BBC Ghosts: Teatime Club

Reprimand

He'd failed them.

Pat felt horrible. He'd been that terrible as a mentor that his own clubbies had walked out on him because of it.

He stood outside Mrs Cooper's office with a heavy heart, fingers feathering the little badge he'd made for the himself honouring the club. He had intended on making more badges for his classmates but that wouldn't happen now.

He was going to quit.

Pat knocked on her office door and on hearing her voice, entered her room. She looked up from marking her work and smiled at him.

"Hi Pat! How's everything going?"

"They left." he forced out suddenly. He covered his mouth, not intending on blurting it out so soon.

"Who left?" Mrs Cooper put her pen down, staring at her student with concerned eyes.

"Oh, erm, about that... Um..." he fiddled with his fingers, "Yesterday... with the club... it didn't go so well."

"What happened? Nobody hurt you, did they?"

"What? Oh, no, they just... um... well, I think they got bored, so they all just kind of... walked out on me."

Mrs Cooper spat out her tea, "What?"

"T-They left." Pat repeated, not expecting her to get this irate over it. "I-It's okay though, I just wanted you know of my intentions to qu-"

"They left before you were finished?"

"I-It's not that big of a deal, I know they're not massive fans of it anyway so-"

"I don't care what they think!" she snapped, scaring him. She lessened her anger on noticing him tense up. "Thank you for telling me, Pat." she firmly placed her mug on the table, standing up. "I'll deal with this. Don't you worry about a thing." she walked out of her office, leaving him alone.

He let out a little pathetic squeak, hoping he hadn't gotten anyone in trouble.

~~~~~

Julian was walking down the corridor with his large group of friends crowding around him. He was telling them a frisky anecdote about one of the girls in fifth year. It was all made up, of course, but he was doing it for the cause. Julian loved creating chaos and spreading lies about fellow students he didn't know anything about because it amused him and he enjoyed watching the drama unfold. That being said, the suckers he called his friends were lapping up everything he said as fact. "-and then she said she wanted a fumble around in the bushes, so I said-"

"JULIAN FAWCETT!"

Julian's head shot around at the shrill yell. He rubbed his ears and stood to attention as Mrs Cooper stormed down the corridor towards him. His friends slowly backed off and left him to face the music alone. He rolled his eyes at their cowardice and approached his teacher. "What have I done now?" he huffed cheekily.

Mrs Cooper scowled at him. "My classroom, NOW."

Julian rolled his eyes and trudged after her, having no idea why he'd been called out like that. He decided that it could have been because he harassed those girls in first year, or for being caught drawing those mean-spirited pictures of teachers he detested, or for bullying those geeks in fourth year and stealing their lunch money. He hadn't a clue until he got there and saw the other members of the dreaded after-school club sulking in the classroom. He grimaced. Now he knew what this was about. That little porky pie had obviously ratted them out.

He slumped down onto a seat next to Kitty as Mrs Cooper stood at the front of the class and started lecturing them. He zoned out for the first few minutes; too busy staring at the wall to take any notice of what she was saying. It wasn't until she slammed her hand on the desk that he was startled into paying attention.