.


Classroom monitors were used by primary schools to keep the classrooms in order while the teachers went off to the staff room to smoke.
Conveniently, it also allowed them to force children, on a rota, to tidy up, under the clever guise of “teaching responsibility.”
Being seven years old, I wasn’t up to much critical analysis of the British education system, but I knew that allowing two aliens to become classroom monitors was not very responsible.
Of course, teachers never believe you.
“Those new kids, they’re aliens,” I would inform.
“Well, yes they are, because if something is alien it means that is has come from—”
“No, really, they’re real aliens. From space.”
“Oh, really?”
At this point, the teachers voice drops a few octaves when she talks. The transition between talking to a possibly intelligent child to talking to the possibly insane child.
“I’ve seen them. They have weird bodies.”
“Now Matthew,” she would say, dropping a few more octaves, “we don’t look at peoples bodies. That is wrong and bad.”
She’s pointing the accusing finger at me. I would have articulated that I was not a pervert and that I’d seen them morphing from bizarre, globular forms into more human forms if I had been capable.
At the time, I stuck out my bottom lip and plotted against the aliens.
As soon as I got outside, however, I was hit in the groin by a football. This was initiation into the game. As soon as I found out who kicked it, I joined the opposing team and played for revenge.

Following the break, there was a lesson, followed by the lunch break.
The current game we were playing was Hide Thomas, which involved forcing the fat kid, Thomas, into an unlikely place and telling him not to move or we’d steal his underpants again.
We would then retreat and discuss which would happen first. He would emerge in pure terror, or a teacher would find him.
He was currently hiding in a bin, with his head poking out of the top. Many months we had played this cruel, but horribly entertaining game, and so being attacked by wasps was having little effect on him.
During our discussion, we looked across the playground at him and laughed. We turned to face each other, talked for a moment more and looked back.
The aliens were there.
My group of friends fell silent, none of them comprehending how they could have moved so fast without us seeing them.
Then I remembered.
“Guys, those two people are aliens.”
“Oh my goodness!”
“Oh yeah.”
And that’s how the resistance was born. The aliens would not win.
They were talking to Thomas and looking over at us, and flapping away the wasps. They were forever serious, which, to us, was a very adult aspect.
This was not the only reason I knew they were aliens, of course.
After they had finished interrogating Thomas, they slowly walked over to us.
A boy and a girl, they were, almost identical in appearance, apart from the hair and slight variations in build.
“Why is Thomas in the bin?” asked the boy.
“We’re playing Hide Thomas,” I said, being the bold leader.
The girl looked back at Thomas, his fat little head still poking out the top of the bin.
“He’s not very well hidden, is he?” she said, in flat tones.
My brow furrowed, as did my comrades.
“So?”
“So are you not very good at this game?”
“Um.”
We had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. I presumed she thought the goal of Hide Thomas was to hide him and not, as we thought, to inflict maximum discomfort (on Thomas) for maximum amusement (for us).
Definitely an alien.
They said nothing more and walked off. Out of earshot, we began feverishly discussing them.
“Definitely aliens,” said Brian.
“Brian,” I said, “you’re my second in command.”
He beamed.
“Oh yeah, definitely aliens!” chimed in Louis.
“Louis,” I said, “you’re my third in command.”
“Yeah, aliens,” said Thomas.
We turned and looked at him in silence.
“Thomas,” I said.
He waddled away hurriedly.

