Fire Drill

"Where we go sir?"

Keys fumbling
Bells ringing
Kids swarming out the exits,
I hear his words above the voices:

I look up and clock the new boy I'd forgot -
"This way; follow me!" I say with
practiced authority, trying to remember
where the hell we're meant to be.

A second glance, his shirt untucked
and tie askew - his face
matter of factly stating I don't know
or care particularly what we're meant to do...

He ponders: "Is it real?"

Well, there's a thought I think,
as I usher him through doors and
out onto the brink of the playing field,
towards where I think our muster station is
lost in a mass of animated uniforms.

The swarm in excitations, spilling in
streams with shrieks and screams, like escaping animals or migratory birds, flapping in
wild herds.

The staff clutching form sheet registers like
white flags waving in the wind - I look behind
and the boy is gone again...lost in the crowd.

Slightly perturbed I halt,
A mild panic as if on the deck of
a soon to be shipwrecked ship without
an extra, in a movie of a real shipwreck.

He reappears from behind a passing line of Year Nines, not in the least bit bothered, glancing
casually this way and that, taking it
in before catching me up.

"Right, line up in twos
Alphabetical order- silence, I've warned you.
Shirt in and shut up or your card-I know
life is hard."

And standing in silence after the whistle blows
I recite the register like a prayer of sorts
that with some prompting is actually answered -
the new boy's voice says: "Here." then "Present" and he is.
"Is it real?" he repeats again, imagining somewhere in the Science Block a curling
flame and I think to myself,
I suppose it is...