Autumn | Page 4

That stopped me dead. I'd never have dared speak out like that at school.

I looked to the teacher at the back of the class for support but as soon as
we'd made eye contact she turned to look out of the window.
ÔAs I was saying,' I continued, Ôwe look after a wide range of clients,
from small one-man firms to multinational corporations. We advise
them on the software to use, the systems to buy and...'
Another interruption, this time more physical. A fight was breaking out
in the corner of the room. One boy had another in a headlock.
ÔJames Clyde,' the teacher yelled across the classroom, Ôcut it out.
Anyone would think you didn't want to listen to Mr Collins.'
As if the behaviour of the students wasn't bad enough, now even the
teacher was being sarcastic. I didn't know whether she'd meant her
words to sound that way, but that was definitely how the rest of the
class had taken them. Suddenly there was stifled laughter coming from
all sides, hidden by hands over mouths and pierced by the occasional
splutter from those who couldn't keep their hilarity in check. Within
seconds the whole room was out of control.
I was about to give up and walk out when it happened. A girl in the far
right corner of the room was coughing. Far more than any ordinary
splutter, this was a foul, rasping and hacking scream of a cough which
sounded as if it was tearing the very insides of her throat apart with
each painful convulsion. I took a few steps towards the girl and then
stopped. Other than her painful choking the rest of the room had
become silent. I watched as her head dropped down and thick sticky
strings of blood and spit dripped and trailed into her cupped hands and
over her desk. For a second she looked up at me with huge terrified
eyes. She couldn't breath. She was suffocating.
I looked towards the teacher again. This time she stared straight back at
me, fear and confusion written clearly across her face.
On the other side of the room a boy began to cough. He too was
suddenly gripped with unexpected terror and excruciating pain. He too
could no longer breathe.

A girl just behind and to the right of me began to cry and then to cough.
The teacher tried to stand up and walk towards me but then stopped as
she also began to cough and splutter. Within no more than a minute of
the first girl's agony beginning, every single person in the room was
tearing at their throats and fighting to breathe. Every single person, that
was, except me.
I didn't know what to do or where to go to get help. Numb with shock, I
staggered back towards the classroom door. I stumbled and tripped over
a school bag and grabbed hold of the nearest desk to steady myself. A
girl's hand slammed down on mine. I stared into her face. She was
deathly white save for a crimson trickle of blood which spilled down
her chin and onto the books on her desk. Her head kept lurching back
on her shoulders as she tried desperately to breathe in precious
molecules of oxygen. Each uncontrolled spasm of her body forced
much more air out of her lungs than was allowed in.
I wrenched my hand away and threw the door open. The noise inside
the room was appalling. A deafening, echoing cacophony of desperate
cries which pierced right through me, but even out in the hallway there
was no escape. The pitiful noises which came from my classroom were
only a small fraction of the screaming confusion which rang through
the entire school. From places as remote as assembly halls,
gymnasiums, workshops, kitchens and offices, the cold morning air
was filled with the terrified screams of hundreds of desperate children
and adults, all of them suffocating and choking to death.
By the time I'd reached the end of the corridor it was over. The school
was silent.
I instinctively walked down the stairs towards the main entrance doors.
Sprawled on the ground at the foot of the staircase was the body of a
boy. He must have been only eleven or twelve. I crouched down next to
him and cautiously reached out to touch him. I pulled my hand away as
soon as it made contact with his dead flesh. It felt cold, clammy and
unnatural, almost like wet leather. Forcing myself to try and take
control of my fear and disgust, I pushed his shoulder and rolled him
over onto his back. Like the others I had seen his face was ghostly

white and was smeared with blood and spittle. I leant down as close as
I