The lesson following lunch was loosely termed “art”. Everyone was given a large amount of paper, some watercolours and a brush and water. Paint was largely optional.
This was effectively a license to arse around in the name of artistic freedom.
I sauntered across the classroom to my second in command, Brian.
“Brian,” I said, “find out what the aliens are up to.”
He put his brush down carefully and looked at the paper he was painting on. He had a picture of his mother being hanged by what I presumed was the grim reaper. Either that, or Brian envisaged his mothers end at the prongs of a coat stand.
“Roger,” he said quietly.
With that, he pushed his seat back and began to crawl under the table, to my horror. That wasn’t the plan! He was supposed to walk over and pretend he wanted to borrow something.
Just before he was out of reach, I grabbed him by the ankle. He jerked his leg forward without realising it, pulling me sharply forward and bringing my head into hard contact with the table. I let go of his ankle and fell backwards into his chair, which slid backwards with me. My fall was slowed by the chair, but the chair slid further away and I fell off the chair, banging the back of my head on the floor.
Brian had turned under the table and was looking at me sprawled out on the floor.
“What’re you doing?”
I managed to push myself up to my elbows and looked at Brian. He was looking at me with arched eyebrows.
“Get out,” I said.
“Get up,” the teacher said. Telepathically, I tried to communicate with Brian.
“Stay there,” I projected.
“What were you doing on the floor?”
I struggled up to the chair, my head swimming. I would have guessed that being hit on the front and the back of the head would have cancelled out the pain. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
“Urghh,” I said.
The teacher glared at me, swaying on Brian’s chair. Despite my obviously degraded mental state, I had to hide the fact Brian was under the table.
Being under tables was a very suspicious activity and the aliens would instantly know we were up to something. Not that I wanted Brian under there in the first place, hence I tried to stop him. In the mean time, I had to cover up.
I pulled the chair closer to the desk and picked up the paintbrush at what I hoped was the correct end.
It was not.
“Is this your painting, Matthew?”
“Mm,” I articulated, adjusting the paintbrush in my hand slowly. The pain in my head was beginning to subside. My eyes widened as I realised what the teacher was looking at.
I was planning to destroy Brian’s painting while he walked casually over to the aliens. Psychoanalysis was fun, but I couldn’t afford to lose Brian, so I was going to protect him. Now the picture was mine.
“Is this what I think it is?” she asked, lowering her voice.
“Art is open to all kinds of interpretation,” I replied, using her own statements about art against her.
“I am interpreting this as a picture of your mother being hanged by the grim reaper.”
I groaned. She’s interpreted it properly. I kicked Brian under the table, and spoke to cover up his yelp.
“Actually, she’s hanging a coat.”
“Hanging a coat.”
“Yes, that grim reaper is actually a coat stand. It’s represented as a grim reaper because.. it’s so hard.. to hang coats on..”
“So why does your mother have a rope around her neck with her tongue sticking out?”
I begin searching the very depths of my soul for an answer.
“That.. is.. because.. it’s so tall, she needs a rope to hang coats.. with. Like a pulley system! The tongue is out because it’s such hard work.”
I felt my appointment with the psychologist slip away.
“Why are her eyes dangling out of her head?”
“Er.”
“Dripping blood.”
“It’s just a.. representation.. of how hard it is to hang coats.. on the coat stand.”
The teacher peers over the paper to glare at me. I’m resting my head on my hand, and fumbling with a paintbrush in the other. I’m still holding it the wrong way round, but I fear if I move, the pain would return.
I smile faintly at her. She places the paper back on the table.
“Very well,” she says.
Phew.
“I can see you’re having financial trouble at home, or your mother is suffering some illness. I’m booking you in for the child psychologist.”
Shit.
“What did you just say?”
“Nothing.”
“You said shit, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Stay inside for tomorrow lunch.”
I looked down at my table.
“Yes, Mrs Benson.”
She stormed off to book me in to the psychologist. I slowly bent to look under the table and told Brian to come out.
He crawled out and stood by the table.
“Why did you grab my ankle?” he asked.
“Because,” I said at length, “I was going to tell you to just walk over and pretend to borrow something so you get a good look at what they were painting.”
Brian bit his thumb nail. “Yes, that sounds like a better plan.”
He turned and quickly began to walk off.
“No!” I said, grabbing him by the arm. His momentum pulled me off my chair and I sprawled out on the floor.
Looking down, he said, “What now?”
“Don’t bother now,” I said, looking up, “we have bigger fish to fry.”
Brian frowned.
“I’m allergic to fish.”


I stood up slowly and walked over to the classroom monitor list. I know it wasn’t me tomorrow, so I had to check who would be in the classroom with me during my dinner time detention.
Wednesday – Sam and Chris.
The aliens.


It was the short afternoon break. Art was over and I had recovered from my massive head trauma by eating several humbugs and by drawing a large explosion on a piece of paper.
I sat with my core members of the resistance.
“I’ve got detention tomorrow dinner for swearing,” I said, “and I’m going to be stuck in the classroom with the aliens.”
Brian gasped.
“Brian,” I said, “you already knew that.”
“Oh yeah.”
Louis looked across he playground.
“That could be a problem. You don’t wanna be alone with them. You don’t know what they could do.”
“Indeed,” I said darkly.
“What’re you gonna do?” asked Brian quietly.
I said nothing while my brain ticked over. It wasn’t up to full speed yet. After a few moments, I raised my head and turned to Brian. A smile grew on my face.
“It’s not what I’m gonna do, it’s what you’re gonna do.”
Brian and Louis raised their eyebrows. My smile grew wider.
“You two have gotta get in detention too.”

The afternoon break finished and we had one more lesson until the end of the school day. This meant we had 3 more lessons until tomorrow lunch break, and we had work to do. Getting a lunchtime detention and nothing more severe was going to be tough. During the break, we discussed the plan.
Brian would be proceeding with the same action I took, swearing. Louis said he had a plan of his own, which he would do tomorrow, so we could avoid suspicion. Louis was clever, I left him to it.
“Brian, we have maths. I want you to answer a question and get it wrong. Then you swear.”
Brian sucked in his bottom lip.
“I’m not very good at maths,” he said.
I looked at him. “That doesn’t matter,” I said slowly, “you have to get the answer wrong.”
“But how do I know what the wrong answer is?”
The end of the break was drawing short, so I decided to take the simple route in navigating Brian’s thought process.
“The wrong answer is 7,” I said.
Brian smiled at me. “You’re so clever, Matt,” he said.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Of course, I did neither. I was a boy, y’know.

