The Ebglish Lesson -- Not sure where this should go but i couldn't wait to write it so we'll just have to put it in later.

English Lesson


The English department was on the very bottom floor of the school. It was dimly lit and smelt of damp. The tapestries that lined the walls were in various states of disrepair. The whole air of the place was of abandonment.
“No one can really be bothered with the English department anymore,” Suzie told Katie, as they walked down the dingy staircase that led to their classroom. “It’s a bit of a joke that we still have an English department to be honest. Nowhere else does but Miss Crystalwater always insists.”
“So what’s the English teacher like then?”
“Who knows?”
“Wow, my personal library of useless information about people in the school doesn’t know something!” Katie laughed.
“He’s new,” Ben explained. “The last one stepped down ‘cause Madame Escuro told everyone that he wasn’t actually majikal. He was just some random mortal who was good at English. He was cool though. A bit old and a lot mad but he shouldn’t have been chucked out. He didn’t really have anywhere to go. All his pupils and Miss Crystalwater tried to keep him but thanks to Miranda’s mum he didn’t stand a chance.”
“Thanks to Miranda’s mum?”
“Yeah, she’s one of the sponsors of this school! Did you not know that? She was the one who said that he had no place here and we need her money. Everyone was furious but he had to go really. Even Miss Crystalwater couldn’t stop it.”
Just as Katie was about to reply the door to their classroom swung open and a middle aged, bolding man stepped out. The man was dressed scruffily, and rather than wearing the usual formal robes that most teachers lived in he wore a pair of faded beige chord trousers and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.
“Who are you?” Miranda sneered.
“You first,” the man replied.
“Don’t tell me that’s our new teacher,” Miranda drawled in a very audible whisper.
“Miss Harding is it? Yes, I am your teacher, and while you are in my class I am in charge, so some manners if you don’t mind. It would be good for you to get some practice at any rate, as you don’t seem to find much time to fit any in at the moment, judging from what I’ve seen so far. Come in class and find a seat, anywhere will do.”
The class filed in. Ben grinned at Katie and whispered to her, “I think I might be growing to like this teacher already. “
The classroom couldn’t have been more different to the dingy corridor outside. Candles stood in brass holders on every desk and the big square room. A white board covered the whole of one wall, whilst another was covered in an assortment of newspaper cuttings and various other pieces of writing. The usual tapestries had been replaced with several different huge posters, tacked up on the blank white walls. Old-fashioned oak desks stood in rows. An inkpot and fountain pen stood next to the candle on each desk.
Katie, Charlie, Suzie and Ben all sat down in the back corner.
“Right, first things first, my name is Mr Williams, and yes I am to be your English teacher this term” the teacher said, once the class had settled. “Now, my first question to you is what is English?” Everyone’s hand remained firmly down. “No one? Let me rephrase the question. What is the point of English?”
Keegan’s hand shot up. “There isn’t one,” he said. Most of the class sniggered. Katie held her breath, wandering what Mr Williams would do. He simply, however, raised his eyebrows and looked slightly bemused. His hand twitched.
“Maybe this will teach Mr Macavoy the point of English.” The class looked confused until, in explanation, Keegan opened his mouth and barked several times. The class erupted into appreciative laughter; Keegan looked annoyed. “Now can anyone tell me the point of English?” My Williams asked again.
“So we can understand each other,” Alice called out.
“We don’t need lessons to do that,” sniggered Miranda a little too loudly. Again, however, Mr Williams merely raised his eyebrows and said:
“True, Miss Harding. But I asked you what the point of English was, not the point of my lessons. Any more suggestions?
“To spread news, you know, by newspapers and stuff.”
“To share opinions,” Miranda said.
“You mean to tell people your opinions,” Charlie replied, to more sniggers and a glare from Miranda.
“To entertain…”
Eventually the ideas dried up and Mr Williams took control of the class once more. “So how do we do these things? We’ve already had one example from Charlie.” Charlie looked up, confused, having barely partaken in the lesson. “Mr King kindly offered us an example for opinions – you can simple tell people them. So what other ways do we express ourselves through English? Ben can you give us one?”
Ben, who had been studying a poster absent mindedly, looked up in surprise. “Urm… A play?”
“Yes Ben, can anyone give us an example?”
Right on queue Joe jumped up and hand on heart stated, “‘what is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ – Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.”
“What’s a play Sir?” Suzie called out. Ben and Katie looked up in amazement.
“Alas, I apologise. One forgets many have not had the joy of Mr Shakespeare in their lives. How to explain a play? It’s like pretending. In a play is the only time one can really be whoever they want to be. A man can be a woman or a cow; a woman can be a frog or a princess. Hmm… Let me see,” Mr Williams said rummaging through his battered briefcase. “Do we have any volunteers,” he asked producing several raged sheets triumphantly. “Michael, Joe, and one more, how about you Katie? Michael you witch one, Joel which two and Katie you can be witch three. Time to introduce them to a bit of McBeth I think. Right, when you’re ready Michael.”
“Bubble, bubble,” Michael read off the sheet Mr Williams had handed him.
“No, no, no,” Mr Williams interrupted from the back of the classroom. “You’re a witch Michael, so act like it. Bubble, bubble… Go one – be evil.”
“Bubble, bubble,” Michael repeated, a real witch this time. Even his stance became stooped and crippled looking.
Joe continued “toil and trouble.”
It was Katie’s turn – “Fire burn and cauldron bubble,” – she said haltingly.
Mr Williams tutted loudly, “Come on Katie, you can do better than that. You’re a witch. You’ve a wart on the end of your crooked nose and wonky gnarled fingers. Fire burn and cauldron bubble… give it some welly. Actually you can all have a go. Chocolate bar to my best witch!”

