Your little hearts went pitter patter when you saw my post pop up didn’t it, my sweets? I know, you’ve all missed me these last few days.

I fell into Monday after our adventure in Melbourne, and I tumbled right through the week and only just emerged out the other side this very Saturday morning. A little mental breakdown may have occurred Tuesday to Friday. Yes, it certainly did.

Mayhem was created in the library by a science teacher, who thought it was a very, good idea to hold a science fair in the library. Never a good idea, but some people have to see the proof of their idiotcy. To compound it, he, yes it is indeed a male who had this brilliant thought, he chose to abuse us with his precence across three days and one night.

First, there was the decent of the entire year 8 cohort, about 190 students, and one stupid science teacher.  This was day one, until we weeded out the passengers who were never go to attend on the night.

Then day two, was their planning day and experimenting day. By this stage Minerva and I were taking no prisoners. After I recused an arm load of books that a student was using to balance plastic cups of food dye water, I started throwing out students. Minerva was just saying no to every request. She had already handed out pairs of scissors only to find them stabbed into lemons to conduct electricity. I know where she really wanted to stab the scissors.

We weren’t to have been involved at all…

I collared the Deputy Principal to do walk through look and see on the first day, which he did periodically, and by day’s end was saying through gritted teeth “never again”. He disappeared into hospital for tests after that, which I am sure he would claim had nothing to do with the shock from witnessing what was happening in the library, but I know better.

Day three, the final day with the culmination of the night time Science Fair with parents attending. Mr FD’s parting words to me as I left home that day were “Remember, you can’t hurt the year 8s.”

Numbers had dwindled and I continued to challenge those students that I knew had no intention of completing anything or attending. They denied, but I was proved correct on both counts.

Half way through the day, Minerva retreated to the library work room and locked the door. She had counted how many students were conducting “experiments” using coke cola. The mentos that were suppose to be for experiments were more often in students’ mouths and they were all on a sugar high. I sent Minerva home at the end of the school day and remained to hold the fort.

I retreated to my office, where I could see, but not hear the bedlam, as students and parents tried to manoeuvre their way around the various display areas and the book stacks. A massive storm hit just prior to the starting time, which decimated parts of Brisbane (lucky you missed that one, Obama!) but only slightly impacted on our numbers.

There wasn’t much I could do at this stage, but wait to pick up the pieces next day. Armageddon had arrived, run over us, and backed up again. I handed out buckets and cloths when an erupting volcano experiment outside the library threatened to ooze through the main doors, but my tears were spent. The elephant toothpaste was its own disaster.

Strangely, no one stayed back to help clean up at the end. It was eight o’clock, and it had been an 13 hour day for me, without a break, which had included teaching as well. Some of the students had not had the decency to go home for the time between end of school and the start of the science fair, and remained to torture me.

The automatic doors thought about malfunctioning as I left, but sensed I would have torn them down had they really tried, and so eventually closed on the devastation.

Next morning I asked the Operations Manager to prioritise washing down the volcano encrusted tiles outside, but she had to see to believe before being convinced. She took photos and screamed “Never Again!” The groundsman used a high pressure hose, and then stupidly a hot air blower to dry the tiles, but as the lava refused to budge we fear he just baked it onto the tile surface. It may need acid cleaning now.

And who told them all that a library was not a place for a science fair? I wonder if anyone ever thought of holding it in, say, the SCIENCE LABS! Remember when a library was just a library? What a lovely world that was.

Someone gets number one position on the Stick List for Christmas.