Break finished as I began to wonder how Louis was going to get himself detained. We walked back into the classroom, Brian looking nervous.
“Good luck, soldier,” I said to him.
“Thanks, uh, Matt,” he replied.
We took our seats and, after the ritual ten minutes pen finding, book acquiring rites, the maths lesson began.
I was seated far across the classroom from Brian because we usually got up to so much fun when we were together in a dull lesson.
I looked at him and caught his eye. As the class was quietening down at the teachers insistance, he held up a piece of paper for me to see.
On it, in a thick red felt tip pen was written ‘8’. He quickly put the paper back down and gave me a thumbs up, beaming.
I smiled wanly back and gave him a return thumbs up, looking away from his eyes as quickly as I could.
Brian had learning difficulties, apparently. I did my best to cover up for him, help him out and occasionally destroy teachers reports on him. He was often criticised for being lazy and awkward, but we knew full well what would happen if they knew the truth.
Besides, I had an image to maintain. I couldn’t have my best friend going into the special class.
We were doing division, much to my disdain. I had high hopes for maths, but it had so far failed to live up to expectations.
I was holding out for the module about robots before I cast a final judgement, though.
“Thirty divided by three.”
Sam, the female alien, raised her hand.
“Sam,” the teacher said, smiling down on her relatively new, but shining supernova of a student.
“Ten.”
“Correct!” the teacher clapped. Sam acknowledged yet another right answer by blinking her left eyelid. I recoiled in my seat. She blinked again, normally. I looked away before she caught me, but she definitely had blinked wrong.
I would have to inform the others. There could be more we don’t know about.
“Forty divided by two.”
I’d told Brian to draw attention to himself so that she would ask him a question. The entire school career of most pupils involved the tuning of ones body and soul to avoid being asked questions, but few devoted such care and attention to it as I did.
I told Brian to make sharp movements, sit up straight and take a deep breath. He did all of these things.
“Sam.”
Damn.
“Twenty.”
Brian deflated and looked across at me. He was looking worried again. I nodded my head to encourage him.
He nodded back, all worry washing away, replaced with grim determination.
“Well, I can see we’ve almost got division wrapped up, after last lessons introduction. We’ll do some exercises in our book and I will do a final mark for you all.”
My eyes were wide in horror. The plan couldn’t work like this. Brian looked at me and I looked back. I shrugged helplessly.
Brian, desperate, tried one last trick. He did the deep breath.
Taking matters to an extreme, he inhaled something and began coughing violently. It wasn’t an act, but he manipulated it wonderfully, banging his fist on the table a few times, before sitting up and trying to look innocent and inobscure.
The teacher regarded him coldly. She never liked Brian because she never knew he had learning difficulties. She just assumed he was an awkward child.
“I suppose,” she said, “we could try a really hard one before we go to the next level.”
Brian raised his eyes a few times to meet hers, before looking away. Just like I’d taught him.
“Brian,” she said, grinning, “thirty-two divided by.. four.”
He looked down at the paper in front of him and looked up. My brain ticked.
Oh no. He looked down again and looked up at the teacher.
“Er,” he said.
No no no.
“Eight?”
The teacher was silent. She regarded him quietly then continued.
“Correct,” she said.
Brian clenched his fist and screwed up his eyes. Then he froze. He slowly opened his eyes and looked up.
“I.. I am?”
“Yes. Well done,” the teacher replied icily.
Brian unclenched his fists and looked across at me. He was right, so how could he swear in a rage?
I shrugged helplessly again and floundering, Brian acted quickly.
“Arse!” he shouted.
The teacher, who was preparing to find the necessary exercises to bridge us from concept to practise looked at Brian. She was mustering her fury.
My mouth gaped. I looked at Brian in sheer horror. It was the stupidest thing he could have done, it was too obvious.
“Arsing.. yes!” he shouted, raising his fist in the air, looking triumphant for more than one reason. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Brian! Lunchtime detention!”
He instantly looked very sad, and lowered his fist from the air. He kneaded his hands on the table and murmured acknowledgement. I was almost moved to tears by the sheer depth of emotion Brian was exerting.
His bowed head moved slightly, and he winked at me. He was grinning widely and I realised his bowed head was to hide his smile.
We’d done it. Brian was in. Louis could handle his detainment by himself.
I sat back in my chair, breathing a sigh of relief, and got my mind back to the task at hand.
Division. I wrote the answer to the first question down, felt something was missing, and kicked the girl across the table in the shin.


