Doctor Who: The Boy Who Remembered (Fan Fic)

Chapter 1: Benjamin French

Young Benjamin French stood at the front of the classroom unsure of where to begin. Between the yawning stares of his classmates, and the cacophonous thunder of his teacher's impatient tapping, it felt as if he could hardly manage his own thoughts. A dozen fresh knots had become tangled within the pit of his stomach and he was not quite sure if he knew how to untie them. When it came to most subjects Benjamin had been regarded as the smartest boy in school, if not the smartest boy in all of England. When his class had first learned how to tell time Benjamin had asked relative to what, and where the other children puzzled why the sky was blue he wondered whether colors were real all together. For unlike all the other children in the schools across the country this particular boy held an ability most had all but forgotten, Benjamin could remember.

Standing before his gawking classmates who wanted nothing more than to turn on their phones, or whisper secrets about positively nothing at all, time had all but stopped for the boy who remembered. Each blank stare that greeted his own wavering nerves only added to that lingering eternity. For this was not a presentation like those he had done countless times before. Benjamin could discuss things most others could not understand with little effort. Things that should not be but were, even things that could have never been but had. But when it came to that most dreaded of disciplines known as English, the genius of a twelve-year-old could never get it quite right.

"Well Mr. French," impatiently erupted their teacher Mrs. Crabtree. "We're waiting."

"Yes...well..." Benjamin stammered in reply, "I've...simply...yes."

A bothersome boy named Martin, terror to teachers, equal menace to all others, had decided to declare, "Looks like we've finally found something Benjamin doesn't know how to do, speak English!"

The other children laughed and chuckled from behind their boredom.

"Or maybe he's just got no memories worth remembering," added Martin.

Even Mrs. Crabtree could not help but smirk before returning to her usual miserable state, "Come now Mr. French. There are others who still need to present. If you don't complete your presentation, then I will simply have to give you an 'F'."

"No...please...I can't..." the idea of a failing grade had been the last push the brilliant boy had needed. "I can do this...I can do this...alright then."

Benjamin took one deep long breath before turning away from the class. Unfurling the large sheet of paper that would serve as his canvas he could already hear the first jokes emerging from amongst the whispers. Mrs. Crabtree had asked her students to do a ten-minute presentation on a modern event they believed would be remembered for generations to come. The one restriction, it had to be an event that had taken place in the course of their rather short lives. Even before he could firmly secure the page across the chalkboard, Benjamin French felt the impending condemnation robbing him of his small supply of courage.

And so began the nervous young boy, "Well...for my topic I've chosen...I've chosen the day of the stolen Earth...when it was taken away and brought back."

"Sorry what?" burst out a girl from the front row.

"He's finally lost it," cried out another.

"Mr. French," sighed Mrs. Crabtree. "You were asked to do a presentation on a real event not a fictional story."

"What do you mean?" puzzled a confused Benjamin French. "But that did happen!"

"Please Mr. French," pleaded his teacher as she removed her glasses and began rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Not again. I've not the patience or the time for another of your delusional explanations."