Sex Education • Ashton Irwin

sixteen - boys and their toys

Before Mr Raye continues, the door swings open where Mrs Lawford - my english teacher - stands carrying stacks of papers and looking in distress.

"I need all my A level English students in the hall, right now." Mrs Lawford pants before slamming the door shut and rushing off.

We all look around the room to each other, before slowly we begin to make our way out of the classroom in confusion. There weren't many of us who had chosen English as and A level, only around thirty of us in our whole year - I was convinced that is was due to the teacher, since Mrs Lawford creeped everyone out. She was that typical overdramatic, crazy rainbow dressed teacher with that posh british accent.

We all make our way to the main hall, where the rest of my class is already sat. Walking in behind me came Ashton, Luke and Calum. I was unsure as to why the whole class had been called into the hall so randomly - we hadn't had an exam which we could have all failed or any trips coming up which we needed to discuss.

I take my seat on the chair towards the back corner, as Mrs Lawford steps in front of us all as she waits to explain.

"There's been a slight error with the school play this year and apparently no one wanted to sign up." Mrs Lawford begins. Wow, I wonder why. "As you all know, this year's play is one which I had written myself. Anyway, there is no way that I could allow such hard work of mine to be wasted, so I'm calling on all of you to help me."

We all look around, not really knowing what she meant by the verb 'help'. I began to worry, since acting was never really my kind of thing - especially having to perform in front of big crowds. I knew that some people would find this sort of thing easy, but not me.

"Now, I want you all to get into groups and create a short scene about chemistry - whether that is between friendship or romantically. You can perform them to me in fifteen minutes so I have a clear idea of who can play which role."

Everyone lets out a loud sigh in sync, since none of us could think of anything worse than being forced to participate in the school play - which no one ever came to. Every year the play was a massive flop, meaning that there would literally be around ten people and their parents who would show up. It was social suicide.

"What if we don't want to take part, miss?" Hannah calls from the back, asking the question we were all wondering.

"You don't have to take part, Hannah," Mrs Lawford says and everyone begins to grab their bag and prepare to leave before she can finish her next sentence, "but I will have to knock marks off of your grade for this term, which could effect your entire end result."

As if we were animals getting pulled by a chain, everyone slumps back down on their seat again - knowing that none of us could afford risking our grades. This was completely unfair and apart of me just wanted to become a teacher in future to get to treat students like puppets on a string because really, they had complete control over us.

-

Our class was hopeless at drama and I mean - shamefully and horrifically hopeless.

Each of us had performed our scene to the teacher and she looked as if she would be following Michael Clifford out of that third floor window right there and then. I couldn't blame her though, I mean, we really were terrible. I'd never been so embarrassed in my life, having to stand up in front of only thirty students and perform something like that.

"Never in my twenty years of acting, have I been so appauled," Mrs Lawford erups, throwing her hands in the air as she stands back up from her seat and faces us. "I mean, flying space monkeys - seriously?"

Mrs Lawford looks to Calum Hood, who clearly had a great imagination - just probably not the best idea for a romantic drama piece to be running around as a flying monkey in space whilst shooting Michael, who was apparently a flying kitten. Appropriate, though.