The Think Chair by Rachel Burrows

Today, I had to sit on the think chair. Because I ate Maggie’s lunch. 

       ‘It was not yours to eat,’ the teacher said.

       ‘But I was hungry,’ I said, but not out loud.

       I had to sit on the think chair and think. Think for five minutes while everyone else wrote their harvest prayers. I had to think about how we take care of each other’s property and how we respect other people. 

       I sat and thought about Maggie’s lunch. 

       There had been two cold sausages wrapped in silver . They were fat and juicy and delicious and still joined together. I started at one end and chomped right through to the other like a pelican eating a fish. And she had a small pot of grapes all cut in half. Some were purple. They looked like eyeballs. They were sweet and squirty. I hope you can eat grape seeds, because I did. And there were tiny tomatoes with green spiders – still on a plant. When I bit into the first one it exploded. The juice hit the toilet door! Splat!        There were tomato seeds everywhere. Those tomatoes tasted like magic – like a juice that turned into powder that turned back into juice again. And there was a banana too. Not a tiny one like we get at school but a massive great one with no brown bits – and someone had drawn a smiley face on it and a heart. I put that behind the radiator to take home later. Mum loves bananas. 

       Maggie’s mum had given her a piece of cake as well! It was yellow with pink icing and full of jam. I saved half for my brother. I wrapped it in toilet roll and put it in my pocket. He didn’t have a birthday cake this year. Mum said birthday biscuits are really special because everyone gets to make a wish when they eat them – not like birthday cakes. I hope my wish comes true.

       ‘You seem to be finding this funny. I hope you are thinking,’ said the teacher.

Maggie had cried when she found her lunch box empty. Nobody owned up. Then we had to play outside while the teachers looked for the food. 

       They were never going to find it though– because it was in my tummy. My silent tummy. 

       Maggie didn’t cry for long because they gave her a school dinner and there was red jelly today. She loves red jelly.

       ‘One minute left,’ said the teacher. ‘I hope you have thought about what you are going to say to Maggie.’

       I thought about the sausages. And those grapes. And that cake. I wonder whose birthday it had been to have such a posh cake. I hoped Maggie still had some at home so she could have another piece.

       And then I thought about the tomatoes. It was the tomatoes that had given me away. 

       The teachers had discovered the seeds on the back of the toilet door. No one else had been to that toilet. I should have bitten into them more carefully. It was impossible though; they were so juicy. 

       ‘Time is up,’ the teacher said. ‘I hope you’ve had a good long think.

       Now what would you like to say to Maggie?’

       I look at her and the only thing I can think of is that lovely lunch box.

       ‘Well? Hmm?’

       ‘Maggie,’ I say, ‘can you tell your mum … please…that you don’t want tomatoes tomorrow.’