Sponsored Silence
By atfirstdawn


(C) Keira Morrison 2015



Higher education isn't as fun as Hollywood would have you believe. There are no student uprisings, easy to pass exams or dangerous cliques that'd kidnap you, bind you, gag you and doll you up for your classmates to find as a prank. In fact its all rather boring, so much so that I'd given up on anything even remotely interesting ever happening. That is, until today...

At the risk of sounding cliche', the day had started like any other day, I'd met my friends Penny and Charlotte on the way to class as usual and took my seat next to them in the class's form room. As always Charlotte, Penny and I kept to ourselves while our classmates shuffled to their own seats with a less than vigorous enthusiasm. Our teacher, Miss Carter, was always the last to arrive and today was no different. She was pretty nice looking for an older woman, a little on the short side but tall enough in the right heels, of which she always wore.

Today Miss Carter had arrived with a hurried step and a stress level that caught almost everyone's attention. Picking up a piece of chalk before setting down her bag she turned to the class and said "Right, its Activities Day on Monday and today is Friday and the principal wants to know what each class is doing before 10AM and we've got nothing! And remember it has to aid the community somehow. So, ideas?!"

Her rapid fire speech ushered in the kind of silence that you'd get from a room full of laptops performing a system update while everyone in the class replayed Miss Carter's words in their heads at a speed that was easier to process. Obviously she'd had a stern reminder of the task at hand a few moments before she had stepped foot into the class.

"Litter picking?" said Becky, a slim blonde girl with an alternative dress sense, that came as the eventual silence breaker from the far corner of the room.

"Litter picking, right!" repeated Miss Carter as she turned to the board behind her and scrawled a series of letters that vaguely resembled something from the English language. "Next?"

"Litter picking? Eww, like, who'd want to do litter picking?!" squawked Jennifer, the class's upper-crust and wholly unlikable prissy miss.

"My father was a litter picker, its a noble profession." replied Miss Carter. "Next!"

"Offer to paint people's fences?"

"Wash the cars in the car park!"

"Rescue stray cats!"

Each new suggestion was met with an attentive mumble of acknowledgement and the sound of the chalk clacking against the blackboard as Miss Carter scrawled down the words into a haphazard list. "Mhmm, more. Keep them coming!"

"Help out at the soup kitchen in town?"

"Pack bags at the supermarket!"

"Paint over the graffiti in the school."

"Mow elderly people's lawns!"

"Clean up the beach!"

"Bake a giant cookie!"

"Bake a giant pizza!!"

"Oh my gawd! So much manual labour, I'll ruin my nails! Doesn't anyone have some, like, better ideas?" squawked Jennifer once more, ruining the pace of quick-fire suggestions that had managed to gain some impressive momentum.

Jennifer's shrill and irritating voice had stopped the class in their tracks, all eyes had turned to Miss Carter in anticipation of a stressed-out scolding. Miss Carter had stopped writing but hadn't turned back to the class, one could only imagine her teeth grinding in frustration while trying to compose herself.

Something had to be said to break the tension and another suggestion of what to do wasn't going to cut it. If only Jennifer could keep her mouth shut...

"Do you?" I asked, directing my attention to Jennifer.

"Do I what?" she jaggedly replied.

"Have any better ideas?" I clarified.

"Do you?" she challenged with a domineering tone that I didn't take too kindly to.

It was at this moment that it hit me, the perfect idea; one that'd benefit the community, one that'd benefit my classmates and one that, if accepted, would be pretty damn sexy... for me, at least.

"I do," I replied as I struggled to keep a sly smile from my lips. "A sponsored silence." My suggestion garnered a few muffled chuckles and then a thick silence. In that moment Miss Carter turned back to the class with her aggravations under control and focused her attention upon me.

"How would a sponsored silence, like, aid the community?" asked Jennifer with the goal of sinking my ready-to-sail suggestion.

"Give the sponsorship money to charity." I responded in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Which charity?" asked Miss Carter with a voice full of intrigue.

"A Deaf charity." I replied with a smile.

"Well, like, how long would we have to do it for?" Jennifer's expression was slowly morphing from confusion to what looked like worry as my suggestion began to gain feasible ground. I could tell she didn't like the idea of being kept silent, but I did and so did most of the room.

"The whole day. Though lunch time can be an exception." I relaxed into my chair and turned my attention to Miss Carter, who was still looking at me rather than Jennifer, she gave me a nod and a smile before Jennifer broke the silence once more.

"Well, how could anyone keep quiet for that long, wouldn't someone, like, wreck it?"

"We could tape our mouths with duct tape." spoke Charlotte excitedly, who had been hanging on my every word and was completely in love with the idea of seeing Jennifer's lightning-pink prissy lips all taped up.

"Wouldn't we actually need proof though?" Irritatingly the irritating girl had made a good point. I was at a loss for words and ideas, I glanced over at Miss Carter who was staring back at me with an equally vacant expression...

"Take a class photo." offered Penny who, like Charlotte and Miss Carter, had found my idea to be rather exciting. "I take photography, so I have a decent camera for the job. We could put it on the Activities Day board in the hall."

"If we were to do that we could also design a banner with how much money we manage raise and include it in the photograph." Added Miss Carter.

"So, like, we come into class, tape our mouths and do what all day?"

"Well..." I began, thinking as I spoke, "We could all each bring a DVD, get permission to use the cinema room and just watch movies all day."

"Watching movies for money is good!" Chirped Joshua who, with the rest of the class, had been engrossed in the back and forth between Jennifer and I.

"And with our mouths taped no one would talk during the films! I hate that!" Added Kathryn, the dark haired girl who had won the annual talent show last year for dancing to a god-awful Eurovision song. I had a bit of thing for her, my heart skipped a beat from hearing her say those words, she'd look so good in tape.

"Miss, let's do the silence!" ordered Anthony whose words were echoed unanimously by our class mates.

"You have to do it too, Miss!" shouted Charlotte. I hadn't thought of that, I hadn't imagined that Miss Carter would participate too! A teacher and her students gagged in the name of charity...

"Well it'd only fair if I did!" said Miss Carter with a fun-loving smile that I'd never forget. "Show of hands for the sponsored silence."

A room full of hands filled the air, some more excitedly than others. A small minority seemed to be indifferent but there were no groans or sighs save for Jennifer, who eventually raised her hand to spite her face.

"Well that wasn't so difficult. Can anyone supply the tape?!" asked Miss Carter.

Without looking at one another, Charlotte, Penny and I each raised our hands... Monday was going to be a memorable day.