Leaving the judging room

Text: an original contemporary education-memoir-style practice extract.

The stories for the school competition arrived without names. Halfway through the second page of Entry Seven, I recognised a sentence Arun had defended during our lunchtime writing sessions. I had suggested cutting it; he had insisted that it belonged. Now it sat in the middle of the anonymous page like a hand raised across a crowded room.

I told the other judges that I had worked closely with the writer and should not take part in the decision. They agreed at once. I left my notes face down and moved to the corridor, where the walls were too thin to protect me from the discussion. Someone admired the opening. Someone else said the ending had not earned its final image. I knew what Arun had been trying to connect, and twice I moved towards the door before stopping myself. Impartiality, I discovered, could require silence rather than a verdict.

Entry Seven was not selected. The next morning, Arun asked why I had abandoned his story to people who did not understand it. I explained that remaining in the room might have made the judging unfair. He looked at me for a moment and said, ‘I thought understanding my work was why you were there.’ When he left, I turned over my unused notes. They contained more praise than criticism, but they could no longer help either of us.

In this extract, the writer tries to convey the difficulty of acting impartially.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved. Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.