Miss' imaginary friends

Dedicated readers may remember my black transexual pal.

As disbelief in my words of wisdom grows, the lie-to-convince-them technique has resurfaced.

My legless friend
On november 5th, after a lovely discussion about "celebrating" a terrorist attempt to destroy the seat of democracy, I tell them to be careful with fireworks.
"Yeh, yeh, yeh Miss"
"Whatevs blud"
Miss: "Now look, fireworks are seriously dangerous"
"Miss we hear that all the time, but who actually ever gets hurt?"
"Yeh, load of rubbish init"
Miss: "When I was thirteen my friend put a firework in his pocket, and we were messing around with sparklers, and the firework caught light in his pocket, and luckily he felt it get hot and threw it away and we all ran, but he has burn scars on his leg to this day, and if he hadn't acted so quickly he would only have one leg"

The blind teacher
"HOW DARE YOU THROW THINGS ACROSS MY CLASSROOM?!"
"It's only a pen lid Miss, calm it"
"My friend teaches in a school in north london, and a pen lid hit her in the eye, and she only has one eye now. They had to remove it. You think that's funny?"
"Nah Miss, I'm sorry"
"Give me your planner. You're coming back here to sweep my floor at lunch time"

The Child Soldier at Magdalen College, Oxford
My NQT from room 13 brought a child through in the middle of period 4.
"I'm sorry Miss, can Jonathan sit with you? He's telling everyone that I'm lying to them about child soldiers in the DRC"
I say of course, and give Jonathan a textbook, a sheet of paper and a stern talking to about staying exactly where he is while I pop next door.
The class is mid-mutiny.
"But Jonathan's from the Congo Miss, he'd know!"
"Why you telling us lies about Africa?"
I put my finger to my lips and wait for quiet. "When I was at university I met a man called Anatole. He had been a child soldier in Zaire, as it was called then. He'd been taken from his family when he was 6, and forced to fight." The class are silent, and hanging on my every word. It feels delightful. "He was rescued, not by WarChild (the charity they're learning about) but by UNICEF I think, and brought to England. He had lots of counselling, because obviously he had a lot of issues after the things he'd been forced to do, but he worked really hard, got good GCSEs, and I met him at university, where he was studying to be a human rights lawyer."
Out of the silence the bolshiest black kid whispers "Wow Miss, that's raw".

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