History isnât confined to thousands of years ago. Itâs happening all the time!â
âHow do you figure that?â said Jack.
âWell,â said Mr Brainfright, âwhat did you have for breakfast this morning?â
âUm . . . cornflakes,â said Jack.
âThatâs history!â said Mr Brainfright.
âNo itâs not,â argued Jack. âIt was just a bowl of cornflakes.â
âItâs still history,â said Mr Brainfright. âIt happened in the past and youâre not a boring old person who lived thousands of years ago.â
âWow,â said Jack. âSo this morning I made history.â
âNot just you, Jack,â said Mr Brainfright. âWe
all
made history today. In fact, we are making history all the time. We couldnât stop making history if we tried, because even if we tried to stop making history the very fact that we tried to stop making history would become the history that we were trying not to make.â
Mr Brainfright paused, breathless with the excitement of his history-making speech.
âAnd not just this morning, either,â he said. âYour whole lives have been full of historical momentsâmoments that have never existed on Earth in quite the same way before and never will again.â
âSo when I cut my finger on the bread knife this morning,â said Jenny, âthat was history?â
âYes!â said Mr Brainfright. âHistory! Who else has a historical moment that they can share?â
âWhen my dad was helping me with my new chemistry set and we blew the roof off his workshop!â said Grant.
The class laughed.
âHistory again!â said Mr Brainfright.
I thought of Principal Greenbeard as a kid, hiding his treasure. That was history, too.
âWill we be tested on this, sir?â said Fiona, who was furiously taking notes, just in case.
âWho can say whatâs going to happen next?â said Mr Brainfright. âI donât know, but I canât wait to find out! Does anybody else have any historical moments for us?â
âWhen I had a spider in my bedroom and my mum stood on a chair and tried to catch it in a glass but one of its legs was too long and it got cut off and fell onto the carpet and it
wriggled
,â said Newton.
The whole class let out a squeal of disgust.
âWhen you fell out the window yesterday during our âhow to breatheâ lesson,â I said.
âNow thatâs what I call history!â said Mr Brainfright. âWho knows? In two thousand years students might be studying my fall out the window as part of their history class. They might even stage re-enactments!â
âCool!â said Jack. âI love re-enactments!â
âMe too!â said Gretel.
âSo do I,â said Fiona, âas long as theyâre historically accurate and not just an excuse to play dress-ups for the fun of it.â
âLife is an excuse to play dress-ups just for the fun of it, Fiona,â said Mr Brainfright. âHey, Iâve got a great idea. Why donât we stage a re-enactment of yesterdayâs fall right now? Weâre all wearing historically accurate costumes. It will be just like going back in a time machine!â
âI donât think thatâs such a good idea,â said David. âYou could have been seriously injured yesterday.â
âBut I wasnât, was I?â said Mr Brainfright. âThanks to the quick thinking of the class. Okay, now where were we?â
âYou were over by the window,â said Fiona, reading from her notes.
âAbout here?â said Mr Brainfright.
âA little bit more to the left,â said Fiona.
Mr Brainfright moved to the left. âLike so?â he said.
âYes,â said Fiona. âAnd then you said, âBut I donât see why just breathing isnât enough fun for you. I love breathing. The more fresh
Learning to Kill: Stories