Story Synopsis : Draft Three

Charlie sits alone in the technology room, with assorted tools and glues sitting around him. He is completely focused on his work, not looking around, but looking straight down. He’s gluing two pieces of wood together, in preparation to add them to something bigger. He looks around the room, trying to find a specific type of glue, but to no avail. So, he leaves his work on the side, and walks out into the corridor, trying to find some glue in the cupboard adjacent to his workstation. He hears footsteps. But thinking nothing of it, he turns back around and then continues rummaging through the cupboard. To his surprise, he hears a sander being fired up, and pulls his head out of the cupboard, looking back at his workstation. His work has disappeared, and he sees a figure in the back corner of the room, with his work under a drill. The drill fires up, and the figure continues to stare Charlie down. The drill descends, and bores a large hole through his carefully crafted wood. Charlie just looks on, as his work is drilled by the figure at the back of the room. He looks again. The figure is short and skinny, no taller than a year 9. It was a year 9. 

The year nine slams the work down on to the table opposite the drill, and keeps eye contact with Charlie, but not saying a word as he makes a bee-line for the door. He gets to the door, but as he closes it, says one word. Not loud enough to be heard from far away, but just within Charlie’s earshot.

“Pussy.”

Charlie looks back down at the work next to the drill. He walks over to it, and looks it over. He takes it over to the nearby sander, and begins sanding away at the corners. He picks it up, blows it, and then puts it back on the shelf. Picking up his bag, he walks out towards the door.

Moving out onto the walkway, he sees the same boy that vandalised his work, standing over by a bench. It looks like he’s giving the guy sitting on it a hard time. Charlie walks over, and slings his bag down onto the floor next to the bench, and sits down next to the guy on the bench. The year nine looks bewildered, as does the guy sitting on the bench. Charlie looks at the guy next to him and nods, and the guy gets up, and moves to a bench further away. The year nine starts being aggressive towards Charlie, stating that if he didn’t move off the bench that was supposedly “His”, he would punch him in the face. Charlie heard this, and puts his hands behind his back, saying that if he did punch him, he wouldn’t get a response. The two stare each other down for a moment, before the year nine cocks his fist back. He punches forward, but Charlie dodges out the way, and stands up beside the bench. The year nine sits down, grinning as if he had won the battle. 

“Doesn’t the bench feel a little soggy though?” Charlie states. The year nine tries to stand up, but can’t. While sitting down, Charlie applied some industrial strength glue to the bottom of the bench, leaving the year nine glued to a bench by his tracksuit bottoms. 

Charlie picked his bag up, and without saying a word, leaves the bench, with the year nine sitting on it.