James was half asleep all through the day.
He was tired at breakfast.
He was even more tired in Geography. The teacher, Mr Norwood got cross with James and started ranting on about how everyone else's homework was fantastic and his and Dana's seemed to be rubbish and completely the same. At this point Dana went bright red and looked upset.
"So both of you, your homeworks were unacceptable and disgraceful," Mr Norwood said, spitting all over them. "I have decided to speak to both your handlers and they can give you the necessary punishment."
James groaned as he heard Meryl's voice in his head again: "if you do anything else that is wrong, mark my words, you are in very big trouble."
"What was that, Mr Adams? Would you like me to read out your awful homework so that the rest of the class can hear how it should not be done?"James stared at his table and said nothing. Mr Norwood took the silence as a yes.
"Mountains and Volcanoes by James Robert Anthony Adams. The most common type of mountain is very tall and is cool. I think that some mountains are quite big and they might fall down. You can get rocky mountains and sandy mountains but I like grassy mountains the best because I can roll down them and it is fun…" Mr Norwood droned on for another minute.
"Who thinks that is acceptable?" No one put their hand up.
"Now I will read a really stunning piece of work. Here it is:
Mountains and Volcanoes by Kerry Chang.
Mountains and volcanoes are ridges in the earth, formed when plates move apart from each other or together. Volcanoes sometimes erupt, spewing out lumps of molten rock and lava…"
Mr Norwood droned on for another twenty minutes. Kerry sat there with a smug little smile on her face. At the end of the lesson, Mr Norwood told everyone to go to next lesson and to do the second worksheet on Volcanoes for homework.
"The work is for tomorrow everybody. Now you may leave. But you two must stay here." he said indicating that Dana and James should stay sitting at their desks. Mr Norwood came round his desk and sat facing them. He frowned as he stared over his square spectacles at them.
"You know, both these homeworks seem to be almost exactly the same. How many words are they by the way?"
James looked at Dana for help. Dana shrugged helplessly.
"Uhhh, there are two thousand words I think." James guessed. Dana nodded.
"Same with mine too." She said. Mr Norwood smiled.
"You both think that there are two thousand words? Really? I predict that there are about two hundred. Well, in that case since you are both pretty certain that there is the correct number of words," he paused as he eyed them, "I think I will be seeing both of you in your lunch time, in here. You won't need to bring anything with you, just your brains," he smiled at his feeble joke, "You will be counting the number of words in your homework and if there are less than two thousand, you will both be on changing room cleaning duty for a month." He finished his speech. James let out a long groan. Mr Norwood snapped his head round.
"What did you say? Do you want me to speak to your handlers?" James screamed silently.
"You can go to your next lessons and don't tell the teacher you were speaking to me. Maybe you could say that you were doing your homework for next lesson." James and Dana rushed out of the room.
"He is way out of order, he cannot do that. I mean we did barely anything wrong." Dana exploded. James sighed miserably.
"How many words were there any way?" James enquired.
"I dunno, one thousand two hundred I suppose."
"****!" James yelled kicking out at the wall as they came round a corner.
"This is not ****ing fair!" he screamed at the top of his voice. Dana tried to get James to calm down. She tried to grab his arms frantically.
"James, SHUT UP! There are little kids everywhere!"Dana said.
James didn't take it in. He continued to shout swear words until everyone had stopped the lessons and were peering out of the doors to find out who was yelling. The door of an office opened and Meryl stepped out.
"JAMES! COME IN HERE NOW!"She bellowed. Everyone closed the classroom doors and got on with the lessons. James' feet steered him towards Meryl's office. Dana followed looking worried. Meryl's face said he was in huge trouble.
"JAMES, SIT DOWN! WHAT DID I TELL YOU?"Meryl's office walls vibrated as James sat down.