As I pushed it, the classroom door opened, groaning at the hinges, and I switched on the lights and fans, pulled the blinds and opened the window to allow the cold autumn breeze stream into the room.

The white light of the bulb reflected the bold words, “Narrative essay”, written yesterday by our English teacher Ms Shazia, while I could feel the pressure of the newly attached mock timetable from the other side of the room. Suddenly, my sight went over the daily timetable, and just as I saw ‘ENG’ written in front of the first period, I felt pity for our beloved Ms Shazia.

In a few minutes, my classmates arrived. Our class was famous in the school for its antics. In our class, there was a whole gang, and at eight, the gang members began to arrive. First was the thinnest person of our class, Rabbit, and one would find no difference between him and clothes hanging on a hanger.

The second one was Daniyal, though a world badminton champion but you would like to slap him without any reason. The last one was the leader — a cool, fat and funny guy, wearing pants far below his belly button. Everything was planned. In a few minutes, we felt the presence at the entrance, it was Ms Shazia.

Greetings were exchanged and when the teacher turned her back towards us, facing the white board, it was time to execute our plan. Each and every pupil opened their bags, took out their hats, masks and goggles and wore them. Then the classroom turned into a zoo. A “Coo coo” of crow from one end, a “Moo moo” of the cow from the other, a roar of the lion from one end, a “Meow meow” of the cat from the other, a “Cock-a-doodle-doo” of roaster from one side and a squeal of squirrel from the other; the classroom sounded far worse than what is heard in a zoo.

Our calm and controlled English teacher turned into a furious and angry bull, and though I couldn’t see, I could still feel red fire blazing out of her ears. The teacher shouted on us — but this rapid counter from our teacher did nothing but increased the frequency of the noises in the class.

The teacher couldn’t tolerate any more of this, and went straight to the principal’s office, while we all wasted no time in putting the glasses, masks and the hats back, and took out our copies. The laughter from other classes gave a sense of achievement and pride to us that our entertainment had not gone in vain.

The next hour we served as punishment ... then I saw “Chem” written in the next day’s first period slot and I felt pity for our chemistry teacher.

Published in Dawn, Young World June 24th, 2017