'The dragon turned and disappeared into the.'
'The what?' I demanded of the stupid child who had handed in this work, and expected me to mark it properly. She was 10 - old enough to know better. This school had an excellent academic reputation.
A reputation that needed to be maintained at all times.
'Well?'
'The...the...the snow?' the little girl guessed, her lip trembling. I laughed, and she burst into tears. I'd had complaints of my treatment of the children, but I preferred to view myself as an old fashioned teacher that valued traditional discipline.
'You think a dragon can disappear into the snow? Do you even know what a dragon is, you stupid girl? They breathe fire. What would a dragon be doing in snow?'
'I - I don't know,' the girl sobbed, and her classmates stared at her. A few of them were laughing. That would teach her. I had the next class coming up soon, and some more little badly behaved brats to take off their pedestals.
'I can't write at all, I'm so stupid,' I heard her saying to her friend as they left the class. Quite right, she couldn't, and it was about time she realised this. As my own English teacher had said once, everyone had a book in them, and sometimes it should stay there. It was a pity that the cane was no longer used in schools. It would definitely have its uses.
After this, the next lot of children came into my class. 'I hate Mrs Goodman's class,' one of them whispered as he came in. I immediately gave him a detention. They handed their books in and I glanced, unimpressed, before setting yet another test. None of these kids were ever going to be the next Shakespeare, which was just as well, because their ideas were so stupid even if they could have spelt them. I could barely read their writing, oh sorry, 'barley'.
At the end of the day, I went home. It was a very snowy day in the middle of February, and I was having trouble getting my car up the hill. On the way, I thought of more examples of the stupid children at the school and their abysmal efforts for my class. It made me laugh, but also made me angry - angry at them. Why couldn't they make more effort?
People asked me why I was a teacher if I hated children so much, and honestly, it was for the power. I had never been a popular child at school and I liked getting my own back on the little snot covered brats. If they failed their exams, it wasn't the school's fault. It was entirely on them. Children these days didn't know the meaning of failure. I made sure that they'd find out.
As I drove down the road, I had difficulty seeing. The visibility was very poor. Soon, my car began to break down in the middle of some woods. It would take me at least another hour to go home. The snow became thicker and thicker and I pulled over onto the side of the road.
Yet, nobody stopped to help me. There was a lot of parents driving home from the school, but they just drove straight past. Why was that? The school's motto said 'A Community of Learning with High Expectations and High Academic Achievement' but these brats weren't acting like a community at all. I silently fumed as not a single car stopped to help. And, I could not see what was coming either behind or in front of me.
I took my phone out and looked at the news.
'Snowiest day in the UK for 100 years,' the headline said.
As the sky darkened, I tried and failed to get hold of anyone who could help. Eventually I did get hold of the RAC, but the nearest time their recovery vehicle would come would be in an hour and a half, so I just had to sit there and freeze. It wasn't acceptable. If the person who answered the phone was a child, I'd make sure they'd get expelled. Maybe they had a kid at the school, and I'd think of a suitable punishment the next day.
Sitting in the car and waiting, I became aware of a very loud noise somewhere in the distance. It sounded almost like something from Jurassic Park. I told myself that it was probably a helicopter, or a fighter jet. Whatever it was, it wasn't going to help me. When I smelt the burning smell in the distance, I assumed that someone had got a bit too enthusiastic with the wood burning stoves.
I leaned back and sent my husband a text. 'I'll be late, my car has broken down.'
'No problem, darling,' came his reply. Then I looked out of the window and saw a gigantic lizard with wings and huge crushing jaws in my rear view mirror. It breathed a jet of smoke in front of it. In horror, I froze, unable to believe what I was seeing. This had to be some sort of joke, surely.
But the reptile headed straight for my car and kicked the window in with a huge clawed foot. Instantly, I was hit with a blast of freezing cold air, then its pincer like hand grabbed me around the middle, and pulled me through the car window. The fur coat that I had bought on a sale started singeing and despite the frigid temperatures, I felt uncomfortably hot as the lizard pulled me towards its face.
Its eye was like a smaller version of the eye of Sauron.
'Let me go,' I yelled.
It did not let me go. Instead, the dragon turned and disappeared into the snow.
Then, it swallowed me whole.
