The legend of the mysterious sitar player

There are five girls in 9AD who frequently come to lessons only to tell me they won't be in lessons, because "we got sitar innit miss".

Now although this sounded dubious (a sitar player? in a school where we don't have textbooks?) they were the worst five kids, the class was almost bearable without them, so I didn't make a fuss.

Then one week one of them decided to turn over a new leaf, and dob them in. "Miss, Miss, they aint got sitar really, they's bunking!" Miss Jones: "Aha! I knew there was no sitar player! where are we, the moulin rouge?" the class look at me, totally bemused. "what you on miss, course theres a sitar player". In exactly the same way as they might say "what you on miss, course theres air in the language block". the kids explain: "they aint got sitar till later today."

So when they turn up to tell me they have sitar, I ask for a note. Damn Kobe and her new leaf - now I'm going to have to have them all in the lesson. We just went down like three levels of hell. They look sheepish, confess they aint got one, and sit down. Ten minutes later they're back with a note. "We just realised we do have one!" It's in pink pen. There are smiley faces above every i. But the biggest mistake they've made is to write that the time of the lesson is 3pm. My lesson finishes at 2. School finishes at 2.45.

Today's lesson: some kids are incredibly stupid.

In my free period I went and found the head of music. My newest weapon in the fight against strange musical talent and bunking is the sitar teacher's timetable.