from Chapter Three ~ Trousers
Brian Smith’s trousers kept falling down. No matter how firmly he grasped the waistband, it kept slipping through his fingers and his trousers dropped to his knees. Fortunately his shirt was long enough to hide his old and unfashionable underpants – after all, they didn’t have gym or sport that day so there was no need for him to wear his one pair of Calvin Klein’s.
It all started going wrong for him in the history lesson. First his extensively chewed fountain pen kept rolling off the desk. No matter where he put it, the moment he took his hand away, the pen rolled distressingly quickly over the edge of the desk. It always landed on the nib – he didn’t think that was fair at all.
Then, as he leaned on his desk, with his pen tightly grasped in both hands, one of the desk’s legs gave way under him. With an almighty crash, the desk collapsed to the floor, sending its contents to the corners of the room. Brian leapt to his feet away from the desk, at which point his trousers fell down.
Dr Moore turned from the blackboard and didn’t even try to suppress the laugh that came bubbling up his throat at the sight of the boy trying to pull up his crumpled trousers while staring in slack-jawed disbelief at the ruin of his desk.
“Being troubled by a poltergeist, are we, Smith?” purred Dr Moore. “Perhaps it’s still here, holding your mouth open in that gormless expression.”
“I didn’t… it wouldn’t… I can’t… sir…” tried Brian Smith.
“Excuse me, Smith, was that a sentence?”
“Not really, sir.”
“And nor was that, was it Smith? Where was the verb?”
“I’m sorry, sir. It wasn’t a sentence, sir.”
“That’s better, Smith. Now, I think a double detention would be in order here. Firstly, ask the caretaker to help you move the corpse of your desk to the woodwork lab after school today and see if Mr Chartsworth can help you make something useful from it, even if its days as a desk are over. Secondly, I think you should spend time at tomorrow’s detention learning tailoring in the hope that you will wear better fitting clothes.”
“But sir, I didn’t do anything!” cried a flustered Brian Smith.
“Well, perhaps you should have done something,” said Dr Moore calmly. “And do pull your trousers up, boy.”
Peter Tarnofsky - Children's Author 