Rest of story:

At this moment, into the cloud walks Mr. Creed, our stocky, no-nonsence Maths teacher - fatally, fatally late to the lesson to be greeted by three children caked to the hilt in talcum powder and the rest of the class in hysterics. By this point I had disposed of the bag in the bin - evidence!)

That is certainly something they don't prepare you for in teacher training. Soon it was over as quickly as it began. The culprits obvious, evacuation is obvious and we are frogmarched as one (slightly powdered) entity to an empty classroom down the corridor. Mr Creed sends them straight to the caretaker's cupboard to get cleaning items.

I should stop here, the revenge should have stopped here, but there was just one final thing I couldn't have hoped for or planned that was the crowning moment.

And this was it: Sam and Tanya were sent off to the caretaker's cupboard near reception the other side of our (vaguely t-shaped) school. The staff were unimpressed: they were issued with cloths, spray ... and a vacumn cleaner. And not just any vacumn cleaner. Who else but Henri?

Sam (being the boy I guess) was the one who carred the bright red Henri round the T-Shape, through our block and up three flights of stairs back to maths) You remember I said he was big on pride, a bit of a snob? My revenge, not physical or malicious, got him where it hurt the most - his image and ego. The thought of Sam 'I'm middle class will have a BMW by the time I'm 18 I just don't do common' Farly, bearing Henri aloft, still absolutely covered in talcum powder from his hair to his Kickers going through the school being stared at by fellow pupils is one that I shall treasure always.

I got to see something of it by sneaking back to the classroom later on the pretence of having left something behind. It was Matt on windows, Tanya on tables and Sam ... Sam just wasn't letting Henri go and was busy vacumning. The best bit? Henri had come with no nozzle attachment, so all Sam had was the end metal tube - being flailed uselessly up and down the generic fuzzy brown classroom carpet like a postmodern javelin. The talcum powder was thick, it was settled and it was *fragranced* - it wasn't going anywhere without a fight. It had gone all over Sam, but it wasn't going up Henri.

Being a good helpful friend, what could I do? I shut the door, left them to it, and burst out laughing. I'll leave them there and shut the door on this part of my past. We didn't have much of a maths lesson after that ... another bonus. I suppose I was the most suspicious, as I was laughing the hardest. But no, no one ever suspected quiet, hard-working little me, and I was never to this day found out.

Thank you if you stayed with my story this long, and for allowing me to briefly relive one of my best days in school. I would do it again tomorrow - only next time I would take pictures.

* No names were changed in the writing of this story.
(treaclebriggs, Thu 14 May 2009, 21:59, Reply)