Time Tables

Federico thinks about double entendres. Just learnt about them—a woman walks into a bar and says I'll have a double entendre so the barman gives her one. He's not sure he gets that, but Mr Flood laughed and told him he was comic. No bum steer here—the butcher's ad. The clock ticks. He looks at the teacher with her hair in plaits. Greasy ropes held with rubber bands. She looks wrong. He looked at the old school photos that line the assembly hall. She looked wrong in 1969 too. A face tired of children. The class piano is missing a note. Every page 99time she inches her hand down the right side her fingernails make a dull tapping sound on the key. She just keeps going.

Today is Times Tables Test. One to twelve. He looks around the room for answers. What makes one, one? Who decided one should be one and not two? Jonah clicks his fingers and writes. Shhhh, someone whispers. Inside Federico is a boiling sea of numbers. He looks at Tina. Her numbers roll out orderly, she always reminds him of smoothed bed sheets. Even the pencils in her box have all their lead ends laid together. Once he told her she would make a good nurse. No teeth marks in Tina's pencils. She looks up, scowls at him. He feels messy. The clock's small hand taps forward. Teacher blows her whistle and says, One minute, class! All that old teacher spit building up inside the whistle. She never smiles at him and he's given up trying. Sylvia told him she was a netball bitch and any teacher that uses a whistle in class needed a kick up her bum. He thinks of more jokes for Mr Flood. My other car is a broomstick. No, that's not a double entendre it's a

loud screech in his ear: Times up!