Free Noah Barleywater Runs Away by John Boyne

before I could change my mind, Poppa visited the local schoolmistress, Mrs Shields, and enquired about a place for me in her classroom.
    ‘Of course we always welcome new additions to our class,’ she said, beaming across at us and allowing her cheeks to grow a little rosy, for Poppa was a handsome man and Mr Shields had run away to join the circus the previous September. ‘And we have a few spare seats. We’d be delighted if your son was to join us. But won’t your wife be coming in to discuss his education too?’ she asked, leaning forward and twirling her hair into curls around her fingers. ‘I do so like to involve all members of the family in such important matters.’
    ‘I have no wife,’ said Poppa, hesitating before continuing; it was complicated, after all, and he didn’t want to cause any more difficulties for me than were strictly necessary.
    ‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ replied Mrs Shields, delighted to discover that there was no rival for heraffections. ‘We cater for all sorts here. We have a girl who lived in a jungle for the first five years of her life and still only speaks in a curious hybrid of English and monkey. Her name is Daphne. I’m sure you’ll get along with her famously.’
    ‘We’ll see about that,’ I said, unconvinced.
    ‘And then there’s a boy who used to be an elephant but managed to escape that life just before Christmas,’ continued Mrs Shields. ‘Something to do with a series of wishes, I believe. But he’s still settling in and seems a little troubled, if I’m honest. He keeps trying to eat his lunch through his nose, which is terribly messy.’
    ‘That’s disgusting,’ I said, and Mrs Shields stared at me, her expression growing a little more chilly.
    ‘What a spirited lad,’ she remarked.
    The next morning, when I entered the classroom for the first time, every student immediately turned round to look at me: every boy, every girl, every desk, every chair. Even the blackboard, which was short-sighted, leaped off its hooks and came over for a good sniff, before running back to the wall, shaking chalk dust off its front as it muttered, ‘No, he’ll never do. He’ll never do at all.’
    ‘This seat is taken,’ said a rather obnoxious fellow called Toby Lovely, who thought he was better than everyone else in the class. He always sat next to the teacher in an attempt to ingratiate himself with her, and now moved his books over tothe empty desk beside him as I walked on.
    ‘Terribly sorry,’ said a homely-looking girl called Marjorie Willingham, who had pigtails tied up in a pink ribbon, causing a flurry of giggles from the girls sitting around her, ‘but I’m afraid this seat is taken too. And don’t speak to me, if you please. I don’t care for small talk with strangers.’
    I continued along the aisle, growing more and more despondent as boy after girl after boy after girl rejected me, but finally I reached the last row and looked down hopefully at the one remaining seat.
    ‘You can sit here if you want,’ said the boy sitting next to it, whose name was Jasper Bennett and who had a series of bumps and bruises spreading angrily across his face. He cleared off the desk and pulled over a second seat, and I sat down gratefully, turning to my new desk-mate with an appreciative smile. Jasper looked at me for a moment, blinking, taking me in, with great tears forming in the pools of his eyes. ‘Everyone hates me too,’ he said after a long silence.
    ‘Jasper!’ screamed Mrs Shields, slamming her duster down on the desk and throwing a piece of chalk at him, which bounced off his ear and fell to the ground before picking itself up and making its way slowly back towards the front desk. ‘I’ve spoken to you before about talking in class, haven’t I? Well, haven’t I?’
    ‘Yes, miss—’ began Jasper, before Mrs Shields cut him off.
    ‘Jasper!’ she roared. ‘No talking!’
    It took me a long time to form any kind of friendships with the other