The Tale of Joe Badtoe (Chapter.1)

I was a scruffy 12 year old boy from a relatively poor family living in a world of my own and happily oblivious to my surroundings, particularly when in school. I had little interest in most subjects apart from English and PE. I loved sport be it running, cricket or playing football and I enjoyed writing mainly short poems, particularly just before Valentines day when boys would que up and pay me money to write love poems they could put in their Valentine’s cards.

Our school was one of the smallest and poorest in the County and we were low down the table (under the table probably) of intellectual potentials. The teachers always seemed bored and disinterested in the kids who showed little potential, which was most of us. I used to look at my classmates and wondered if any of us were destined for great things before silently laughing at such a suggestion. Every day was the same, no sparks and very little sign of life. We were sloths sloping off our chairs like syrup falling off a spoon.

Then it happened… (well for majority of the boys) A new student teacher appeared in front of us. She was a 21 year old woman from France who spoke perfect English AND SHE WAS GORGEOUS!!

I still remember the collective gasp as she entered the classroom all the boys were hooked all the girls were envious and we were all stunned into silence. She said her name (Sabrine) the girls sighed. I imagined all the girls going home that day asking their parents why they were given factory reset names.  She was quite tall, tanned skin, piercing blue eyes and long dark shiny hair.  The boys were too busy trying to stop the gulps and stares. There was a collective infatuation among the boys who were still gobsmacked. The girls rolled their eyes, especially 'Jucy Lucy' who was the best looking girl in our class (according to Lucy). She didn't expect to be knocked of her self made perch so soon into a new term. Meanwhile the pathetic pack of smitten boys were convincing themselves that Sabrine would pick a favourite amongst us. We came out of our stupor quite quickly when Ms Sabrine (we only remember her first name that was all we boys needed to know) dived straight into handing us a written project.

‘I would like you all to write a short story no more than three paragraphs and the story should be based on a surreal adventure’. I think there was probably 3 out of the 20 kids in the class that had a base meaning of what surreal meant. Sabrine saved the floundering (ie most of the class), by explaining that surreal means dreamlike imagination which can be open to interpretation and free to be whatever you want it to be. If that wasn’t difficult enough, she added that the story should have an element of art imitating life or vice versa. The look on majority of faces in the class was like posing for a school photo just after we’d all been told our parents had perished! There were no smiles just complete bewilderment. Sabrine tried to explain what she meant and said ‘try to think of something that’s not happened in your life but you dream about it until it comes true’. Only the bright kids smiled, the rest of us were wishing we could be somewhere else.

I suspected 99% of the boys had already made up a fantasy about falling in love with a French teacher. There was a boy in our class who looked much older than us, we called him Jethro because of his red cheeks and rough agriculture features. He was the first to ask Sabrine a question which was ‘Miss Submarine, who was Sir Real?’ a few of us laughed pretending that we were not thinking the same. Sabrine thought it was funny and was convinced that Jethro was trying to be funny. He never got an answer. This rendered Jethro even more confused.

To be cont..

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