Word count: 1148 | Completed:Yes | Style: Satire

The assembly had been plodding along as assemblies usually do, with announcements about running around the oval, money for activities, flying ducks and please-can-that-person-who-is-nailing-tea-cozies-to-the-staff-notice-board-stop-it. Fanny sat up straight in her seat, an anomaly in the starboard listing and semi conscious students around her. She payed patient attention to the flickering video claiming to be the Walkathon 2004, but only showing people’s legs. She ignored the goat analogy of the stirring yet rather irrelevantly relevant principal’s address. She didn’t even chortle when the speaker system decided to imitate a fire engine.

Fanny had been doing exceedingly well at being a high school student since before she became one, but that was due to a temporal anomaly caused by an exceptionally small toilet cubicle and a lump of chromium. Once the time/space continuum has healed properly, that sentence will be irrelevant and must be re-written in the interests of accuracy.

Fanny had been doing exceedingly well at being a high school student since she became one. Today was the day that she would finally receive her accolades and a shiny piece of brown paper for this, but she was oblivious to this fact. The surprise “Most successful at being a student at this school” award was not only a random occurrence, but it had a wonderfully apt title. And this seemingly normal* assembly had cunningly concealed the certificate inside beurocratic language and a tall pot plant.

“And now,” said the little man who spoke at assemblies, but no-one knew where he had come from**,
“we wish to present the coveted ‘Most successful at being a student at this school’ certificate.”
There was no response from the student body as everyone bar Fanny were asleep, and Fanny was far too polite to make any noise. The teachers all reached for their handy-dandy broom handles and soon had poked the slumbering attendees into a viably awake state.
“And the winner is,” said the little man, slicing through the beurocratic language with the direct phrase and rifling in the pot plant.
“Fanny Pailthorpe!***”
Fanny was mildly surprised, but kept her cool as she stepped up to the stage, carefully avoiding the piles of drool streaming from slumbering teenagers.

She shook the little man’s hand, noticing he smelled like cheese, and took her certificate. A half-hearted ripple of applause reluctantly strolled its way through the audience, urged on by the teacher’s broom handles. The sport teacher began to rouse her elongated legs, so Fanny scuttled quickly back to her seat before she got in the way of the important announcement about medicine balls not being taken aurally.

* * *
That lunchtime Fanny sat neatly on one of the customary kindly placed (and unkindly filthy) chairs in the inner quad. After ingesting her sandwich without dropping one piece of beetroot, she hauled her school bag back onto her back**** and wandered off in search of the list that stated all of the prerequisites of getting the “Most successful at being a student at this school” award.

She finally found it on the automatic door of the library. This was the unfortunate favorite place for announcements and the like to be put (because the staff notice board was covered in tea cozies). As one was reading the needed information, one had to step from side to side to keep pace with the constantly opening and shutting door. Fanny did not mind, of course, but many a student had resorted to just asking various teachers what was happening*****. Following the fast moving list with little effort and well greased ankles, Fanny was soon fully appraised of her achievements.

The list of 20 achievements necessary for the “Most successful at being a student at this school” award

1) Must be human, unprocessed by alien entity.

2) Able to be served at the canteen without; suffocating on BO in the line; going on a spork rampage at the 356 que-jumper; being 5 cents short at the last minute; just missing out on desired muffin******; being trampled; going deaf from loud music played by nearby yobbos.

3) Not being asked to take your hat off once (bandanna and scalp inclusive)

4) Always being polite to everyone (rubbish bins inclusive)

5) Able to borrow a book from the library and not explode in the process

6) Surviving in an art room for more than one minute without a personal paint-fume filter.

7) There is NO number 7. There never was. It’s all a lie.

8) Never listening to discman/ doorman/ walkman/ footman/ frontman

9) Getting straight A’s without hacking into the staff computer system.

10) Always having stationary such as glue, ruler, wigwam (with or without resident Indian)

11) Being able to make use of the surge in corridors/stairwells between classes by deploying elbows and being carried to next classroom.

12) Surviving the toilet block without gaining any mysterious stains on schoolbag or smelling like an ashtray.

13) Able to repel leeches/ lions/ swearing natives on various excursions.

14) Not being a pest on school camps by complaining about concrete bed/ gas shower/ lack of roof on cabin.

15) Never interrupting the teacher, especially if they are talking.

16) Not bringing illicit drugs such as chocolate to sell in our HEALTHY school.

17) (only applicable to yr 10s with Jamison pass) Always returning from Jamison on time and never bringing food bought there back for friends, dogs, sexual favors or money.

18) Pink underpants are just not on.

19) Staying in a conscious state for over 80% of assembly (legs wakefulness not applicable)

20) Always submitting homework on time, even if you have to pump the dog’s stomach and employ a textural analysis official to decode the half-digested text.

(In some cases these conditions do not apply. Contact your local pineapple painter for more details.)

Blissfully happy in the knowledge she had fulfilled one of her dreams of attaining this prestigious******* award, Fanny skipped half of the way home. There she was hit by a bus, and is currently recovering in Calvary hospital. She has hopes of getting the “Most successful at being hit by a bus and not dying” award by the end of the month.
* * *

*As normal as assemblies can be, if you take into account the behind-the-scenes toiling of the world’s first air dwelling jellyfish, who is in charge of lighting.

**The man actually came from a laboratory in Russsia. He escaped after his unholy creation by disguising himself as a limousine containing Alan Rickman, and now lives in a box underneath the Canberra High School stage between assemblies.

***Exclamation mark nominal.

****Had she not rigid posture, this would have been more of a hump due to the schoolbag.

*****This was not the best way to get information, because most of the teachers didn’t know either.

******At least they look like muffins...

*******Newspeak for “Pointlessly hard to get, and worthless when you have it”

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