Writing Prompt 39: School Room
Test Paper
Lessons, classrooms, teachers (the good and the bad), the lunch hall, toilets, showers after PE, uniforms, the bully, the cool and the overlooked. I’m pretty certain no one needs any prompting to remember their own school days whether positive or not.
Spend a moment looking at the photograph above. Imagine standing (or sitting) in this space. Who else is with you? What can you hear? How does your body feel? Should you be here at all? Perhaps you are the one standing at the big desk facing the class. Write from there.
If you need some further support in helping you find your way, read these two posts from the Journal:
A Writing Exercise by Lynda Barry
Until next time.
The desk in front of Twyla lay empty. Daniel wasn't at school today. Twyla sighed, a strand of hair fluttering in her breath.
The test paper underneath her hands gleamed in the soft morning light, the numbers and equations taunting her in front of her eyes. A breeze tickled the skin on her arms as it blew through the open window.
"You have one hour to complete the paper in front of you. You may start...now."
Mrs Wilkinson walked around the large desk in front of the class before sitting down firmly. Test papers rustled around the room and fifteen heads, bent in concentration, began to read.
Twyla held a spider in her hand letting it walk over her fingertips. The spider spun a thin silk thread from her index finger, abseiling down to the edge of her desk. She watched it run along the side, down the desk leg and across the floor before disappearing into a small hole in the wall.
Twyla sighed again and turned over the test paper. She pushed the sharp point of her pencil into her palm. She glanced at the first question before turning her head again to look out of the window.
The thwack of a ruler on her desk made her jump. Twyla’s heart thudded in her chest and a flush of fear bloomed pink in her face. She lifted her head. Mrs Wilkinson stared down at her, her eyes blinking over the top of her small reading spectacles.
"I realise you are not the brightest spark in this room," she said with a hiss, spittle collecting in the corner of her mouth. "But I do expect you to pay full attention and to, at the very least, try."
Twyla turned her pencil between her fingers.
"Where's Daniel?" she said.
"Daniel won't be at school anymore."
The teacher tapped the end of her ruler on Twyla's test paper as she walked away. Twyla pursed her lips and stared again out of the window.
Story first posted in December 2019 // Photo: Tanya Clarke 2016 - school room in the town of Calico, California
