It's Only Temporary by Jamie Pearson Page A

applied themselves. I was not much of a salesman but I assumed that the potential benefits of this opportunity would sell it for me. I was wrong.
    ‘What time we going home?’ a young man called Zeke asked.
    Not quite the response I was hoping for.
    ‘Err, three pm.’
    ‘What?’ A chorus of complaints rang out.
    ‘You mean we’re here all day?’ Tommo said.
    ‘No, only until three pm.’
    ‘Nah man, I’m not doing it,’ Zeke declared.
    ‘Well, that’s your choice. But I think you’ll find it impacts on your benefits if you leave.’
    ‘Didn’t say I was going nowhere, just that I ain’t doing nothing.’
    ‘That’s a moron,’ Jade added.
    Zeke turned to glare at her but she just gave him a smile. However he obviously elected to not take the issue further.
    ‘Isn’t that right Prof?’ Jade asked.
    ‘Well I feel it’s a little harsh to insult Zeke, but I would point out that seeing as you’re here anyway you may as well do something constructive rather than sit around wasting your time?’ I directed the last part to Zeke.
    ‘Nooo Prof! I didn’t mean that!’ Jade called out. ‘Well, yeah he is a moron actually,’ this caused sniggers within the group. ‘What I mean is about what he said. “I ain’t doing nothing”, that means you’re doing something don’t it?’
    ‘Err, that’s right it does.’
    ‘And that’s called a moron, or something.’
    ‘Oh, an Oxymoron?’
    ‘Yep, that’s the one!’ she said snapping her fingers at me.
    I was momentarily caught off guard; Jade knew what an Oxymoron was as well as that the possibility of contradicting yourself in a sentence could create an alternate meaning. What other depths did these kids have?
    ‘Mr Ellis used to say that to us all, the time didn’t he?’ Kurt asked.
    ‘Yeah that’s right,’ Jade responded.
    ‘I’m sorry I’m lost here. Mr Ellis?’
    ‘Our form teacher,’ Tommo offered. ‘We all went to the same school and all got the same detentions.’
    ‘Oh, I see.’
    I soldiered on until lunch time and in order to assess their writing skills I asked them all to write a short piece on themselves. This was again met with howls of derision but once I explained that there was a need to be able to write legibly in order to have an enhanced chance of getting a job all but one attempted the exercise with varying results.
    The abstainer was Sam who point blank refused to put pen to paper, unsure of how to deal with the situation I elected to overlook his belligerence for the time being in the hope that peer pressure might change his attitude.
    Following lunch I attempted to introduce a simple arithmetic exercise.
    ‘Oh man maths!’ Tommo exclaimed. ‘It’s like being at school.’
    ‘You never went anyway!’ Kurt chided. ‘Prof though, maths dude? We have done loads of work this morning, can’t we do something less boring?’
    “Loads of work”? One paragraph, of on average three lines constituted loads of work? Oh good grief! I had four weeks at three days a week to complete the course work. At this rate I felt I was going to need four months. I needed to be able to draw on something, anything to get through to three o’clock.
    ‘Well we have a lot of ground to cover in a short time.’
    ‘Oh, Prof. Lighten up!’ Jade suggested. ‘We are only sixteen!’
    Sixteen? That was it!
    ‘Ok…… have you guys ever heard of Nefertiti ?’
    ‘Doesn ’t he play for Real Madrid?’ Zeke asked.
    ‘Err no. She was an Egyptian girl who became queen when she was only fifteen.’ I said looking at Jade. With no response I pressed on, ‘This was a long time ago and back then women were second class citizens in Egypt.’
    ‘A bit like here, now, then?’ Jade said.
    ‘Maybe, but…..she did something about it aged only fifteen. She changed a nation.’
    ‘How?’ Kurt asked.
    Unbelievable, I had them! I looked from face to face and even Sam appeared to be waiting for my response.
    ‘She married the Pharaoh Amenhotep who