The next day came and before school had begun, I was sitting in the playground waiting for the bell. Most of the kids were milling around, but I was sat still on a wall to a flower bed. Across the front playground, I could see Sam and Chris, also sat down, but on a bench.
A bench. Nobody sat on benches. There were plenty dotted around school, but we’d always find walls, grass, windowsills and victims to sit on. A pre-decided place of sitting was just too easy for us. I kicked my heels against the wall, waiting for Brian and Louis to arrive.
The aliens continued sitting on the bench, much to my chagrin.
As I glared at them, firing laser beams of hate from my eyes, Louis arrived. I saw him coming down the school drive way, his bag weighing him down. He struggled onto the playground, spotted me and sat down on the wall next to me, dropping his bag.
He breathed heavily. I raised my eyebrows at the bag.
“What’s in the bag?”
“School equipment,” he said evasively.
“You’ve gotta get lunchtime detention,” I said.
“I know,” he said coolly.
“By lunchtime.”
He turned and looked at me. I shrugged and turned away. We sat in silence for a while.
“Got your reading book?” asked Louis.
“Oh arse, no, I forgot all about it. What lesson is it?”
“First.”
I bit my thumb.
“I thought you’d forget,” he continued, “so I bought you this.”
He handed me a small book.
I took it off him and smiled. “Thanks, man.”
I turned the plain blue, cloth covered book over in my hand. Seeing no sign of a title, I turned it to read the spine.
It was an atlas.
“Louis,” I said, “this is not a reading book.”
He sighed.
“Yeah, I didn’t really think you’d forget, but you can make it look like you’re reading something at least.”
“As long as she doesn’t see the spine,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Or the pages inside.”
He nodded.
“Or ask me to read anything.”
He was quiet.
“Or—”
“Alright! If you don’t want it I’ll—”
“No no, it’s better than nothing.”
We were quiet once more, both of us casually watching the aliens across the playground. They were sat on the bench, not talking, or moving, or doing the kind of things kids do. Like picking their nose. Or hitting each other. Or spreading..
“..vicious rumours.”
“What?” I said.
“There are vicious rumours that Mary-Anne is a boy.”
“Really.”
I wasn’t very interested in gossip. Especially not when there are aliens to defeat. Louis wasn’t either, but he kept me informed none the less.
Brian passed the school gates and began walking up the drive way, greeting the homeless person who was currently occupying himself stealing the caretakers fence.
The hobo told him firmly to bugger off, and Brian had every intention of doing so. He walked down the drive, across the playground and towards us.
“Hello, Brian,” I said.
“Hey,” said Louis.
“Hello!” said Brian.
I cast a wary over the boy, who was rolling on his heels and watching the birds in the tree behind us. Morning people are always happy.
“Have you got your reading book?” I asked him glumly.
He quickly knelt down and delved into his bag, producing a large, yellow book, which he thrust in my face.
I leant back to get focus.
It was an atlas.
“Yep!”
I turned the book I was holding to show Brian.
“Wow you have an atlas too! They’re really good!”
Before I could muster the will to speak, he began flicking excitedly through his atlas.
“Canada,” he said, “is the second largest country in the world.”
He snapped the atlas shut and looked at me, beaming.
“Isn’t that amazing! You can even find out where Canada is!”
I was too drowsy to speak, so I just rubbed the mark on my forehead from yesterday and let him flick through the atlas again. He thoughtfully pouted, turning a page over slowly, then turning it back. He looked up and around, then pointed behind me.
I turned.
“That way!” he said.
I turned back, slowly.
“That is quite impressive,” said Louis, “he knows where north is without any sort of guide. It’s kind of an instinct people have.”
I was beginning to be impressed.
“Really?”
“Oh yeah,” said Louis, getting into the swing of things, “it’s very rare to have the instinct. Spiderman had it, but Superman didn’t. Even a few eskimos don’t have it.”
“Eskimos?”
“Oh they’re great. They evolved from cats and live on giant icebergs which hover over the north pole.”
I whistled appreciately.
“That is pretty impressive.”
I looked up at Brian, who’s eyes were shining with delight. He’d always hated Superman.
The school bell rang, indicating the teachers had to stop smoking. The ringing startled the homeless person stealing the fence, who fell over backwards, snapping off a length of wood as he did so. He got to his feet and ran off cackling, raising the length of wood over his head as he did so.
After a few moments, I decided to get up and go into school.


Every morning, the head teacher would stand in front of us and preach Christian morals such as  “being kind”, “don’t drop litter” and “stop stabbing each other with freshly sharpened pencils”.
The aliens were, of course, the first to sit down. I milled around, waiting for more of my class to sit before I took a seat on the floor.
“Good morning, everyone!” said the head teacher.
“Goormmnn mornnnmmnnmm,” we replied. School children are loath to pronounce more syllables than they have to when confronted with the morning, especially when they fail to see how good it is.
Being sat on a brown, dusty floor while some old geezer with a mysteriously bald but nevertheless hairy patch on his head talked down to you did not put you in a good mood.
“I know you’re all very eager to do your work, but sometimes a sharp pencil isn’t always best.”
The pencil assembly. This usually followed a particularly brutal stabbing in one of the older classes. Probably a walk-by. In the most extreme cases, children were mugged.
A vicious poke in the arm by a honed HB, followed by a swift pilfer of the finest of erasers.
Usually the florescent kind.
“A blunt pencil can be especially useful for shading and it makes writing a lot easier.”
Easy writing was no substitute for a good defence against a walk-by robbery. The teachers were out of touch.
“And it saves precious hand-energy which can be used for other things!”
At the back of the hall, the older kids sniggered. I didn’t get it. They always laughed at things I didn’t understand. I was always anxious that one day I would grow up to be like them, laughing at things not meant to be laughed at.
The head teacher eventually finished the assembly with a prayer to the Lord. The congregated children all managed to finish the prayer without actually forming any recognised English syllables, stood and shuffled off to their classrooms to be registered.


