The Horrible Mr Raymond

The horrible Mr Raymond 

The diary of Benny  Patterson

Yesterday Mr Raymond  came to school. My teacher said he was very kind and gentle but he was wrong. Mr Raymond is the loudest, meanest, scariest man I’ve ever seen in my life. He is a singing inspector and I hate singing because in first grade I had to sing in front of the whole school and I forgot all the words, and everyone laughed at me.

I was just doing my math sums when he barged into the class and yelled at the top of his lungs, “If one of you can’t sing I’ll kick you out of the classroom .” That really scared me because I knew I would probably forget the song or go completely mute. We all sat at the desks in his classroom and all the seats at the back were taken. So I had to sit right in front of him. It felt like if he moved any closer to me he would fall right on top of me. He had long golden curls, and wore a giant pair of knickerbockers and looked a bit like a leprechaun.

Charles Anderson and I were the first people to sing, I could actually feel his breathing. We were both breathing so fast we couldn’t even say anything. Mr Raymond screamed at us to start singing but I couldn’t think of any songs to sing. Mr Raymond kept yelling and screaming and eventually Charles squeaked,"We can sing Pretty Polly.” I wanted to say that I didn’t want to sing, but I’d gone completely mute. 

At this point I was completely terrified I thought that at that very moment he was going to get up and give me a caning. But we both started singing Pretty Polly. In the middle of the verse we stoped singing because I forgot the words. Mr Raymond yelled so loud I thought the windows would break. He kicked us out the classroom and I am never ever going to sing ever again.