The School Master

2

 

This isn't the place i've imagined being, to be chained on my ankles to a steel desk to be working and working on school work for hours and then tortured by the school master if all the problems aren't correct. My body aches with bruises, the soles of my feet are eaten away with calluses and sores and dry bricked skin. I am cold, this room has no heat but i cant will myself to cry anymore i have been in this place for two years, my tears have dried up.

Neither of the others are my friends either, they are my rivals and we all want to be the one to go back to our parents in one piece. we work our fingers to the bare bone. Write out manuscript neatly in fear that we will have to start over if the school master sees it. None of us want to be told that we have failed, that our time is up. None of us. Though we all know that that ONE OF US, could be any of us, if we fail the school masters test.

''psst

I look up i did not know that i had dazed out.

A girl a year or two older then me glares at me with her eyes in fear and anger, warning me to continue writing. I give her a slight grateful nod. Thankful that she was looking out for me. She is the oldest one here. And the only one who acknowledges my existence. I sigh, and continue writing, if the school master find us slacking we will get a beating. I look down at the mysterious math symbols and letters in frustration i had been on this problem all morning and i was suppose to be done already. I daze off again twirling my pencil out of boredom

"Keisha!" she whispers loudly and i want to face palm myself and cry and curse in anger at the school master who had me chained at this steel desk. I had already begun to give up hope i didn't understand this problem i didnt understand any of them i had a long ways in the chapter  to go and yet i was still stuck on problem 1. I clawed at my curly hair in frustration, and tried to muffle a small whimper escaping from my throat. It was calculus. And it would be the death of me. I stared at the bold black ink willing the problem in my mind to move to disappear to take me with it but it only stayed still staring back at me with its nonexistent eyes. I cursed, not caring if the school master heard me on his cameras. I would rather die right now. My throat felt parched and my stomach rumbled. i needed food.

  All of the children stirred loudly as if in alarm, there fingers scurried even faster and i followed there example. They could only be working faster for one reason and only one reason only.

The school master was coming.

My heart thumped my knees shook

please please dont let him see i am not finished yet

His muffled footsteps resounded behind the bolted wooden door and i braced myself for his arrival