5.8 – Challenging expectations
The challenge now is to write your stereotype in a more complicated fashion. Write a brief scene, around 300–500 words, in your notebook, in which you portray a character in a complex way, going against the usual expectations for such a character.
“Oh dear. Oh dear me, no,” The professor said, and as always, none paid the slightest attention; the only reason I heard was because John had missed the class and I was sitting on my own, by the door at the back: thank god.
“Apollo?” The professor spoke quietly; conversations continued unabated. Someone chuckled and I thank my lucky stars it wasn’t me – as it might well have been had John attended. In hindsight, maybe there was something in the professor’s tone that could have warned us, or maybe the warning was in the way he seemed to grow taller, and somehow more significant.
“Ronnie Barr, do you know where Apollo is?” The professor said. He was louder this time, but his tone still seemed mild.
Typically, Ronnie Barr and Brian Marchant were surrounded by their coterie of fluffettes – as they liked to call the girls they seemed to attract with their mystical magnetism. A fluffette giggled. She shouldn’t have.
The professor put the file carefully down on his desk, and then the screams began.
Before you ask, no, I don’t have any idea where he got the katana from. The giggling fluffette’s head sailed across the room hitting the wall beside me with a dull thwup, then falling to the floor. Blood spattered my shoes and jeans.
“One,” the professor said, neatly marking it on the white board.
He’d got to five by the time I found the classroom door had been locked.
congenerous 