Michael Pourer was a difficult student, always far too busy with things he liked doing rather than classwork. His new teacher had started this academic year. “Wonder what he will be like?”
It was 8:00 and Hans Anderson went to the staff room.
“What are the boys in my form like?” he asked the air generally.
After some moments one of the more well-prepared masters offered a reply.
“They are not a bad bunch, apart from a very narcissistic sod called Michael Pourer, Oh, and his mate Mitchell Robert Punch who can be very trying. Pourer spends most of his time looking in the mirror and the other one’s a mindless bully. Two out of 28 is not bad odds just watch these two.”
“Thank you, Mr…”
“Mr Powell, no not Enoch, it’s Baden, I could kill parents sometimes!”
“Well thank you, Baden, forewarned is forearmed. I am Hans Anderson; parents Eh?”
A bell rang out in the corridor followed by a stampede of student’s feet.
The masters rose to their feet and headed to classes.
Hans hesitated and found himself alone.
“What shambles is this?”
A student appeared at the door.
“Begging your pardon Sir, would you be the new teacher?”
“Yes, that’s right Mr Anderson.”
“Well, sir I came to locate you and give you a Hand.”
“That’s very Christian of you.”
“We’re in classroom 13 sir. Follow me.”
The boy was very smartly dressed.
“And who would you be?”
“Pourer Sir, Michael Pourer.”
“Lead on then Michael.”
The classroom was not very far away.
“You go in first.”
“Very good Sir.”
The classroom had circular tables, sat around by student groups of four. All were busy typing.
“Now boys,” he said, “Stop whatever you are doing and pay attention.”
He stated the normal introductions, statements of intents and his new rules.
“What were you working on boys?”
“Binomial Theory Sir, continuing the last maths lesson we had.”
“Admirable!” Hans replied.
The boys removed their memory sticks from the computers and put them on his desk. Each memory stick had its owners name on it.” Hans looked at 28. memory sticks and felt uneasy. He thought, “imagined demons are not necessarily real.”
He gave his class a review of Binomial Theory and promised he would mark their work that afternoon.
He had marked 12 excellent assignments. Next was Michael Pourer’s work. He was surprised that Word reported 18 pages. All the previous efforts had averaged 7 pages. The first page was blank. So was page two. All the pages were blank.
“What is going on?” he thought.
There was a tap on his study door. “Come.” he half shouted. In came one of his class.
“Hello Sir, my names Mitchell sir, I was wondering how my assignment had gone.
“Oh, I haven’t marked yours yet, I will have a quick look now.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He removed Pourer’s memory stick and replaced it with one marked Punch.”
“That’s odd Mitchell, yours appears to be identical to Michael Pourer’s…”
“Oh sir, I hope you are not accusing us of cheating?”
“No… Well yes, actually that is exactly what I am accusing you of.”
“I am off to see the headmaster, you can’t say things like that on day one.”
He exited like the proverbial bullet from a gun.
Hans was a bit flummoxed, so he went to the staff room.
“Ah Baden, can you have a look at this assignment for me?”
“Bit pushed for time… but okay.”
He inserted the memory stick into his PC. He noted that page 1 of 18 was blank. He thought I really haven’t time for this, and being a kindly soul, he quickly typed a title on page 1.
“Looks okay to me,” he said.
Quickly removing the stick and passing it back to Hans. Hans did not want to ask anyone else because he didn’t want Baden to appear slighted in any way.
“Thank you.” and he headed for the headmaster’s study.
“Can you have a look at this assignment headmaster as I find it rather baffling?”
The headmaster read the title page and noted there were 17 more pages to wade through.
“Mr Anderson, can you be specific about what puzzles you please?
“Well, it’s blank headmaster.”
The Headmaster thought, “Clearly it wasn’t, there was a title page “and said
“You not well up on binomial theory then Hans?”
“Of course, headmaster.”
“Persevere, dear boy, If Pourer understands I am sure we can.” And he laughed.
“Right headmaster, I will try a little harder.” And he scuttled back to his study.
Five minutes and there was a further knock at the study door.
“Ah, headmaster do come in.”
“Now what is all this about Mitchell? He’s a bully, but never a cheat”
“It appears he copied Michael Pourer.”
“See for yourself headmaster and displayed both documents.
“They are both the same, eighteen blank pages.
“You can’t copy blank pages, Mr Anderson. Nothing is nothing. Blank is blank.”
“But Headmaster, regardless of being blank, these two documents are the same.”
“Really Anderson… the same amount of blank, well who copied who?”
“I have an idea headmaster, I will mark both of them as F and see what happens.”
Later that day Mitchell and Michael tapped on the study door.
“Ah gentlemen, what can I do for you?”
“We are both F sir, and that’s not right.”
“Well as your assignments are identical then the Mark’s are.”
“Mine wasn’t blank sir.” Said Mitchell
“Who said it was blank? I just said it was the same as Michael’s.”
“No sir, you don’t understand, mine wasn’t blank sir. I distinctly remember deleting the last eleven pages from the template. It has eighteen pages when you load it, your predecessor said it encouraged us to do more work sir.
“ah, so Pourer when are you going to learn to save your work as you go along?”
“And Mitchell don’t let someone as incompetent with a PC copy your assignments ever again.”
Michael said, “Yes sir.”
Mitchell said, “No I will not sir.”
“Get lost, the pair of you, The F mark stands, be honest and do better next time out.”
Both boys left, and Hans thought “I am going to like it here, these boys will learn whether they like it or not.”
Paul Hickman April 2018