I took my seat in the classroom and carefully placed my atlas on the table. I sighed.
“Somalia!” came a voice behind me.
I jumped and span around. Brian was stood there, reading the atlas to me.
“Somalia is shaped like a number seven!”
“Brian,” I said.
“Amazing, I know. Hey you have an atlas too, I bet yours is full of amazing things like that.”
“Brian.”
“Everyone sit down.”
Brian walked away before I could really talk to him, muttering something about Cambodia.
There was a huge crashing sound across the classroom and everyone looked at Louis, who has just dropped his bag on the table. Whatever he had in there, it was very heavy. When the attention began to subside, he smiled faintly and sat down. This was kind of exciting.
What was he up to?
The register was taken by Mrs Benson, who, in some vague attempt to make is cultured, assigned us all numbers and then read them out in Cantonese. We would answer to our number.
“Yhat.”
Someone across the classroom called “here!”
“Saam.”
Interesting. She was mixing up the numbers again, forcing us to actually learn ours and not just remember the order.
My number was 18. Pronounced, this equated to “yhat sap baat”.
“Gau.”
Someone else answered.
“Yhat sap saam.”
“Here.”
I looked idly around the classroom.
“Yhat sap.”
“Here.”
Bored, I flicked open my atlas.
“Chaat,” said the teacher.
“Here,” answered Brian.
Even more bored, I flicked closed the atlas.
The registration passed with only one person forgetting their number. Steven. 2. Yi.
“Okay, everyone get your reading books out and begin reading in silence. I will see you all individually.”
I sighed and opened the atlas, glancing around at Louis. He stood slowly and opened the straps on his bag. With a flourish, he tipped the bag onto the table and out fell his reading book, clattering loudly in the now silenced room.
Huge metal clasps held it shut and lined the hinges. People craned to see. It was huge, thousands of pages thick and very dusty. The binding was a dull red and on the spine I read..
“.. Necronomicon.”
My jaw hung loose. I wasn’t very good as multiplication, but I knew the Book Of The Dead when I saw it. He carefully sat down, unclasped the hinges and gingerly opened the enormous tome. I shrank into my seat a little, imagining I heard the screams of a billion souls, bound to the will of whatever necromancy sealed them.
I shivered.
The teacher hadn’t noticed, and was proceeding to talk to the first child on her list about their book, why they chose it, what it was about and how were they enjoying it so far? None of this was written down, she just wanted to know if they were lying about reading.
I was staring at Louis, as some other kids covertly were, over the top of my book. He was calmly turning pages and scanning quickly, like he was looking for something.
Was this his plan for detention or was he just bonkers?
The answer, it seemed, was both. After a short spell of turning pages, he seemed to find the one he wanted. Quickly looking at what the teacher was up to before turning back to the book, he read the entire page completely, then produced something from his pocket.
Pretty much the entire class took a deep breath and craned their necks to see. The only people who didn’t was the table the teacher was currently sat at. In the presence of authority, you got on the business of reading, or at least thinking up a plausible web of lies to convince the teacher you had been reading.
Even Brian put down his atlas to watch.
Louis, calmly, coolly and of more importance, quietly moved the Necronomicon to the side and began drawing on the table.
I was amazed. Only Louis could formulate such a devious and sublime plan.
Achieving lunchtime detention by performing a summoning rite of the dead on the table. All that was just a cover, though. The core of the plan involved writing on the table, a felony too large to punished with a mere scolding. The necromancy was just an excuse to perform the dark deed.
From what I could see, he had drawn a circle on the table in red chalk. Inside the circle was a six pointed star, with one of the points mutating into a large ‘J’ shape, which bent into the circle.
Louis kept consulting the Necronomicon to ensure his magic circle was correct, occasionally stopping, licking his finger and erasing part of the circle before redrawing it.
Smiles were beginning to spread across peoples faces, and a quiet whispering began to emerge as Louis continued his work.
I rested my head on the palm of my hand, grinning. This was genius at work.
He quickly finished his circle, doing a final check by consulting the book of the dead, and then he quietly slid back his chair and stood.
The entire class fell quiet, the steady whisper a deafening memory.
The sudden silence roused Mrs Benson’s suspicions. She looked around and saw Louis standing.
“Louis! Sit down!”
He did not sit down; instead he raised his arms to the horizontal and, staring down at the magic circle, began to hum.
“Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” he hummed.
With startling coincidence, the rest of the class began humming too.
“Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” I said.
“Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” Brian said.
“Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” said the weird looking girl with a strange ear.
The teacher rose to her feet.
“Be quiet! Louis! What are you doing?!”
Without waiting for an answer, she stormed across the classroom towards Brian.
“Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.”
“What on earth are you— ” she saw the table, “what devilry is this?!”
“Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.”
She looked at Louis, who was transfixed with the circle and took a worried step back.
Mrs Benson was a very experienced teacher. She’d dealt with all kinds of children, from the civil disobedience children to the armed uprising. The abusive swearer to the pathetic weeper.
She’d never seen a nine year old summon the dead before.
“Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” said the entire class.
The teacher looked around wildly at the chanting children, before spinning back to face Louis, whom she recognised as the catalyst of the phenomenon.
The leader of the cult.
She did not dare to touch the magic circle, being a devout Christian. Her faith was so strong, her belief in God so great that the arcane collection of dust on a table moved her to tears.
Feebly, she tried to force Louis to lower his arms, but he was strong and Mrs Benson was rapidly growing weaker.
“Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.”
She staggered back a few steps, her eyes glistening with tears. Taking a step or two more back, she edged towards the door, before turning and bolting.
She ripped open the door, stepped over the threshold and looked back at her demonic class.
“Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.”
For effect, Louis was raising his arms higher, increasing the volume and lowering the pitch of his chant.
The teacher fled.
“Okay guys, keep it quiet, everyone get reading,” said Louis, quickly sitting down.
I raised my eyebrows as he sank into his seat and couldn’t help but laugh out loud. The class quickly joined in.
“That was awesome!”
“They’re gonna crucify you, just like Jesus when he was humming!”
“Do it again!”
Louis, swelling with inner pride stood up and turned to address the class.
“Please, please, you gotta keep it down. Someone will be back soon and we have to be innocent!”
The class simmered down to a gentle murmur, and they generally prepared themselves to hide behind books when the head teacher, exorcist or SWAT team arrived.
Then it hit me, right between lungs. The aliens. I’d forgotten about them.
My eyes shot to the place they usually sat at. They weren’t there. No wonder I’d forgotten.
Heart beating, I kept looking around the room, hoping to catch Brian’s eye while I was at it. I couldn’t see them anywhere in the classroom. Idly, my eyes trailed over their usual seats again.
There they were. I recoiled in horror and hid my gasp of surprise behind the atlas. Brazil took the full force of my expletive reaction.
This was too weird. I hoped they could not time travel or turn invisible. My task to defeat them would be a lot more difficult if this were the case.
Now I’d overcome my initial shock, I took care to examine them from afar. They were sat how I’d expect them to be sat, straight backs, heads bowed, reading their books.
Model students, apart from the whole disappearing and reappearing thing. After I’d watched them for a while, I began looking elsewhere, namely out of the classroom door window to see if anyone was coming.
As I turned my head to see out of the window, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. It was the aliens. I quickly looked back, and their heads were once more bowed into their books.
Looking away again, I’m sure I saw their heads move. Casually I looked back, and they were once more reading.
This began to really spook me out, so it was fortunate that the head teacher suddenly burst through the door, brandishing a hefty crucifix.
“Down, foul demons!” he exclaimed.
Every single person in the classroom, including the aliens, looked up from their books at him. A tidal wave of silence washed across the classroom, and Mrs Benson peeked out from behind the head teacher, who was currently looking rather embarrassed.
“Um,” he said, lowering his crucifix.
Mrs Benson leapt back in horror.
“What?! What did you just say?!”
“I said um! UM!”
“Oh my god!” she cried, raising her hands to her head.
“No! It’s not like that!” said the head, waving his hands hurriedly, “The class have stopped, I don’t see anything unusual.”
Mrs Benson gingerly stepped up to the door again and, with her class all staring impassively at her, she conceded that yes, the unusual events had indeed stopped. She stepped back outside the classroom and whispered something to the head teacher none of us could hear.
The door swung back open and they strode, now confident, bold and strong. They beat a hasty path to Louis who was sat calmly flicking through the Necronomicon.
“John!” bellowed the head teacher.
“Louis,” whispered Mrs Benson.
“What is the meaning of this?” he continued bellowing, pointing at the magic chalk circle on the desk and still gripping his crucifix.
“It’s a circle for summoning the spirits of the dead,” Louis said quietly.
The head teacher drew himself up to his full height, taking a huge breath and putting his hands firmly on his hips.
“This is a crime against God! Using heathen religions to—”
Louis looked up. “Actually you can’t shout at me for that, the country enforces religious freedom.”
The head widened his eyes to new, extreme proportions. Capillaries were bursting in his eyes and on his nose. As a previously Catholic priest, he was having a hard time resisting the urge to club the pagan to death with his crucifix. After a few seething moments, he subsided.
He devoted his furious hatred to finding some punishment. The book was allowed, as was the summoning.
“Writing on the table is forbidden. You will spend your lunch break cleaning this table.”
Louis blinked, emotionless.
“AND ALL TABLES!”
The class gasped.
Louis, playing the part, looked down sadly. When you showed remorse at being punished, teachers stopped punishing you. That was figured out pretty early on.
The head teacher grunted with satisfaction and turned to leave.
“Mrs Benson, I will leave the rest to you.”
She shrank a little and leant against the wall.
“Oh, do you think I could please borrow your.. your crucifix?”
“Nonsense!”
“I think it would..”
“Ha ha! Nonsense. Good day, Mrs Benson.”
With that, he strode out of the classroom. As he left I noticed his knuckles were white around the cross he held.
Mrs Benson whimpered slightly as the holy relic left the room.
“L.. Louis.. go sit on the far table,” she said meekly, pointing to the table reserved for the naughty children and the smelly ones. The distinction between them escaped me.
“Everyone else,” she stammered, “just continue reading quietly.”
She slowly walked over to her desk and sat down heavily. Her haunted eyes scanned the classroom, then she quietly began fiddling with things at her desk.
I leaned back carefully to see what she was up to.
She was making a crucifix out of paperclips.