“Can you wait a second?” Mr Williams called out as they started to walk out the classroom. “Alice, Katie, Joe, Suzie, Ben and Charlie. Oh, you too Keegan, and you Michael. There’s something I wanted to show you lot in my office. You can go ahead if you want, just while I clear up here. Take the first left, then a right, go straight up the first staircase you come to and the next left around the corner after that. It should be pretty obvious when you get there.” They all nodded and walked out the classroom, curious as to what Mr Williams might want to show them.
“This can’t be it,” Alice said, confused, five minutes later. She peered into the only room they had come to. Ben didn’t recognise this part of the school. The corridors were low and much planer. Big windows spanned the walls and there weren’t any rooms leading off the corridor, other than the one Alice was looking into now. It lacked the old-fashioned musty grandeur of the classrooms but nor was it similar to the perfectly modern entrance hall and dinging room. Ben liked it though. It was light and airy and somehow less formal than the rest of the school.
Ben followed the others through the door. He gasped. He was stood at the top of very steep flight of stairs. Rows of red velvet seats spanned out on either side of him, covered in a thick layer of dust. He looked down, and there bellow him was a huge stage. It was a theatre. Wooden boxes and tables and chairs stood all over the stage, and they too were covered in what looked like years of dust. Curtains, made of similar red velvet to the seats, framed the old, unused stage. Ben walked down the stairs slowly. His footsteps echoed around the huge auditorium. He wondered what it must have been like to act in front of such a big audience on that stage, way down there.
Ben reached the bottom of the stairs and put his hands flat on the edge of the stage, up above him. Slowly he walked around to the side, ignoring the dust that swirled all around him. He mounted the stairs that lead up to the stage and suddenly he was standing up there. He looked up. Keegan flicked a switch and suddenly and blinding white spotlight glared down at him. Katie stood besides him. She curtsied to the audience. Ben laughed and gave a bow. Keegan flicked another switch and suddenly a waltz began to warble out of the speakers.
“May I have this dance?” Ben asked Katie, bowing to her this time.
“Indeed you may, good Sir,” Katie laughed.
“Nay Sir, she is mine. Get your filthy hands off her you beast,” joined in Joe, standing on the stage next to Katie.
“She will dance with me if she so wishes to, my friend,” Ben replied in fury.
“She will not dance with you because she does not wish it so,”
“I do wish to dance with him though,” Katie put in.
“Well, I do not allow it,” Joe sneered.
“You can not control this young woman, Man,”
“Aye, that I can not but I can control you.” Joe swung a punch at Ben and missed comically. Ben charged at Joe head bowed before picking him up and dangling him upside down.
“Say you surrender,” challenged Ben.
“Never,”
“Say you surrender,” Ben repeated, shaking Joe hard.
“Put me down,” Joe screamed, “I think I’m going to wet myself!” Ben dropped Joe before he and Katie both collapsed next to him in a fit of giggles.
A voice called from the top, “you’d better stand up before you get too dusty.” The three of them jumped up and the others all turned around and looked at Mr Williams sheepishly. “Yes, I think I must have given you wrong directions. Oh well, I managed to track you down eventually. This door really should be locked. Come on all of you, out you come.”
They all ran back up the stairs. Ben looked back at the theatre wistfully.
“How are your unlocking spells going?” Mr Williams asked as they walked out. {I thought we would mention in his lessons someone else giving them unlocking spells as homework -- maybe they could be asking him not to give them homework as they are all struggling to do unlocking spells – ‘cause that would fit with this bit. What do you think? If you don’t understand what I mean then you will in a bit once you’ve read a bit more of this bit.}
“Not very well. None of us can do them yet.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll learn eventually. They’re quite hard,” sympathised Mr Williams, pulling a big brass key out of his pocket and putting it into the keyhole of the door.
“Sir, why’s there a theatre in this school?” Ben asked.
Mr Williams sighed. “When I came to school here we did drama as a lesson. I came here with Miss Crystalwater you know. She got me the place here as a teacher. I’ve always wanted to come back. I’m not surprised that dramas not on the curriculum any longer. In fact I was pleased but more than a little shocked to learn that Miss Crystalwater had been able to protect our English department. Most people don’t think that we need to be taught subjects like English. It’s a subject for mortals they think. Apparently we no longer need to be able to communicate.” Mr Williams sighed again and walked away from the door that lead into another world. The others followed him slowly, reluctantly, unwilling to leave the world of pretence now that they had entered it.
Katie looked back at the door one last time. The key was still in the lock. Mr Williams had forgotten it. Katie opened her mouth to tell him. She shut it again. Nudging Joe she nodded towards the door. Joe looked, and turned back to her, a wicked glint in his eye.
“Oh damn, Sir I forgot my pencil case. I’ll just go and get it and come back in a second.” Katie watched Joe hurry back round the corner. When she looked at the door the key was gone. She smiled before following the others.

{What do you think? do you like my theatre? =D can't wait to write about the actual secret society! Yey... feel free to edit Katie. Clare.xxxx}