I went a bit quiet again there, didn’t I? In the name of getting back into the habit of posting regularly, I have a challenge for you!

Outside work I found a loose page from a book. This isn’t actually the first time this has happened; either my city has a book murderer or someone who likes books with bad binding. Anyway, I don’t recognise the page, so I wondered if any of you guys do. I’m sure I can muster a prize for anyone who does get it.

I’ve got pages 51 and 52. It’s from a paperback, and has yellowed quite a lot, though I don’t know how long it was blowing around for (it’s pretty grubby). It’s first person, which means there aren’t a lot of names to go on. The narrator appears to be a teacher alled Mr Braithwaite, who’s teaching teenagers multiple subjects.

Have some extracts to help you!

Looking back, I realise that in fact I passed through three phases in my relationship with them. The first was the silent treatment, and during that time, for my first few weeks, they would do any task I set them without question or protest, but equally without interest or enthusiasm; and if their interest was not required on the task in front of them they would sit and stare at me with the same careful, patient attention a birdwacher devotes to the rare feathered visitor. I would sit at my desk busily correcting some of their written work and feel their eyes on me, then look up to see them sitting there, watchful, waiting. It made me nervous and irritable, but I kept a grip on myself.

…

Gradually they moved on to the second and more annoying phase of their campaign, the ‘noisy’ treatment. It is true to say that all of them did not actively join in this, but those who did not were obviously in some sympathy with those who did. During a lesson, especially one in which it was necessary for me to read or speak to them, someone would lift the lid of a desk and then let it fall with a loud bang: the culprit would merely sit and look at me with wide innocent eyes as if it were an accident. They knew as well as I did that there was nothing I could do about it, and I bore it with as much show of aplomb as I could manage. One or two such interruptions during a lesson were usually enough to destroy its planned continuity, and I was often driven to the expedient of bringing the reading to an abrupt half and substituting some form of written work; they could not write and bang their desks at the same time.

…

One morning I was reading to them some simply poetry, trying, by careful exposition and analysis, to give them something of the beauty it contained both in form and imagery. Just when I though I had inveigled them into active interest, one of the girls, Monica Page, let the top of her desk fall; the noise seemed to reverberate in every part of my being and I felt a sudden burning anger. I looked at her for some moments before daring to open my mouth; she returned my gaze, then casually remarked to the class at large: ‘The bleeding thing won’t stay up.’ It was all rather deliberate, the noisy interruption and the crude remark, and it heralded the third or bawdy stage of their conduct. From them on the words ‘bloody’ or ‘bleedin” were hardly ever absent from any remark they made to one another, especially in the classroom. They would call out to each other on any silly pretext and refer to the ‘bleedin” this or that, and always in a voice loud enough for my ears. One day during an arithmetic period, Jane Purcell called out to me: “Can’t do this summ Mr Braithwaite, it’s too bleedin’ hard,’ and sat there looking coolly up at me, her large breasts greasily outlined beneath the thin jumper, her eyes innocently blue in appeal.

‘Tell me,’ I replied, my voice chill and cutting with repressed anger: ‘Do you use such words when seaking to your father?’

‘You’re not my bleeding father.’ Her voice was flat and vicious. I was answered, and I shut up. You nasty little slut, I thought. I played right into your hand.

I have a guess based on a quick bit of googling, but I’m interested to see if anyone turns up the same results (or if anyone knows for certain). Tell you what; if you get it right I’ll send you a copy of the book. Or a different book, if you already have it 😛