keep class 2 under your thumb(新编英语教程3 Unit8 text1)

大学新编英语教程第三版学生用书Unit8 TEXT1 原文

“Keep Class 2 Under Your Thumb’’

“You’ll have to keep Class 2 under your thumb,” said the headmaster. To make this clear, he showed me his own thumb; a huge thing, like a pocket cudgel. I felt very pale. I had reason enough to distrust my thumb.

Class 2. They were top year boys. Their own teacher had been sick for a long time, a succession of startled substitutes had stood before them, ducked, winced and fled. I was the seventh that term. No one quite knew where the class had got in any subject. It was plain the headmaster thought they had got nowhere. But I was to take them for nearly everything; and first, that awful afternoon, for history.

I trembled down to Room H. In the hall I was nearly knocked over by a boy illegally running. I should have told him off; instead, I apologized. It was all wrong; my mood was all placatory; I was, inwardly, all white flag.

The room was easily traced by the noise that was coming from it. It didn’t sound a studious noise. I crept through the door. Enormous boys were everywhere, doing indefensible things. I can’t recall much in particular what they were doing; indeed, that was the worst of it – that these improprieties couldn’t be nailed down.

I managed to make out that mixed up with these giants was a certain amount of furniture. This consisted, I found, of inpidual desks; doll’s house things that rested on mountainous knees and swayed from side to side. Too negligently or maliciously treated, one would, from time to time, crash to the floor. There were certainly fights going on; and I believe on desk was chasing another. The air was full of pieces of chalk, a strange rain of it.

Feeling invisible, I walked towards the teacher’s desks. Not an eye was turned in my direction. I just stood there and looked at them and an awful pointless indignation mounted in me. Was I not a teacher? Was I so puny, so ineffective?

“Now, shut up,” I shouted. There was a fatal note of pleading in my voice. They took no notice, so I shouted again.

And then I said, “If you don’t shut up, I’ll …” Now they heard me and an awful silence came, not an obedient silence but a skeptical one. My voice trailed away. If they didn’t shut up, I would – what? I was toying inwardly with ideas of thunderbolts, earthquakes, mass executions. But in cold blood I could think of no practical substitute for these dramatic punishments.

A boy leaned back in his desk, indolently far back, and said, “Are you going to teach us?” He looked round and laughed. There was a murmur from the back of the room and another laugh. I was shocked to the core. Shocked, stung and frightened. “Yes, I am,” I shouted. “And you – you had better shut up.”

They all laughed. Then they turned to one another and discussed the matter. A fight began at the back. But what hurt me most was that in the middle of the room sat a very studious-looking boy reading a book. He looked up, raised a wry eyebrow, looked at me, raised his eyebrow higher, and then shrugged himself back into his book.

I shouted for a while, but it was beyond me. I hadn’t the manner. I was a plain imposter. My blushing and bawling were a joy to them. There was, for me, pandemonium, like a big scene in an opera being played backwards on a gramophone.

It struck me that I had in my briefcase a book on Chaucer. It contained a large number of documents of the period. Accounts of street brawls. It seemed appropriate.

大学新编英语教程第三版学生用书Unit8 TEXT1 原文

It was, alas, very big and looked very academic. “Cor, the Bible,” said a voice. “Read any good book lately?” said another. “You hit me with that and I’ll tell my dad.” “He can read!” And in falsetto, “Tell us a fairy story!”

From Roaring Boys by Edward Blishen