Terence was bored (More original school yard fiction)

erence was bored. It had been an exceeding dull day at school. Not only was the work dull, it was too easy to grab his attention. So he quite often didn’t do anything, and then he got a very bad mark. No one knew how smart he really was.

The boy doodled absently on a piece of paper in front of him. The paper slipped and a pen mark went onto the desk.

Miss Mackay saw and frowned. “You will be cleaning that off at recess time,” she said.

Terence sighed. Another recess break gone! It seemed that he was considered a trouble maker and the teacher was always coming down on him. He went back to doodling on the paper.

Recess time came and Terence was left alone with Miss MacKay. He was angry and gave her a glare when she supplied him with a cloth and cleaning spray. Miss MacKay ignored the attitude and sat down at her desk. Terence scrubbed away at the desk. He found that he was not only cleaning the mark made by his pen that morning, but the initials of countless other students that had used that desk over the past year or two. It was so unfair that he glowered even more. After a while though, he noticed that the wood looked really nice without all the scribbling, and it was full of patterns.

"Miss MacKay", Terence called out without thinking, "Why does the wood have circles and lines in it?"

Miss MacKay got up from her desk and came over to him. "That is because when the tree was living, it grew layers of new woody tissue each year."

"Why is it different colours?" Terence asked.

"I'll show you how to look that up," Miss MacKay said. "We can try the encyclopaedia, and also the internet."

Terence and Miss MacKay looked up the section on tree trunks in the encyclopaedia. There was lots of interesting information. "If only school was like this!" Terence muttered under his breath.

Miss MacKay heard. "I'm trying to teach you the things you need most Terence", she said. "Like reading and maths."

"That’s so boring!" Terence exclaimed. "And I can already do most of it."

Miss MacKay looked perturbed. "Well, I wouldn't know about that as you never do your work" she said. "I tell you what, if you hand me in all your maths done early this afternoon, I will let you have some more internet time."

"Cool", Terence said. "We have a deal."

So Terence finished his maths quickly, and then Miss MacKay sat him at the computer looking at an internet site which had some animated mathematics puzzles. Terence had a great time trying to solve the patterns and making more patterns. He was allowed to print some out to show his friends. He knew he would probably much around again tomorrow, especially in English and social studies, because it was such a habit. However he also knew that Miss MacKay understood him - at least a little bit.