Caleb

Chapter 9

The English classroom was the only place that I could collect all my thoughts. Dr Palmer and I had tried to work through my issues in our sessions but we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. He didn’t seem as confident in his abilities; after all, I’m sure he hasn’t had a murderer for a patient before.

                Mum and dad were also on edge, tiptoeing around each other due to the pregnancy. They could hardly be in the same room as each other without mentioning the subject, dad asking if mum was ok, if she felt all right, and generally being a good husband. All the attention, however, just irritated my mum, who just wanted to be left alone.

                “Just go away,” she would snap at him, regardless of how affectionate he was being.

                She no longer accompanied me to my evening classes; I think that she’d finally started to trust me again. That and also the fact that she was sick of falling asleep at the back of the classroom.

                “So, class, have you all got your essays to hand in?”

                Eileen had set us an assignment to write an essay on The Great Gatsby. I’d managed to read the book over the weekend and quickly realised that it was a very complex book to study. Yes, it may be short, be there was so much depth to it you could write a whole new book trying to explain it.

                I smiled at her, giving her the two pieces of paper that I’d managed to string together last night. With everything else going on I’d completely ignored the assignment.

                The fifty year old Asian man I’d since learned was called Peter, and he was fidgeting in his bag, pretending that he’d lost the essay.

                Surprisingly, the single mother, called Ashley, had managed to write something, and handed it to Eileen, her hand still hovering over her mobile.

                “Thank you, class, I will mark these by the time we meet again on Wednesday,” she said, staring directly at Peter. “For those of you who haven’t handed it in, I’d like to have it by Wednesday, please.”

                Peter was still roaming around in his bag. I stood up to leave, as the lesson was over.

                “Hold on for a minute, Caleb. I need to talk to you about your next assignment,” said Eileen.

                I quickly sat down, the chair making an awful screeching sound.

                “I’m going to put you all into groups and you’re going to do a little group project for me.” I felt a pang of fear in my chest; I had never been good at group work. Partly due to the fact that nobody liked me, but also because I was never good at working with others. I preferred the independent approach. “Caleb, you will be in a group of three with Peter and Ashley,” she continued.

                I looked over at my team mates. Peter was still searching in his bag, desperately trying to find the essay he knew that he hadn’t wrote. Ashley was staring at me, smiling, as if she knew that I would do all the work and she wouldn’t have to lift a finger.

                “You need to organise a presentation about The Great Gatsby. It can be about any aspect of the novel, within the course curriculum, of course. I don’t want presentations comparing the novel to some other novel that you’ve read that isn’t in the course. The only rule is that you all need to speak during the presentation. Have you all got that?”