The lesson began to draw to a close. We were running the final stretch, all eyes in the room watching the heating timer.
It was school policy not to have large visible clocks in the classroom. This was to discourage clockwatching, an activity that would reduce the childrens enthusiam and will to work, as well as completely destroy the last 5 minutes off a lesson.
Our classroom was home to heating timer, a small device above the sink area which ticked the time, with hours marked off with red and blue counters to indicate when heating started and finished.
The small clock had no visible markings from where we sat, but we soon learned to read the time without them. In this aspect, our education was remarkably effective.
Everyone had their books raised to their faces, heads bowed slightly, all eyes on the clock. The hands were barely visible, but we all saw them.
Occasionally, someone would remember that we had to turn the page to provide a realistic book reading impression. The sound of this resulted in everyone else remembering and turning their pages.
So, for the final five minutes, every 30 seconds was the sound of a page quietly turning, followed by a second delay, followed by twenty seven other pages turning at exactly the same time.
Time ticked on and, with a large sigh of relief from the class and teacher, the bell sounded to indicate break.
I ran out of the classroom, elbowing a girl in the face to secure my position as one of the first out the door. I stretched my legs and scratched my backside in an appropriately boyish manner, waiting for Brian to get out. I would have waited for Louis, but he would now have an entire fan club devoted to his new-found necromantic self.
The girl I elbowed in the face stepped outside, bleeding slightly, clutching her nose. I noticed she was also crying, so I began to turn away.
Then I noticed she was clenching her free hand into a tight fist, so I began to run away. I dived into a bush and checked for incoming hostiles. She hadn’t seen me. I relaxed, suspended upside down in a mass of branches.
Through the leaves I saw a small crowd of people make for a bench and I presumed Louis resided in the epicentre, quietly and calmly lapping up the attention like a solar panel reservedly soaks up sun.
Peering this way and that, I eventually spotted the midriff of Brian.
He had the unique ability to make almost anything look untidy. His shirt was tucked in, but unevenly. His belt was buckled too loosely, his fly on half zipped. It was very unnerving for the teachers. While he couldn’t exactly be punished, they couldn’t let it go. This resulted in very awkward situations with teachers confronting him, yet finding nothing to actually shout at him about.
Brian handled his super power with surprising ease, never getting tired of nervous teachers wavering in front of him, unsure of what to do.
I fell out of the bush, picked a twig from my ear and ran over to Brian. What I hadn’t seen from the bush was the atlas he was still reading.
“Oh, hey Matt,” he said, looking up from his atlas as I stood up.
“Hello, Brian.”
“Hey, did you know that the..” he looked hard at his atlas, “.. that the Vatican City State is the smallest independent state in the world?!”
I sighed, pulling a leaf out of my ear.
“Isn’t that amazing?!”
I looked at him, his eyes sparkling with wonder.
“Yes Brian,” I said, “that really is amazing.”
He rolled on his heels and continued reading on.
“But what does it mean?”
“No idea!”
The break time rolled on and, as Brian was informing me about the incredible growth of South Korea’s economy despite the global conditions, I decided we should speak to Louis.
“He’s famous now, y’know, he needs some real friends.”
Brian looked at my oddly.
“People that aren’t friends with him because he’s famous.”
“People actually do that?” asked Brian.
“Oh yeah, I saw it in a movie once.”
With that decided, we walked towards the large crowd of people surrounding a particularly prime spot of wall, perfect for sitting. A few metres away was an empty bench.
I walked over and, standing at the edge of the crowd, listened. People were talking about a variety of things, from zombies to gorillas to mobile artillery to balloons. Louis had to be inside.
Brian ambled up beside me as I observed the task before me. The idle chattering of many people created a large background noise which, to the casual observer, sounded like this.

