This is the same group as the Ella Rae class. But Ella Rae, and a number of other trouble-makers, aren’t here. Great! Must be because it’s the day before the Melbourne Cup weekend holidays and they’re having an early start. The ones who are left are fairly friendly and ready to work.
The work is a crossword handout on words to do with ‘family’. Their teacher has even helpfully put the Indonesian translations on the back of the sheet. All but one of the kids twigs early that the answers are on the back of the sheet. Only after quite a while does the clueless one finally realise his oversight, and slaps his forehead in frustration – all that work for nothing! It’s funny.
Some girls finish and start playing one of those schoolyard hand-clapping games. The routine they do is pretty complicated and they do it flawlessly. Across the room some other girls finish and, influenced by the other girls, try the game themselves. But they’re pretty inept and they end up with something that looks like patty-cake patty-cake. Again, it’s funny.
One of the experts is a lovely creature named Skye. She starts telling me, apropos of nothing, that her parents named her after an island. She seems to think it’s dumb. By way of cheering her up I tell her how the island of Skye is a favourite Scots holiday destination and that there’s a song about it – Skye Boat Song. I manage to refrain from singing a few bars. Skye asks me how I liked the recent student performance of The Crucible. She knows I saw it because I bought my ticket off her. She was hawking them outside the canteen and told me her older sister was in the play and I had to see it. I simply couldn’t refuse her. I tell her I liked it, but missed her sister. She was apparently sharing her role with another student on alternate nights. I’m being genuine about liking the production. The students really rose to the intensity levels demanded by the play. Skye’s friend, Tegan, adds that her cousin was in the play too.
It occurs to me while we’re talking that the girls are probably intentionally diverting me from giving them more work to do. I don’t mind. I know my job is to act as a kind of safety valve for the students. With me, they can blow off some steam, or maybe talk about things they probably would never talk about to their regular teachers. It can be a holiday from school for them. Kind of like a trip to Skye.
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