The infants
Do an assembly
About Time.

It has the past,

The present

And the future in it;

The seasons,
A digital watch,
And a six-year-old
Little old lady.

She gets her six-year-old

Family up

And directs them

Through the twenty-four hours

Of the day:

Out of bed

And – shortly after –

Back into it.

(Life does not stand still

In infant assemblies.)

The whole thing

Lasts for fifteen minutes.

Next week (space permitting):

Space.

Excuses

Finishing Off

This model you started at Easter,
These plaster casts of your feet,
That graph of the local traffic –
All of them incomplete.

You’ve a half-baked pot in the kiln room
And a half-eaten cake in your drawer.
You don’t even finish the jokes you tell –
I really can’t take any more.

And Malcolm said

… very little.

He blinked and shuffled his feet.

The sentence he finally started

Remained incomplete.

He gazed for a time at the floorboards;
He stared for a while into space;
With an unlined, unwhiskered expression
On his unfinished face

I see a seagull in the playground.
I see a crisp-bag and a glove;
Grey slides on the grey ice
And a grey sky above.

I see a white bird in the playground
And a pale face in the glass;
A room reflected behind me,
And the rest of the class.

I see a seagull in the playground.
I see it fly away.
A white bird in the grey sky:
The lesson for today

Who wants to buy:
Twenty sums, half right,
Two tracings of Francis Drake,
A nearly finished project on dogs
And a page of best handwriting?

Price reduced for quick sale:
Junk model of the Taj Mahal.
Delivery can be arranged.

What am I bid

For this fine old infant’s newsbook

Complete with teacher’s comments?

Hurry, hurry, hurry!

Brand-new paintings going cheap –

Still wet!

There was an old teacher

Who lived in a school,

Slept in the stock-cupboard as a rule,

With sheets of paper to make her bed

And a pillow of hymn-books

Under her head.

There was an old teacher

Who lived for years

In a Wendy house, or so it appears,

Eating the apples the children brought her,

And washing her face

In the goldfish water

There was an old teacher

Who ended her days

Watching schools’ TV and children’s plays;

Saving the strength she could just about muster,

To powder her nose

With the blackboard duster.

There was an old teacher

Who finally died

Reading Ginn (Level One), which she couldn’t abide.

The words on her tombstone said: TEN OUT OF TEN,

And her grave was the sandpit.

That’s all now. Amen

There’s something in Harrison’s desk.
Put your ear against it and listen.
A noise like the chewing of pencils.

Harrison invites you to look inside.

He charges 5p a peep.

You lift the lid a little, and a little more…

A scritching, scratching somewhere at the back.
A noise like the chewing of rulers.
A peculiar movement.

There is something in Harrison’s desk.

Harrison won’t say what it is.

He says it sharpens his pencil sometimes

He claims it helps him with his homework.

Then: a noise like an angry burp.

Look out, says Harrison, and slams the lid.

Harrison piles heavy objects on his desk.
You suspect a trick and watch him closely.
This sometimes happens, says Harrison.

A hole begins to appear in Harrison’s desk.

A tiny hairy hand protrudes.

5p a peep, says Harrison, and covers it with his hat.

Harrison counts his 5p’s.

You still suspect some sort of trick.

You prepare to ask for a refund.

The piled-up desk, meanwhile, begins to shake.
A stack of books collapses to the floor.
A hole appears in Harrison’s hat

Emma Hackett?
Here, Miss!
Billy McBone?
Here, Miss!
Derek Drew?
Here, Miss!
Margaret Thatcher?^∗
Still here, Miss!

Long John Silver?

Buccaneer, Miss!

Al Capone?

Racketeer, Miss!

Isambard Kingdom Brunel?

Engineer, Miss!

Davy Crockett?

Wild frontier, Miss!

Frank Bruno?

Cauliflower ear, Miss!

The White Rabbit?
Late, Miss!
Billy the Kid?
Infants, Miss!
Simple Simon?
Here… Sir.
Father Christmas?
Present (for you), Miss!

Count Dracula?
1, 2, 3, 4, Miss!
Necks door, Miss!
Dentist’s!

