mr eldridge
‘His initials are AE… I think you might be onto something with Marvin though… nonce.’ ‘Alright, bloody hell. Andy… Andrew… No too modern, when was he born? 1800s?’ ‘He’s only like, sixty-two, Jeez.’ ‘So, the year is 2011 which means he was born in… eleven… fifty-one… 1949. He’s probably called Alexander, that’s an old man’s name, right?’ ‘Not as old as Charles.’ ‘C-H-A-R-L-I-E, it’s CHARLIE.’ ‘He looks like an Arnold.’ ‘Mmm, yeah Arnold or Aristocrat…’ ‘Aristocrat? You’re trying to tell me that his parents named him Aristocrat? You’re actually such an idiot. Do you even know what an Aristocrat is?’ ‘It’s a name, that’s what Frankie’s cat was called, wasn’t it?’ ‘Frankie’s cat was not called Aristocrat, it was called Alice-cat because we found it in an alleyway but she said because it was a girl, it was an ‘Alice-cat’ not an ‘alley-cat’. She was only like, eight, so the name just stuck.’ ‘Maybe his name is Alice…’ Charlie smirked. The boys started to giggle, the music slowly faded to a stop, the hall fell silent and the boys struggled to control their laughter until Ms Bulwite struck them with her fierce, poisonous face. Mr Eldridge strode into the hall. His back so straight it was as though he was as much a pencil as he was a human, he was also a very tall and pointy man with jagged edges, like a shard of glass. His thin, white hair struggled to appear on his head, yet it seemed to stroke the underneath of the lintel as he stepped through the door, because his hairline was brushed over slightly once he had successfully passed the door frame, casually distorting the outline of his head. 39
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