“Mrnnrnerhmerurnymurnymurny.”
“Hanoharhanmournournamenyo.”
“WellIwonwhenodogtimurnaflidomunryopolart hywhum.”

Brian sidled up beside me.
“I don’t know about you, but I’d sure like to visit Benin.”
I craned my neck and stood on my toes in a vain effort to see if I could see Louis. The fact extending ones neck and standing on ones toes had never aided in the spotting of someone in a crowd since the beginning of time was not something to put me off.
“According to this, the entire country is ice cream cone shaped!”
“Sounds delicious,” I said distractedly, looking for Louis. I decided to embark on a much more radical plan.
“Louis!” I shouted.
“What?” he replied from behind me.
I turned and found Louis standing there.
“Apparently the country is very poor though,” continued Brian.
“Why aren’t you in there?” I said, jerking my thumb to the crowd.
“Oh, I got bored. They’re a self sustaining crowd, anyway. Get them talking about zombies and they’ll survive for hours, even without the person they’re crowding around.”
I nodded sagely, knowing only too well how long kids could talk about zombies. The school bell rang, indicating the start of the next lesson. I imagine, in the classroom, Mrs Benson was currently getting off her knees and finishing her prayer.
Me, Louis and Brian started to walk back towards the classroom when I saw the girl I’d elbowed earlier. She was still looking pretty angry, so I hid behind Brian as we walked to the classroom. I bent over, clutching the waistline of his trousers and crabbed my way around him, putting his body in the way of her line of sight. Doing this, we made our way towards the classroom, Brian reading his atlas, Louis trying to look like he didn’t know us.