The Invisible Man?
Nowhere, Miss!
Almighty God?
Everywhere, Miss!
Tarzan?

Aaaaaaaaaah! Miss.
Sleeping Beauty?
Zzz, Miss

Do a project on dinosaurs.

Do a project on sport.

Do a project on the Empire State Building,

The Eiffel Tower,

The Blackpool Tower,

The top of a bus.

Ride a project on horses.
Suck a project on sweets.
Play a project on the piano.
Chop a project on trees
Down.

Write a project on paper,
A plaster cast,
The back of an envelope,
The head of a pin.

Write a project on the Great Wall of China,

Hadrian’s Wall,

The playground wall,

Mrs Wall

Do a project in pencil,

In ink,

In half an hour,

In bed,

Instead

of something else,

In verse,

Or worse –

Do a project in playtime.

Do a project on your hands and knees,

Your head,

With one arm tied behind you

Do a project wearing handcuffs,
In a steel coffin,
Eighty feet down

At the bottom of the Hudson River
(which ideally should be frozen over),
On Houdini.

Forget a project on Memory;
And refuse one on Obedience.

Not now, Nigel,

It’s only half-past eight.

The school’s not really open –

Your request will have to wait.

Not now, Nigel,

The register is due;

Some dinner-money’s missing,

And I’ve got a headache too.

Not now, Nigel,
Can’t you see I’m on my knees?
We’re trying to find the hamster
(And I think I’m going to sneeze).

Not now, Nigel,

I’d like to hear your news,

But Alice isn’t well –

She’s just been sick all on my shoes.

Not now, Nigel,
Claire’s bent her violin,
I ought to take a tablet
(And I need a double gin).

Not here, Nigel,
The staffroom’s meant for us;
Your place is in the playground
(Or underneath a bus).

Not now, Nigel,

I still feel quite unwell;

And, furthermore, it’s home time –

Off you go (saved by the bell).

Not… now, Nigel,

Though it’s nice of you to call.

I’d love to ask you in

But there’s a wolf-hound in the hall.

Not… now… Nigel,
It’s really time for bed.
My temperature is rising –
There’s a drum inside my head.

Tomorrow I’ll feel better –
Tomorrow, wait and see.
But not now, Nigel.
The nights belong to me!

The charges

Derek Drew:

For leaving his reading book at home.

For scribbling his handwriting practice.

For swinging on the pegs in the cloakroom.

For sabotaging the girls’ skipping.

For doing disgusting things with his dinner

Also charged

Mrs Alice Drew (née Alice Jukes):

For giving birth to Derek Drew.

Mr Dennis Drew:

For aiding and abetting Mrs Drew.

Mrs Muriel Drew and Mr Donald Drew:

For giving birth to Dennis Drew, etc.

Mrs Jane Jukes and Mr Paul Jukes:

For giving birth to Alice Jukes, etc.

Previous generations of the Drew and Jukes families:

For being born, etc., etc.

Witnesses

‘He’s always forgetting his book.’ Mrs Pine.

‘He can write neatly, if he wants to.’ Ditto.

‘I seen him on the pegs, Miss!’

‘And me!’ ‘And me!’ Friends of the accused.

‘He just kept jumpin’ in the rope!’ Eight third-year girls

In Miss Hodge’s class.

‘It was disgusting.’ Mrs Foot (dinner-lady)

For the defence

‘I was never in the cloakroom!’ Derek Drew.

Mitigating circumstances

This boy is ten years old.

He asks for 386 other charges to be taken into consideration.

‘He’s not like this at home,’ his mother says.

She didn’t call for me as she usually does.
I shared my crisps with someone else.

I sat with someone else in assembly.
She gave me a funny look coming out.

I put a pencil mark on her maths book.
She put a felt-pen mark on mine.

She moved my ruler an inch.
I moved hers a centimetre.

I just touched her PE bag with my foot.
She put the smallest tip of her tongue out.

She dipped her paint brush in my yellow.
I washed mine in her paint water.

She did something too small to tell what it was.
I pretended to do something.

I walked home with her as usual.