Educating Emily

Grow up. 

The words rolled around in Emily’s head like rubbish on a windy day. Grow up, grow up, grow up! But, she reasoned, she measured taller today than last week. Surely that was something.

Her older sister said this whenever Emily asked a curious question. Her mother said it when Emily asked why one too many times, and her father said it whenever she talked too much over dinner. But it wasn’t her fault, she reasoned. Why should her thoughts be less interesting or less grown up than anyone else’s?

It was a typical cold February midweek morning and Emily sat in Mr Kellen’s classroom. She stared out the window, bored. Again. Today’s topic: work experience. 

“Well Emily?” Mr Kellen interrupted her musings. “Do you know what you want to do when you grow up?” He frowned down at her over his round spectacles, noting her response like a judge. His bald head always started smoking when his frustration built, and she noted wisps of it start to rise just behind his forehead. Perspiration gathered at his temples. His protruding stomach moved up and down like an inflatable ball as he breathed heavily.

“Um, I’m not sure sir,” was all she could muster, shrugging, noncommittal. Safer that way. Less smoke. His frown deepened before he bouncy-bobbed on. 

Work experience! Who wanted to think about the rest of their lives at the age of 15 anyway? Not her. Emily considered this to be a perfectly reasonable justification for ignoring this lesson. With the small sigh, she turned back towards the window.

Mr Kellen’s voice cut into her thoughts again, nasally, loud enough to disrupt her musings. “And of course,” he said, “What you choose to do during your two week work experience placement could determine your future!” He pushed his glasses up his nose and Emiliy noticed more steamy smoke rising. “It’s never too early to plan for success. The world is a tough place, and knowing what you want is important.”

The kid sitting by the wall he'd graffitied snickered and said, loud enough for the class to hear: “That why you’re stuck in a school wasting your life, Sir? You couldn’t think of anything better?” The kids all laughed, and Mr Kellen’s eyelids lowered. Emily wondered if he’d retaliate this time, finally. Tell him he’s too thick to think, she willed. Tell him he’s ruder than the penis pictures he draws all over your walls! Tell him! But Mr Kellen just brushed his hand from the front to the back of his head, as if wiping the comment away. The usual then. 

Emily rolled her eyes. 

The hour dragged on. Most kids scrolled through their phones under their desks, but she didn’t have one. Parents told her she’d get one when she showed herself to be responsible over a sustained period of time. Well, she'd never allow her parents the satisfaction of winning, so books it was. And besides, she liked to fantasise. Phones fantasised for you: much too easy. And samey.

School bored her; focusing on facts all day every day in these yellow classrooms was also too samey. Fantasy allowed escape, so she read books under the table in most her lessons and--because it was such a weird thing to do--teachers didn't even get mad at her when they caught her. She knew it earned her a rep as a wet weirdo, but bullies had lost face when confronted with her well placed words; now they largely left her alone.

Some paper was put in front of her, Landing on her desk with a soft, pufft of air. A questionnaire. She wished she’d remembered her book that morning. She was reading a fantasy, a new author too actually, and she loved it. It had kept her up last night reading about mazes and magic and things that live when nobody's looking. 

The room grew warmer, Mr Kellen’s voice grew duller, and her lids grew heavier. Drooping, dropping, down, down, down. Words blurred on the questionnaire in front of her, running together in a splattering of black ink. 

Someone cleared their throat with a loud Hehhhhhhaaaaheemmmm. Blinking her eyes, she attempted to clear her vision, focusing on a particular letter “B” on the page, which, oddly enough, had seemed to start moving; the letters behind it followed, like a train leaving the station. The letters snaked off the page behind the B, winding its way off her desk and towards the wall on the left. 

The questionnaire on her desk now stared up at her sadly, a deserted white page. 

Escaping quickly, the letters chugged along the window’s edge, higher and higher, past the ratty blue curtains and towards the top of the wall. Another sharp turn and it moved along the corner where the wall meets the ceiling, curving and weaving ever so slightly. She couldn’t believe the other students hadn’t noticed a line of letters moving, like a skinny black snake, winding around. 

At the front of the room, along the ceiling seam, the letters circled the curling posters at the front. The posters–she’d never read them before–defined the word “adjective” and “noun” and “verb”. Sections had been ripped out of their sides and corners curled up so she couldn’t read some of the words. How many students actually have, she wondered. Reds had faded to pinks and greens turned an unhealthy shade. How old were these posters? 

