouth hardly 
moving at all, "I'll jam the stupid thing in her eye-"
 "YOU WON'T EVER!" Danny screamed and shot to his feet. Paint pots,
brushes and paper towels flew across the table, smashing, exploding,
causing random gasps and yells.
 Something new had happened, something marvellous, something that had 
never happened before: Danny Hunter had his WHOLE classroom's full
attention.

 Mr Harrison, who had been studying intensely at his desk at the 
opposite side of the room, suddenly rose up out of his seat and 
shouted, "What the hell do you think you're doing child?" as though
he'd been anxiously waiting to say the sentence all day.
 Beswick, furious, wrenched the pencil out of Katie's bottom. The girl
shrieked and collapsed onto her painting, crying as quietly and as
discreetly as she could.
 Donald Beswick took a furious step towards Danny and jammed the
pencil into his right cheek. The pencil tore all the way through 
Danny's flesh, the point breaking against one of his molars.
 "BEEEESWIIIICK!" Harrison roared across the classroom. The onlooking
kids began to shout and moan.
 Danny grabbed Beswick's wrists, hard. With the pencil still embedded
in his cheek, he squeezed the boy's veins until his blood ceased to 
flow. Beswick's mouth dropped open like the door of a stove.
 "HUUUNNNTER NOOOO!" shrieked the teacher.
 Danny gritted his teeth, battling with his anger, and slowly
unfastened his vice-like grip on the bully's wrists. Instantly, the
boy shuffled away, hissing and cursing with pain and shock.

                                  *

 Danny sat alone on a wooden bench in the school yard with his head
clasped in both hands. He had a huge, skin-coloured plaster on his
right cheek.
 He was staring at the gravel, thinking about the strange anger that 
had come over him whilst he'd crushed Beswick's wrists, when all of
a sudden, the tips of a pair of small, black shoes came into focus.
 Danny looked up and saw Katie Helens staring down at him. He noticed
immediately that she'd taken her glasses off. She wasn't a princess 
but she was very pretty, Danny thought.
 Katie said quickly, "Thanks-very-much-I-think-you're-really-special
-and-I-just-wondered...", she took a deep breath and briefly closed 
her eyes before resuming, "...if-you'd-like-to-come-to-my-house-for-
tea-tommorow-but-if-you-don't-want-it's-really-fine-"
 "Tea?" Danny said. "Are you serious?"
 Katie shrugged, "Doesn't matter. I just wondered." She began to walk
away, her legs working over-time and her little pink rucksack jiggling
furiously over her shoulder.
 "Hey," Danny stood up. "Hey wait, I'll... I'll come. I'd like to."
 Katie stopped and turned around. "You would?" she grinned mightily.
 "Sure I would."
 "Oh wow!" Katie clapped her hands. "I thought you'd say no. I thought
you'd just laugh at me."
 "I wouldn't do that."
 The two kids were quiet for a moment, searching each other's eyes; in
Danny's, Katie found care and affection. In Katie's, Danny found hope
and excitement... but also uncertainty.
 "That Beswick is a real bastard face." Katie swore in an attempt to 
impress Danny.
 Danny responded with a little laugh. "Yeah. He hasn't touched me 
since last week. He's scared of me."
 They both laughed at that.
 "It was a good day, wasn't it?" Katie giggled.
 "Yeah." Danny nodded. He asked her to sit down on the bench with him
but she blushed and politely refused.
 "You know..." she indicated her bottom pitifully. "It still hurts."
 They laughed some more.