Catching parents in the parking lot

Last period of the day, I have year 9 in a computer room making a power point of key words. This is my way of dealing with a shitty class on a five period day. As the kids leave the room they have to hand me their work, and if it's not good enough they can't leave.

"But we have a football match Miss!"
"So do your work properly, don't waste time, and you'll be fine"

At the end of the lesson they're walking out, and Harley has no work. I am not surprised, as I caught him three times on Google Earth.

"Oh, I didn't print it off"
"Go and print it"
"But I've logged off!"
"So log back on"

He does, and shuffles around the printer for a while. He hands me a pile of pages. I flick through them, and recognise a spelling error.

"Harley, how do you spell Moksha?"
"What?"
"You did this work?" he nods. "So spell it. You typed it"
"Miss, I can't stay, my mum's waiting"
"Is this your work?"
"No, but..."
"So go, log back on, and do the work"
"It's home time! My mum's waiting! I can't!"
"She's picking you up? Ok, I'll walk down and arrange for her to pick you up an hour later tomorrow. You can do this work then"

I walk Harley down to the playground. He's muttering something about it being racist to make him do RE, and why can't he just learn things about England. I point out that this is rubbish, that there are Hindus in England, and that it's probably more racist to object to learning about different cultures than it is to force people to do RE.

I follow him out into the street. At this point I'm wondering whether his mum is in fact coming, and how far I can follow him home before it becomes a child protection issue.

But then I see a blonde woman get out of a shiny blue car, in a matching blue coat, with matching blue eye-liner and more mascara than a year 10 girl. I explain what Harley's been doing, how he handed in someone elses work, lied about it, and called me racist. His mother is absolutely amazing. She's a spiritualist, which she came to after having mainstream religions forced on her from childhood, and agrees with me that Harley is being more racist than I am. I love her.

Result? Harley is doing an hours detention tomorrow, he is grounded, and his mum is coming in to talk to year 9 about non-dogmatic spirituality. I wonder which part of this punishment he hates most....