Move by Conor Kostick Page B

We’d never done anything like it before; no class I knew had done anything like this.
    Up until the end of break, we had all been loud and excited, stopping to ask each other: ‘how long are we doing this for? What are we going to demand?’ As soon as the bell rang, though, we fell silent. Most of us returned to our own classroom . It felt wide and empty with nothing but our chairs and bags in it.
    Thump! Thump! The teachers had realised they were blockedout and were trying to budge the doors. No chance. All the same, we rushed back out to the barricades to check.
    The other fifth classes were milling around the windows, jumping up to see what was going on. They were making a lot of noise, as if break time were still going on. It was when they suddenly went quiet that we knew the teachers were outside.
    The Monk, the headmaster himself, was visible through a window in Five C. We had inherited the nickname from those years which had gone before us and had called him it, probably on account of his ragged beard. Although, there was a criminal too, in Dublin, a gang leader, and maybe he’d got the title that way.
    ‘Liam O’Dwyer, I see you. Come and open this door right now!’
    I nipped out of sight.
    ‘Cover up the windows!’ ordered Hazel, and soon the ledges were filled with our bags, preventing the teachers from seeing inside.
    The rest of the day flew by. Each time we checked our watches, we’d say, ‘That’s geography gone’, or ‘that’s chemistry over’. The teachers were pleading with us through the doors and windows, saying we were only hurting ourselves, reminding us of the coming exams. Michael Clarke and a few others were going around saying we should end it. They were afraid of being expelled. But we pointed out to them that if we all stuck together, the school just couldn’t expel everyone.
    For a while the Monk tried reasoning with us, with Hazel shouting back through the door in response to his questions.She kept demanding that the school promise us a trip away, but all the headmaster would do was point out that our undisciplined behaviour was exactly why no one would take us. He did promise to look into the issue, providing we took down the blockade, but only the doubters were willing to settle for that.
    The best fun was imagining the reaction of the rest of the school. At break time they all must have come over to our buildings to see it for themselves, because we could hear the excited chatter outside. It was pretty amazing really, for us to be doing this, I could hardly believe it. I hadn’t even had to move to get to this universe. Here it was; strange things do happen on their own.
    Finally, at quarter to four, we put everything back. The teachers had given up trying to get in, so they didn’t even notice. At final bell, we walked out proudly, congratulating each other.
    ‘Good job, Hazel.’
    ‘You too, Zed.’
    There was a group of our teachers standing beside the Monk, watching us as we left.
    ‘Liam O’Dywer, in my office, now.’ The headmaster’s voice was quiet, quiet but full of menace. The rest of the teachers looked pretty grim too, with the possible exception of Mr Brown, whose eyes were twinkling as though he were suppressing a smile. Did he approve of our protest? I hoped so, but I couldn’t expect any help from him. I was going to be in big trouble and it was time to search the universes to see if I could find a way out.
    ‘Sir, Liam had nothing to do with it.’ Unexpectedly, Hazelstepped up to my side. A bunch of my classmates had stopped to watch. I have to say, even now, writing about it, I get goose-bumps when I think about the way she spoke out on my behalf. You have to bear in mind that I had nothing to lose really. My parents were used to me being in trouble. But Hazel, she had never been in trouble in her life. If her parents had seen her that day, they would have freaked. Trying to defend me was brave, much braver than anything I had ever done, because of