CHARLES!

"Hey! Stand up!!"
He simply raised his mouse face, looked into my pupils and reverted to what he was doing.

The taunting memory that act spat before me, did a fine job of poisoning my fury. I recalled times Dad would struggle to get my attention and I would weightlessly wave him off like a house fly buzzing my ears.

"Young man in white, stand up and step out."
I was doing my best 'I am calm' act, and could see the students seeing I was failing woefully at it.
But he wouldn't budge. He kept at it. He kept writing.

I was supervising the History paper with Mrs Peterson, who was as agile as a snail. I turned to her for reassurance and caught her looking away.

I was young and new, quite alright, but not naive. Besides, some seven months ago, I was still a student like himself.
This boy was out to disgrace me before the entire class; I couldn't let that happen. I knew how I handled the issue was going to be a stigma for the years to come. I had to deal with this boy. I had to make an example of him.

I walked to his seat. "Hand the piece of paper over" I said with as much bass as my mouth could produce.

"Shut up man. Just be cool and I'll see you later."

That did not just happen! Who was this kid? And who did he think he was talking to that way?

"Excuse me!"

"I said keep calm..."

"Shut up!" i screamed with so much volume, droplets of saliva twerked onto his question paper.

Son of a bitch was actually going to reiterate that trash.
I grabbed the implicating paper, together with his script, and walked to the front of the hall.

Ma'am Peterson stood up now, malpractice form in hand. I grabbed it from her, as if she too had done something wrong.

"Fill out this form correctly. Nonsense!"

So much about my encounter with Charles, yes, his name was Charles, took me back to several incidents with Dad. So similar!

"He was three steps above the ground, where I stood, so he was literally looking down on me. His poise annoyed my anger even more. Like an elderly person watching a little boy make a fool himself, arms intertwined.

"I said fill the form!"
Every cell in my body voted we challenge him to a fist fight, but a better sense adviced me against it.
What he found amusing about me, I couldn't make out. His smirk was long and well rehearsed. His aplomb made me look more and more like a raging dog.

This Northern boy born on a dark Saturday night, walked two steps down, halting on the last one, so he was still above me, dug his right wrist into his pocket, brought out a car key, raised it well above his head, still wearing the evil smile, his eyes firmer on my face and walked down to me, almost into me, pressed a button and a Bentley Mulsanne parked beside Mrs Peterson's Audi 80, beeped in recognition.

The exam hall turned into a rally ground, students buzzing and hailing and cheering.
I had never felt so humiliated my entire life. I tucked away the salty bubbles from my sight balls, reached into my breast pocket for a red pen, signed a note to the course lecturer suggesting he deducted 70 marks from that particular script. Charles had to represent write that paper. I was sure as hell going to see to it!

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