100TWC - Day 16: Excuses

"So I hope you've all remembered that your homework assignments were due this morning?"

Miss Angela Demeanour regarded the class with a look that somehow managed to mix expectation with incipient and utter lack of hope. Silence remained unbroken across the jumble of desks. The thought crossed her mind that her career-defining experiment in reducing the regimentation of neat ranks of desks in order to free her students' creativity was proving less successful than she had hoped.

"Because I haven't had any in so far?"

Her gaze flicked from pupil to pupil until eventually she caught the eye of one.

"Tommy?"
"The dog ate it miss."

A fit of snorts and giggles twitched around the room. Miss Demeanour gave Tommy a hard stare.

"No, really Miss. He's only a puppy and--"
"Alison?"

Alison Grainger flushed beet red to the roots of her dyed blonde hair. Angela felt a pang of regret for picking on the girl so soon, but of all her students she had expected Alison to finish the assignment. She waited, determined not to cut short the painful pause.

"P-please Miss, I had to look after Rory last night and I didn't have time to finish it."
"Couldn't you have started it the day before?"
"I had to look after Rory then too."
"Or submitted an unfinished piece? You would have earned some marks...?"

Alison's colour turned from beet to that of a sun-ripened tomato.

"I didn't really have time to start it, either."

"Uma?"
"Tommy's dog ate mine too Miss. I was working round at his house."
"Neil?"
"I left it in the pocket of my jeans miss, and my mum put it in the laundry."
"Adrienne?"
"I finished it, miss, but I left it on the bus."
"Casper?"
"Tommy's dog--"
"Oh please!" Angela interrupted. "You can't all have been working round at Tommy's."
"I wasn't miss!" Casper added quickly. "I called round for him this morning to walk to school and I had it in my hand. Steptoe ran out into the garden and snatched it. He'd chewed it all up before I could get it off him."

Miss Demeanour turned back to Tommy.

"You really ought to start feeding Steptoe something other than homework, Tommy." The class laughed. "It's not good for a growing puppy."

"Before we go on," she said, raising her voice and turning to face the whole class, "has anyone else's homework come to grief in the mouth of Tommy's dog?"

No-one answered. A few of the class shook their heads.

"Good. So. Catherine?"
"I left mine in the library miss."
"Well, go and get it now."
"Not the school library, miss. Central Library. I was looking something up."
"Germaine?"
"I lost the question miss, so I couldn't remember what to do."
"Andrew?"
"I finished it miss, but I left it in the kitchen and my baby sister threw up all over it."
"Morris?"
"Please miss, Tommy's dog--"
"Oh no! No, no, no! We've only just agreed that no-one -- no-one ELSE's homework -- was eaten by Tommy's puppy."
"But Miss he didn't eat it. He... um... poohed on it."

The class erupted with laughter.

"Quiet! Alright. Tommy, please make sure that from now on your puppy is shut away from any contact - ANY contact - with your, or your friends', homework, or from any contact whatever with paper-based material. And the rest of you, any of you that think you can get away with blaming Steptoe in ANY way for the demise of this week's homework, you'd better start thinking of a different excuse. Because we're not going to start anything new until I've had an explanation from all of you. Starting with you, Stephen."

"Well miss, I'd heard about how dangerous Tommy's dog was when it came to homework, so when I'd finished mine I put it on the window sill where it would be safe. We've got a dog too Miss and I thought--"

"Yes, yes, we get the picture Stephen. So why haven't you brought it in?"

"It rained in through the window Miss, and the ink all ran together."