The door slammed, echoing down the long hall.
Marvin stood outside the classroom, breathing quickly, trying to hold back the tears that hid behind his grinning facade. He had been ejected again for inattention and insubordination.
Self-hatred tore through him, making his stomach churn and his eyes sting. What's the matter with me? Why can't I just sit still, like everyone else?
Marvin wished that at least he could fake some interest in what Mr Milligan, his teacher, was droning on about. He just couldn't seem to help it. Boredom would creep in, and Marvin's mind would start wandering off into imaginary worlds. It was as if a portal opened up, promising rainbow-coloured possibilities and a future full of wonders, rather than the drab, grey existence of the classroom.
Before he knew what was happening, his body would hum and jitter like an electric generator and Marvin would just have to move. It would start as a shuffle on the hard, plastic chair; then a squeak as the chair scraped across the tiled floor. Marvin would be compelled to follow through with some rocking, back and forth, back and forth, making the chair balance on two legs. Then wallop, bang, he'd be down on the floor, with everyone laughing around him.
Everyone, except Mr Milligan, whose face transformed into a peculiar shade of purple as he started to bellow.
Marvin spent a lot of each day outside the classroom.
He supposed he should be grateful that Mr Milligan hadn't pulled out the black slipper. That had stopped after Marvin's mother had marched in, furious as a nest of disturbed hornets, to defend her 'lovely, little Marvin'.
Mr Milligan had droned on, spouting excuses about Marvin being a 'class clown', 'rude' and 'naughty'. Yet, Marvin's mother had obviously had an effect as the slaps across his backside with the slipper had stopped. Marvin was still regularly ejected from class though, despite his mother’s anguish.
“You got to be bold as brass, Marvin,” she urged him. “Don’t matter what others say.”
But it did matter. Worse still, having your mother march into school to save your backside was pretty much the key to social suicide, especially when you were eleven years old.
Marvin had a horrible feeling that his classmates were now laughing at him, not with him. His feelings of isolation grew. So he worked even harder on getting the laughs, now attempting to balance on just one chair leg. He fell to the floor every time, and learnt nothing from lessons, but that didn't matter, as long as he could raise a laugh. Popularity was his only goal.
Marvin breathed in and out, trying to slow his racing heartbeat, stuck outside the classroom door again, the slam ringing in his ears.
Then he saw her - the Gorgon headteacher, Miss Jakes, who they all nicknamed Medusa.
She slid towards him, reptilian eyes pinning him against the door. Her copious locks shimmered like snakes.
"Mr Banks, what are you doing out here, yet again?" Miss Jakes hissed.
"I-I-I." Marvin’s throat constricted. His feet were rooted to the floor, his legs turning to stone, as she stripped his soul with her deathly gaze.
How he wished for one of his portals then, but his imagination, usually so vivid, failed him.
"Get back into that classroom - now!" Miss Jakes commanded, and Marvin hurried to obey.
***
The door slammed, echoing down the long hall. Marvin breathed in and out, squeezing and releasing his fingers in an attempt to calm himself. His jittery nerves hummed, urging him to run away. He could hear the chaos on the other side of the door, where teenagers rampaged, rocking on their chairs, throwing books, jeering and cheering each other on.
Marvin had tried so hard to rein in his inattention and daydreaming today, but, as usual, the lesson had descended into absolute carnage. His fault, yet again.
Marvin froze as the headteacher's door opened. Miss Jakes sidled out, silent as a snake. She pinned him in place with her empty, reptilian eyes. Her silver hair shimmered in the light, appearing to turn to scales before Marvin's fascinated gaze.
"Mr Banks, what are you doing out of class?" she hissed.
"I-I-I... I just can't face them. Please, don't make me go back in there, Miss Jakes." Marvin's voice shook and he tugged his beard, embarrassed to show his emotions.
Miss Jakes opened the classroom door with a dramatic flourish. 9B froze, transformed into statues, their jeering faces drained of all colour and life as she pinned them with her savage stare.
"Get off my tables – this minute!"
Even the most determined clown in class scurried to obey her.
Miss Jakes turned back to Marvin; her Gorgon face stretched into a sneer. "Discipline is the key, Mr Banks. If you cannot maintain order, we will have to reconsider your future here."
Marvin nodded miserably. He had hoped so much to make a difference to kids like himself. Yet all those years of training to be a teacher had only led to this moment of blinding failure and humiliation.
He felt the old familiar trembling, the jittering that made him lift one foot, then another.
Did he really want to go back into that classroom?
He looked fully into Miss Jakes eyes, and for the first time ever, that reptilian gaze did not freeze his soul. It rejected him, yet in that way offered a glimpse of escape.
Marvin smiled as a shining portal marked 'freedom' opened up before him, offering an alternative future to this one. One where the possibilities shone in rainbow colours, rather than the drab grey he had forced himself to fit in to.
He stepped forwards, bold as brass, as his dear mother would have said, past Medusa's hiss of surprise, towards his future. Marvin embraced the old hum of excitement running though his body, recognising, and finally accepting, the moment when it felt as if an electric generator had juddered into action.