Googol Boy and the peculiar incident of the Great Quiz Trophy by John Michael (classic books for 13 year olds txt) 📕

the speech but then a clap of thunder made me lose my train of thought. The half-empty glass of milk vibrated across the table and I felt my organs move. There was no doubt, the storm had really picked up. The unrelenting raindrops sounded like a thousand midgets tap-dancing on the roof. This was some serious rain − these droplets would have even impressed Noah. And between you and me, the thunder and lightning was freaking me out but Mum didn’t come and check on me − I guess she was still a bit peeved.

I reread what I had written so far and I’ve got to tell you that I was pretty impressed with myself and couldn’t wait to show Mum. One look at my speech and all would be forgiven − I’d even get my cookies back. I tried to write the next sentence but it seemed that my brain had run out of puff and nothing was forthcoming. The rain intensified. I stared at my page for a good ten minutes. My mind started to wander and I began to hanker for Pacman. The thunder rumbled. I doodled in the margins for inspiration but still nothing. The lightning crackled. Zip. Zero. Zilch. There was no use in fighting it − I had writer’s block. I felt like my brain was giving me the silent treatment.

I looked over at the computer, sitting there on the desk all alone. I thought back to all the good times we’ve had together − playing games, listening to music and watching funny cat videos. I felt a slight pang of guilt, maybe I was being too rash in my judgement.

To be logical about this, was it really the computer’s fault? I mean if you think about it and if you took all the emotion out of the equation, weren’t the teachers to blame for giving us homework? Aren’t they the ones who love to see us suffer? I could just see them now, snuggling up together in the teachers’ lounge and laughing it up:

“That’s right... I gave my class an essay to complete overnight on Animal Farm, and get this... we didn’t even study the book in class!”

“What about this one? I told my students to study algebra and statistics and then, wait for it... the exam was on surds and indices!”

“That ain’t nothing... I set a 4000-word case study on the Alaskan Tundra, which was due on the last day of school, and then... I didn’t even collect it!”

That’s right! Laughing it up at our expense! But hang on a minute... why does every single teacher always moan and groan about having to mark homework then? Sure, not as much as the students but they seem to hate homework as well. Not that I’m sticking up for teachers (Noooo! I would never do that! Otherwise I’d get beaten up at lunchtime). But let’s face it, less homework meant less work for the teachers − they’re always saying how they don’t have a life, that their weekends are never free, how they are always marking, blah, blah, blah. And then there’s the stress associated with chasing up students who don’t do their homework and having to hear every excuse in the book. You know! Excuses like:

We had a serious infestation of termites and they devoured my homework.

My sister is getting married and we needed my homework to make confetti.

I caught a bad case of

homeworkitis

and got a fever and broke out in hives.

So even though coming up with homework excuses was a rite of passage for every student and goes back to caveman times, it was all getting rather predictable. Let’s face it, the ol’ ‘dog ate my homework’ schtick was older than dirt and had probably been around before dogs were even invented. Imagine the amount of time and energy you would save if you didn’t have to think up new homework excuses.

Say you don’t do your homework for half of your subjects each school day − that’s approximately ten excuses per week. It takes a good 30 minutes to come up with a half-decent excuse so that’s five hours a week. There are 52 weeks in a year, subtract holiday time, that’s 40 weeks in total. Multiply the number of weeks by the total number of minutes per excuse and you’re looking at a staggering 200 hours per year. Imagine what you could do with that spare time? Fly to the moon, stop for a lunar picnic and fly back; swim across the English Channel twenty times; run fifty full distance marathons; travel in a submarine around the North Pole; or go hot air ballooning across the Atlantic!

So if teachers weren’t at fault when it came to homework, then who’s to blame? Surely there’s got to be somebody? Without a doubt, teachers do love to make you suffer but they’ve got an entire arsenal of options up their collective sleeves when it comes to student torture. They make you recite love poetry in front of the class, don’t let you go to the toilet when you’re busting, and give you lunch detention for yawning in class.

Hang on a second, doesn’t the SCHOOL force the teachers to give us homework? Yes, that’s right! That makes perfect sense... but wait a minute, don’t the PARENTS demand that the school gives the students homework? Of course! Wait, this all leads back to MUM – I knew it! I just knew it!

I had cracked this entire homework conspiracy wide open! Yes, but it didn’t change the fact that I still had to finish my speech. I now knew the truth but who was I going to complain to? Mum? She was the judge, jury and executioner in this entire set-up and if I didn’t finish the speech I felt that I would be dealing solely with the ‘executioner’ side of her. The thunder rumbled outside my window again like some ominous