Book Tuesday: Cecil The Bully – Chapter One

“Alright, sit down and be quiet!” shouted Mr Barns. He pushed his spectacles up his nose – a habit that he repeated at least once every minute. The children muttered and giggled as they tried to settled down.

“It’s time for Science now, so take out your Practical Experiments book please,” continued Mr Barns. “Shh! Okay, that’s enough noise. Settle down!” he bellowed.

The classroom fell silent.

“Right! Open to page 16. Thomas, please read out Practical Experiment number ten,” he said in a calmer voice. He slowly walked towards his seat at the front of the class behind the battered old brown desk.

Silence. Complete silence filled the classroom. It was so quiet, not even the sound of breathing could be heard. Mr Barns didn’t notice and stretched his long gangly legs past the swivel chair behind his desk and sat down, his head buried in Practical Experiments 101.

PAAAARRRPPP!

The sounds of a wet, deflating fart broke through the silence. Startled, Mr Barns sat up and looked behind him. A wave of riotous laughter hit him as he picked up a floppy whoopee cushion from under his bottom. Peals of laughter rang in his ears as he held it in front of him with two thin fingers.

“WHO DID THIS?” he shouted. It was pointless. The laughter was so loud, it drowned out his angry voice.

Mr Barns stood up, flinging his chair back against the radiator fitted against the wall.

BANG!

The loud sound shushed the class. They watched their Year 6 teacher stalk out of the classroom holding the offending rubber cushion in his long fingers. His glasses barely held onto the end of his hooked nose when he barged into Mrs Palmer’s office. She was sipping a lovely cup of tea and nearly spilled the contents on her tweed skirt.

“Mr Barns! What is it?” the headmistress cried in alarm.

His dark, angry face scrunched up as if he wanted to cry. “I can’t take it anymore. I hate them…hate them all!” he confessed as he slumped into the visitor’s chair next to her desk.

“Calm down Robert. Tell me what happened?” she said, reaching forward to pat his arm. Mrs Palmer noticed the whoopee cushion in his hand and guessed what had happened. She tried not to smile. Mr Barns would not be very happy if she giggled at the thought of him sitting on a whoopee cushion!

“They put this on my chair during Science,” he said, flapping the floppy rubber cushion in the air.

A bubble of laughter rose up Mrs Palmer’s throat and gurgled. She tried very hard to swallow it back down and look seriously at Mr Barn’s scrawny face. He was a very serious teacher and hated practical jokes. In fact, he loved punishing any child he found playing tricks in school, even the funny ones. Sometimes she agreed with Mr Barn’s strictness, but Mrs Palmer knew the children were usually having harmless fun. She couldn’t have a stuffy strict school stifling the children, after all.

She sighed. “I understand that this is a serious offense Robert, but do you know who did it?”

“It’s that Cecil! I’m sure of it. He kept glancing at Thomas and giggling. He knew what was going to happen.”

“Did you see him put it on your chair Robert? We can’t punish him without proof, as you know,” she reminded the unhappy teacher.

He nodded. His shoulders sagged and the spectacles gave up hanging onto the tip of his nose. Without a sound, they dropped onto his lap and lay there next to the deflated whoopee cushion.

“If you don’t do something about that boy soon, Hilda, he is going to create such a terrible catastrophe, even you won’t find it funny!” Before Mrs Palmer could reply, Robert Barns stood up and left her office. He returned to the class of screaming, noisy children throwing paper aeroplanes and sitting on their table tops. Most scrambled back to their seats at his appearance and the noise subsided. Only three children remained standing – Cecil, Thomas and Bertha. Mr Barns walked past the messy tables with gawking children. He moved straight to where the three brazenly stood, unafraid of their teacher. He pointed his long, thin index finger at them.

“One day, you boys will learn your lesson. Don’t think I’m not aware of your tricks and bullying tactics. I know,” he whispered. “Soon enough, you will learn just how awful it is to be on the receiving end of these nasty tricks.”

Cecil stepped forward, his piggy nose sprinkled with freckles flaring slightly. “Are you threatening a student Mr Barns?” He smirked and spread his podgy fingers. “It’s not right for a teacher to threaten his students you know.”

Mr Barns blinked over his droopy spectacles that had returned to his face. He glanced at the interested faces of his class and stepped back. What was he doing? He was the teacher and Cecil and his thugs were just naughty children. Slowly Mr Barns walked back to his desk, making sure to check his chair before sitting down. The children all watched open-mouthed as he continued with Practical Science 101, completely ignoring the three children standing at the back of the class. They wondered what Mr Barns meant. Some of them felt sorry for their teacher and wished that Mrs Palmer who do something about Cecil and his minions. Those were the same children who had been on the receiving end of his terrible tricks and torture.

Cecil was a snot licking, nose picking, nasty boy who knew how to make other children cry, and their teachers! With his two pimple faced minions, he wreaked havoc at Arden White Primary School, keeping the majority of its teachers at their wits end.

Click here for Cecil the Bully, Chapter Two.