The empty slate

An original fiction passage set in the nineteenth century.

The schoolroom had been warm since morning, and a pale square of sunlight rested beneath the tall window. When Mr Dyer returned from speaking to a visitor in the passage, the copying lesson was nearly over. Thomas’s slate lay face up on his desk, wiped blank except for a thin crack running from one corner. Mr Dyer glanced at it and said that Thomas had spent the lesson idle again.

“He filled two rows before the slate cracked,” said Clara. She sat directly across the narrow aisle from Thomas. “I watched the figures appear. Then there was a sharp click, and he rubbed them away to find where the split had gone.”

Mr Dyer lifted Thomas’s slate and turned it towards the window. The grey line reached almost to the centre, but no writing remained. Clara added that the last answer had begun with a seven. Thomas kept his eyes on the desk and said nothing.

“You cannot show me what was written, or whether it was correct,” said Mr Dyer. His voice was quieter than before. Clara returned to her place. Before dismissal, he took away the damaged slate and set an unmarked one on Thomas’s desk. “Write the sums again,” he said. Thomas bent over the smooth surface, and Mr Dyer remained beside him until the first row was complete.

“The writer makes Clara’s account seem more trustworthy than Mr Dyer’s first judgement, but leaves what Thomas actually wrote uncertain.”