The train chugged on. Now on the other side of the wall, it curved onto the next wall. She could feel the movement now, as if a breeze blew in her face–it felt wonderful after sitting in such dead air. The train neared the trail of penises drawn by the angry kid in the class-a long line of penises, each more gruesome than the last. Real dedication of the disturbed mind across the room. Every time Mr Kellen put in a work order to have it removed, it reappeared within a few days, blacker, with bolder splash marks and a longer shaft. Maybe that was all he could write. She knew he couldn't read because she'd heard him try once, last year.

The train moved overtop these images, leaving them behind, and she moved with it, trailing her gaze backwards, past the docile bodies in the desks, past the other doodles on the walls, past the displays with fraying edges. She noticed pictures of novels on these displays, another novelty–how long had they been there? She had no idea. Even she had never looked before. Who reads classroom walls anyway?

Emily jolted as the train suddenly turned upward again, towards the ceiling. Faster now, breeze intensifying in her face. A breeze? Movement? Suddenly consumed now, she felt the curve of the little “e” behind the big “B” at the front of the train on her sitting bottom. Feel the effects of the word “Better” on hands and arms and back.

Where was she? The train was on the ceiling now, and she saw that it was going to have to dodge the dreaded glue stuck all over the surface. Some sticks half clung to the ceiling; Some were shorter, stuck fast, like growths or tumours. The train sped up and she had to hold on to the upper curve on the B. Faster, faster, wind in her face now, and she almost screamed as a big glue tower loomed in front of the train. Last minute swerve and they were around it, the back of the train whipping out and into the air. Whoosh! She breathed a sigh of relief before looking ahead again, too late. 

Baamm! 

The train had hit another tower. The big B crumpled on impact, and she pitched over the top, straight into the middle of the glue stick. 

Whaamm!

Where was she? She felt sticky 

 and disoriented.

Partially blinded 

    by something gooey and 

   blurry in front

of her face. 

 Suspended in

some sort of 

bubble. Shaking her head,

    realization dawned.

The 

glue!

She was inside 

        the stupid glue! What? 

Looking up, which 

      she 

  supposed was really 

      looking down, 

           for she 

                was in fact on 

                       top of the ceiling, 

                                                   she saw the 

                                                          tops of the 

                                                                students’ heads 

                                                                       below her,

Mr Kellen’s 

                                              scalp–three lone 

                                       hairs and a

sheen 

                        of sweat–most 

                                      prominent. How 

                                           curious this was, 

                                  how unlikely 

                       and how odd. 

              She was stuck 

       inside a glue

 stick stuck 

         to the ceiling 

                        in a classroom 

                                 she’d been stuck 

                                            inside for ages. 

                             Deciding this was 

                certainly not an activity 

                she wanted to continue, 

                she began to struggle, 

                lifting her arm and trying 

                to extricate herself from 

                the mass. It stuck to her 

                like, well, like glue! In fact, 

                the more she struggled, the 

                 more she seemed to get 

                 stucker. She noticed the 

                letters scattered around her, 

                some in pieces, some 

                 halfway sticking out of 

                other glue bits, some 

                clinging to the letters 

                 around them. How 

                 interesting.

“Emily, wake up,” Mr Kellen cut through her thoughts, jolting her from the ceiling, the glue and the words surrounding her. Blinking in surprise, Emily lifted her head from her desk.

“Emily, please focus. What do you want to do when you grow up?” He looked down at her over his papers. Funny how the words on those pages stayed still in his hands. Trapped.

She blinked up at him. Then she smiled her secret smile. “I want to be unstuck.” His wild eyebrows shot up again and he looked concerned. 

“Unstuck?”

She returned to that ceiling. The glue engulfed her now, stretching itself towards her throat, her mouth, surrounding her lips. She wondered if this was her end, death by glue stick. Certainly not something she figured she’d enjoy. 

But in that moment, something gave way. Somehow, suddenly, her fingers emerged from the sticky sludge. The words around her perked up. Fingers, then her hands, arms and finally her shoulders came unstuck. Her fingers reached for that glue circling her middle and tugged, hard. Thuck! It gave way. She grabbed the glue on her legs and swiped again. They too emerged, unscathed. 

She was free!

"I want to do something I can't even dream up yet, something that's maybe still impossible until someone decides it is. I want to shrink so I can grow, explore so I know, I want to go down the rabbit hole." She stopped, observing as students turned to her with blank expressions.

The teacher scratched his hot head and adjusted his spectacles. “Well,” he said. “Sounds to me like you don’t want to grow up at all!”