Thy Fearful Symmetry Read Free

teeth, “I've told you once already, put that down .”
    Something in his voice or face must have shown how close to breaking point he was. At the back of the classroom a surly, dark haired sixteen year old, built for rugby and brawling, looked up, startled. As he lost what little concentration he could lay claim to, the tennis ball he had been bouncing off his desk slipped from his hand. Teenage heads dropped as they tried to follow the course of the ball, which bounced from chair leg to wall, to foot, to bag, and on. Clive suspected it was receiving more than one kick of encouragement on its travels.
    “Sorry sir.” Jamie sounded it, and Clive tried to stop his emotions rampaging across his face. For a second he imagined how it would feel to seize a fistful of hair at the back of the boy's head, and hammer his nose against the blackboard. Once. Twice. Third time the charm, and then he would mash the lump of tissue and cartilage that remained back and forth against the green-black slate, leaving wide, damp smears of blood and snot gleaming in the headache inducing strip lighting.
    Clive took a slow breath through his nostrils, clamping his eyes closed and counting back from five. The moment passed. With it went the adrenaline that had aggravated his ordinarily mild temper, leaving him feeling pasty and shaken. Opening his eyes, he saw the class watching him, some worried, some simply curious as to what would happen next. “Right,” he managed, “back to Antony and Cleopatra. Mock exams are on the horizon, so today we'll have a trial run. Get your pens ready.” There was a disorganised flurry, as pens were unearthed from bags and pockets. “The question is this. With the death of Antony in Act Four, the play reaches its natural climax, and the tragedy is complete. Act Five becomes an extended epilogue. Discuss. Forty-five minutes, exam conditions, starting now.” Groans sounded across the room, but the whispery scratching of pens scribbling half-formed thoughts soon dominated. Clive sank into the chair behind his desk with relief, surreptitiously pulling the morning's newspaper out.  
    Still feeling a tremor in his hands, he ran his fingers over the lines of text, searching for any mention of his name. The cover story, which also dominated the next two pages, worried him, and with his heart beating too fast he searched the details to see if any of the victims were named. It took him ten minutes, and when he found nothing to corroborate his fears he sucked in a partial breath of relief. There was a description of a man who could have been Ambrose, but it was so hard to be sure. The nightclub was on the university campus, where faux Byron look-alikes were plentiful. Clive also knew his friend's goodness too well, and could not associate him with a massacre like this.  
    The scent on the air was one he associated almost entirely with teaching this age group. Hanging pungently over everything else was the heady, clashing odour of perfumes applied by girls obsessed with sex. Those not already doing it soon would be, and the elaborate nasal mating game they brought into his class made it smell like a whore's boudoir. Underlying the cloying sweetness like a festering sore was a foetid mix of male sweat, and the chemical aftertaste of enthusiastically applied deodorant. Half the boys drooled over the girls, while the others dreamed of joyriding, petty thuggery, and other ways to pass the time after school. Sluts and criminals in the making, all of them.
    Clive shook his head, drawing curious glances from the front row of desks. What was wrong with him? When he became a teacher, he had believed no kid was irredeemable, and had tried to bring out their best by engaging them instead of standing aloof. Maintaining his idealism wasn't always easy in practise, but he had remained determined not to become one of those who started their careers with lofty ambitions and quickly fell by the wayside. Recently though, the most