In the cloakroom, people were gathering. I ignored the wrath of the girl and wondered what was going on.
The cloakroom was a place of great fear. The walls were lined with black prongs, initially designed to hang coats on, but recently adapted by the school to impale. The smaller kids would be hung on them by larger kids or, more often than not, several smaller kids. Occasionally, coats were hung on them, but often they were just omitted. Any reason to stay in the Room of Spiked Walls was soon omitted from the daily schedule.  
“What’s going on?” I asked one of my class.
“I DON’T KNOW,” bellowed Jack. He was a large kid, not fat. Nobody was brave enough to call him fat. He was simple minded, stubbornly determined and easily manipulated. He also shouted all the time.
I took a step back, even in the now cramped cloakroom. Not far away, I heard someone scream as they were viciously attacked by one of the coat pegs.
I turned to someone else.
“What’s going on? Why are we all stuck in here?”
“I’m not sure, but I do know that Pakistan lies just north of the Tropic of Cancer and—”
“Never mind, Brian.”
I turned to one of the girls.
“What’s going on?”
“I DON’T KNOW!”
“I wasn’t asking you!”
“I think the door is locked,” said the girl, who I vaguely remembered as Joanne.
“Locked? It’s never locked..”
“I WILL TRY,” said Jack. He squared his already rather square jaw and set off through the crowd towards the door. There was more screaming as coat pegs struck deep into the backs of children, mixed with the disturbing grunting noise Jack usually made when he walked. I kept back, but followed him.
Jack reached the door and dumbly stared at it. He grasped the handle with what appeared to be a gargantuan intellectual effort and pushed the handle down, while pulling back on the door. It didn’t budge.
Nothing.
It must be locked.
With a grunt and an increasing furrowed brow, Jack pulled on the handle. The top of the door cleared the door frame. Slowly and dramatically, the door fell out of its frame and towards Jack. All the kids, myself included, got out of the way, resulting in more screams from coat peg impaled classmates.
Jack stood still, watching the door fall on him in slow motion with a slack jaw and a puzzled expression. The door picked up speed and landed on him, smashing the glass over his head. The door fell to the floor, with Jack standing where the window had smashed over his head.
He shook a little, and a few crumbs of safety glass fell off his body. Jack grunted once more and took a few steps into the classroom before falling over and lying still on the ground.
By this point, the teacher had heard and was walking over. She saw Jack’s incapacitated form and began screaming, before running off. I took a step forward and leaned through the doorframe, catching the end of her screaming as she fled. Calmly, I walked into the classroom properly and took my seat.
There was a slight gasp of horror as someone once more fell the victim of a coat peg, which caused the rest of the class to step over the large, still form of Jack and sit down.
A moment’s silence was held, remembrance of dead door we so often used, then we began arsing around.

“Louis!”
I leapt out of my seat and made for his table. He was sat staring at his desk.
“Louis, what..” I trailed off.
The magic circle was still on the table.
Louis turned in his seat and looked up at me.
“Weird, huh?” said Louis.
“Why do you think she left it? If it bothered her that much, why didn’t she get rid of it?” I said.
I looked quietly down at the crude chalk circle, with intersecting lines and drastic, demonic curves.
“Well,” he said, “from the look of fear in her eyes, and the way she reacted I’d have to say that..”
“Yeah?”
“That is cannot be destroyed!”
I gasped.
“It’s the only answer!”
“I agree!”
A few of the other kids in the table began to back away.
“Wh-what’s going to happen if we just leave it?” said one of them, a fair haired boy with a nervous smile who always pisses his pants.
I pointed my finger at him.
“Don’t piss your pants soldier,” I commanded.
“Yes sir.”
I pointed at the other person on the table, a short, fat black girl called Jessica.
She batted my hand away.
“It’s rude to point.”
“Anyway, we have to worry about this magic circle.”
Louis looked at it.
“Why? It’s not doing anything.”
“Perhaps it needs the magic words,” I said.
“What are they? I just made them up before!”
“So we don’t know what the words are?”
Brian sidled up beside me.
“If you don’t know what the words are, even the most common of words could cause something horrible to happen!” he said brightly. I slowly turned my head, emitting pure dread from my eyes. He smiled brightly back at me.
More people were coming to the table now I had stood and pointed at the black girl, and they getting larger in numbers.
“Everyone!” I shouted, “away from the table! We don’t know what the words are!”
“So?”
“So we don’t know what they aren’t,” I declared, “they could be anything.”
With that clarification on the true dangers of the magic circle drawn from the Necronomicon, Louis, Alex and Jessica stood and moved away from the table. I took a few steps back, as did Brian.
Looking around, it seemed the entire classroom, minus Jack who was face down on the floor, covered in glass, had surrounded the magic circle. We ourselves formed a circle around the circle and, at this unfortunate moment, the head teacher burst into the room, wielding a crucifix offensively.
He glared at us with incredible fury when Mrs Benson bumped into the back of him, pushing some kind of trolley. I heard the gentle wash of water as she stopped.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“It’s worse than you said.”


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