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Substitute Hell
It was the first morning back after half term and there was a buzz in the courtyard that Mr Mazda had been in an accident and wouldn't be back to teach us for the rest of the year. Fanciful tales of cut brake cables and sabotaged gas tanks, the severity of his wounds and which substitute teacher we would be landed with circulated like flotsam in a perpetually flushing toilet with small huddles of pre-teens interacting at a social level that would have given Harry Seldon a headache.
I was more focused on watching Elizabeth though. In just a few short weeks apart she seemed to have passed from being a girl into being a woman. I could see the first hint of breasts and her shapely legs in long socks under the navy pleated skirt she wore as part of her uniform set my heart aflutter. I was trying to integrate myself into the group she was chatting with when our new teacher arrived.
As the first cloven hoof struck asphalt in a small bubbling pool of flames and liquid ichor, we realised our fate for the rest of Year 9 at Avesta Comprehensive Grammar School had been sealed. We were now the charges of Mr Ahriman.
May. 6.2004