Education, Education, Education by The Wardrobe Ensemble

Author:The Wardrobe Ensemble [Ensemble, The Wardrobe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780019871
Publisher: Nick Hern Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

9.

A corridor. EMILY is bouncing her ball up against the wall.

TOBIAS. What are you doing?

EMILY. Leave me alone.

TOBIAS. Why aren’t you in your lesson?

EMILY. Who are you?

TOBIAS. Tobias.

EMILY. Are you the new German teaching assistant?

TOBIAS. Yes.

EMILY. Is your surname Hitler?

TOBIAS. What, no, of course it’s not Hitler, that’s stupid. Is your surname Churchill?

EMILY. No.

TOBIAS. Is it Shakespeare?

EMILY. No.

TOBIAS. Do you like red telephone boxes?

EMILY. No.

TOBIAS. Do you like queueing?

EMILY. No.

TOBIAS. Well then.

EMILY. Do you like Lederhosen?

TOBIAS. No.

EMILY. Do you like Volkswagens?

TOBIAS. No.

EMILY. Do you like Frankfurters?

TOBIAS. Everybody likes Frankfurters.

Pause.

So how are you?

EMILY. Crap.

TOBIAS. Why?

EMILY. It’s been a shit day.

TOBIAS. Why?

EMILY. McIntyre kicked me off the York trip. I did everything he asked and he still kicked me off it.

TOBIAS. Why?

EMILY. Oversubscribed. Behavioural issues.

TOBIAS. Sounds reasonable.

EMILY. It wasn’t reasonable! I actually tried this time. I’ve been looking forward to it for months.

TOBIAS. I’m sorry to hear that, but shouldn’t you be in your lesson?

EMILY. Turner sent me out again. If I don’t engage I get told off, if I engage too much I get told off.

TOBIAS. May I make a suggestion?

EMILY. No.

EMILY throws her tennis ball at TOBIAS. He catches it and puts it inside his mug.

TOBIAS. Okay I’m going to anyway. It’s clear that you’re angry and maybe people have told you for a long time that that’s a bad thing. Sometimes it is. I have heard of you. Didn’t you burn Sarah Kendall’s eyebrows off?

EMILY. She deserved it.

TOBIAS. Why?

EMILY. She pinned me down, shoved a tenner in my mouth and told me to buy myself some new fucking trainers for once.

TOBIAS. Wow.

Pause.

Maybe there is a different way for you to express your anger. Something more dignified, but maybe more powerful. I don’t know. When I’m angry, I try to stop moaning and just do something.

EMILY walks away. A wave. She spins, suspended. TOBIAS turns to audience.

Perhaps Emily is also drowning somehow. What is it Paul said? She’s violent, disruptive, must try harder. She is certainly rude. Immature. Perhaps somewhat of an A-hole. But must try harder? No. I don’t think this.

EMILY leaves.

What Paul doesn’t know is that right now Emily is organising a petition. She already has fourteen signatures. Not bad.

Oooh, hey – (Insert operator’s name.) Can you play that song that I like? The one with the strings? And all the feelings?

‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ by The Verve starts playing.

It’s so wonderful, thank you so much.

In the prospectus for Wordsworth Comprehensive, the school is described as a ‘happy, thriving environment for inquisitive minds’, but right now Year 7s are being gassed out of their classroom by stink bombs, flaming bins are flying down the science corridor, and a live chicken is roosting underneath the Goosebump novels in the library. The belly of the school is rumbling.

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