The silence around me felt heavier than before.
It was as if all noise had been stripped from the air, leaving only lingering tension.
I kept the book open, my eyes moving over the little rows of numbers written across the page. Most had been worked out in pencil, with corrections in a darker hand beside them. A few mistakes had been rubbed out hard enough to thin the paper.
'...Arithmetic?'
I glanced at the boy beside me. He had opened his book towards the back, where a fresh set of questions waited beneath an unfinished exercise.
"Finish yesterday's work. I'll take attendance."
The voice came from the front, followed by the sound of a page turning. I found the same exercise in my book and reached for the pencil, keeping my movements small as the children started writing around me.
The desk was a little too low for my knees.
I shifted one foot back, taking care not to knock against its legs, and looked towards the board.
Do not answer for another pupil.
