the school term

A Story by Paul Sherlock

a frightened man, a new school term

He stood in front of the closed door ,a middle aged, medium sized man with a grey suit on and his leather briefcase held tightly in one hand, he stood on the step in front of the door , the sign above the door proudly announcing Walloping Primary School , his hand reached out shaking and trembling, he touched the door knob and then pulled his hand away quickly as if the doorknob itself was on fire, sweat had trickled down his collar, beaded his brow and top lip , sweat stains appeared under his arms,his eyes darted everywhere looking for a way out he could feel himself starting to have a panic attack,his breath getting shorter , he started to gasp, he looked at his wife who stood calmly but determinedly next to him and in a small gasping breathless voice said "please Kate, I can't , I just can't,please don't make me go in there " she looked at him with kindness and a small smile then in a stern voice said to him "you must , we go through this at the start of every school term , come on for Gods sake, you know you have to be here ""But '"he said-imploringly " they laugh at me,no one listens to me " his voice rising in pitch, his bottom lip starting to quiver " no one listens to me " he repeated again in the hope it may have some affect on her,but finally she could take it no longer, the siren had gone 5 minutes ago and she had been trying for nearly thirty minutes to get him to go inside,she was hot, she had so much to do and she really didn't have time for this, she had promised him everything she could think of to try and persuade him to go in from his favorite dinner, to play time between them when the kids had gone to bed, nothing was working so with her patience finally at an end she yanked opened the door and pushed him inside, shutting the door quickly, she ran back down the path and got into the car and said to herself " every bloody time he has to go back to school, he's worse than the kids "
He stood in the hallway his back pressed tightly to the door, the hallway seemed to stretch forever,then after what seemed a lifetime he carefully took a step forward then another slowly making his way to his office ,he eyes constantly moving, hoping beyond hope no one saw him, ' come on, one more step" he kept repeating to himself like some mantra, until finally he arrived at his office , the name on the door proudly stating he was the Principal, a new school term had begun.