• I was rather excited, to be perfectly honest. English was one of my stronger subjects, and I was determined to wow the eyes off of this Mr A, whom everyone else seemed inexplicably terrified of. It was heard in tentative whisperes the story of the two boys who had, in vengeance for having failed their last essay miserably, jumped into this man's empty classroom and messed up the place. Upon hearing his distinctive footsteps prowling back up the corridor, the pair had frantically hurried to attempt to tidy up again. It was a mystery as to their fates, but I had imagined a metaphorical slap on the wrist, later exaggerated to friends as harrowing torture in his dominatrix' dungeon. Amused, I bit my lip to prevent an odd smile as I knocked on the door to Mr A's class. Why did I knock? I wasn't quite sure if I was supposed to be there. I had, after all, taken the first day off school to recover from a gig. Not my finest excuse, not by any stretch of the imagination. The minute the door opened, it seemed the air grew colder, and piercing blue eyes through metallic framed glasses peered at me, sizing me up, and already I got the strangest feeling.

    Mr A did not like me.

    "Yes?" came the unnatural sounding voice, and I could swear I heard beeping and whirring coming from within that oddly misshapen head of his. Let me tell you a little more about his head. It as much too tall for a normal person, and became quite boxy near his fast receding hairline. No longer rumour, it was accepted fact amongst we students that this man was in fact the third in a series of teaching staff robots, three of which we had working in the school. I wondered if Mark III noticed my staring at what we all thought must have contained hard drives and masterful circuitry. Blinking unaffectedly, I raised an eyebrow before asking:

    "Excuse me, is this my class, sir?"

    He looked at me rather blankly, processing every syllable carefully. You could hear buzzing like electricity before he answered me, sounding impatient.

    "Toni, isn't it?" he demanded, craning forward, trying to intimidate me. But he as not in the least bit frightening. Bizarre, yes. Scary? Not at all. I replied in the affirmative and he sat me in the only available seat - facing the classroom door. I couldn't see him. He couldn't see me. I could make out the large, gangling figure of my friend in the classroom opposite, and I gave a little wave before a large blue folder was dropped in front of me.

    "Ask Judy opposite to tell you about this while I continue with the lesson," he said, his tone somewhere between a welcoming snarl and an angry purr.

    The lesson itself was incredibly dry, his voice like a pnematic drill, except this particular pneumatic drill had learned to speak in the accent of Received Pronunciation with a slight Scottish lilt and instead of keeping you painfully awake, was lulling me into a fitful sleep. To pass the time, I observed this so-called terror, and noticed he had such odd little quirks; he seemed to have some favourite choice words; GUttural, for instance, a word which seemed to jam his throat mechanisms with the way he would repeat "GUH!" for perhaps five minutes straight. Another little oddity came in the form of paper, papers he seemed so very interested in, that he would carry for one, meticulous, slow circuit around the classroom, before ripping to shreds and throwing in the bin. (It wasn't until I sneaked a look during a reading exercise that some of these sheets were completely blank.) Sometimes, he would stand over your shoulder to see if you were writing, or if your answers were correct, or if you were writing precisely the way he has shown you, the way he wanted you to write. You would always know, not from breathing, or from noise, but rather from an incredible body heat that radiated off him very much like he was made of molten metal. Perhaps he was indeed a robot. Maybe he had just been a very unfortunate man and time took its toll cruelly on his looks. One thing was definitely for sure as my head hit the desk and I woke to realise class was over. He wasn't very scary at all.