A Perfect Actor

By Francis Tekonnang

IT was 2 pm. The students were already in, waiting for their teacher to come. They were compet ing to be heard.

“Seeee . . ,!” echoed through the room. The teacher had come, and the hub-bub fell rapidly under his boots.

“Good afternoon, sir”.

“Good afternoon. Sit down”. And he drew a diagram on the board.

“Suppose we want to reflect this triangle in this mirror line. Someone is going to do it for us. Lemeki!”

Someone entered the room.

“Saiasi, go and sit near Pailasa”.

The stranger—at least to the stu dents—went and sat in his place.

“Yes, Lemeki, you are going to draw us the image of that triangle”.

The stranger took his pad out, and started scribbling on it as the lesson proceeded.

“That is good, Lemeki. What do you notice about the size of the two

triangles, Sagil?”

"They are the same, sir”.

“Good. What do you notice about their shape, Anna?”

“They are the same, sir”.

“Very good. What do you notice about the distance of A, and A 1 from the mirror line. Anil?”

“I think they are the same, sir”.

“You think they are the same. All right, come and measure them”.

The stranger scribbled: very good questioning technique, the questions are spread, with the names men tioned last, and he knows the names of his students.

“Are they the same, Anil?”

“Yes, sir”.

“Good. Now, all of you turn to page 149 of your textbooks, and

do exercises one and two. I will give you 20 minutes to do those. When you finish, I will take them home and look through them tonight”.

THE students were surprised to hear that because he had always corrected their exercises in class.

They knew he was interested in them —they did not know why—but they liked him for calling them by their own names, and for helping them whenever they asked him for help, at least in class. Many liked him for scribbling ‘Very good, James’ or ‘Keep it up, John’ on the pages of their exercise books, as he went around checking their books.

The stranger came up to him.

“Very good indeed”. And then left.

The bell went for the end of his period, and he asked some of the students to collect the books.

“Is that all?”

“Yes, sir”.

“All right. Get ready for your next lesson”.

HE was sitting at his desk, looking through the exercises when someone knocked on the door. It was Anil.

“Yes, Anil, what can I do for you?”

“I want to talk to you”.

I’ve got plenty of work in front of me now; tomorrow will be my last day here, and I’ve got only one lesson, then I'll go back to Suva, he thought. “Sorry, Anil, but I can’t see you. I am very busy at the moment”.

“All right, sir”. Anil left.

He sat on his desk thinking about why Anil had come to see him.

I've got plenty of work on hand, he thought, and he resumed his work.