Page 11 - My Home on the Earth

confusion for every new student. Bell One summoned them to get inside the building. With no cloakrooms, students carried their belongings from room to room. Bell Two signalled registration with their form tutor. Absent students received a late mark. Bell Three signalled students going into the first lesson, and a fourth bell rang at the end of the lesson to vacate the room, followed by a scrummage to get to the next classroom to another lesson before another bell rang. Seventh-year students didn’t know if they were coming or going. Elise thought that someone was watching them and pressed the button on purpose to send them backwards instead of forwards, giving rise to the dreaded late mark. She was quick to suggest an alternative: students remain in one classroom and tutors respond to the bell.
Students generally gave their tutors a nickname and it took ages to get used them. Miss Kilroy, alias Killjoy, rarely smiled and whenever Elise hurried past, the teacher glared at her. Why does Killjoy find young people so disagreeable? wondered Elise. She thought it might be because Cara had been at odds with her since last September when a new reading policy was introduced and couldn’t be avoided.
Miss Kilroy, Cara’s form tutor, was head of the maths department. Issues had festered between them for months after Cara forgot to bring a reading book. During a lesson one day, Killjoy had suddenly announced the class must take out their reading books and read for twenty minutes. Cara had forgotten her book and began reading a dictionary, but eagle-eyed Killjoy spotted it and issued her
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