A Toast To School Life

I am in fourth-year in secondary (high) school. The sixth years — the 17- and 18-year-olds — in our school have their own small kitchen in the school for cooking instant noodles during after-school study, making cups of tea, etc. It doesn’t have an oven or a cooker; there are only small appliances, such as a kettle, a microwave, and a toaster… or, at least, there used to be a toaster.

The story, from what I can recall, begins with us in class. It is a regular old maths lesson and I, as per usual, am daydreaming. All of a sudden, the fire alarm goes off, scaring the bejaysus — “bejesus” with an Irish accent — out of us. We immediately follow the drill of pushing our chairs in, lining up at the door, and filing out onto the sports pitch. I assume it’s just the usual stupidity: someone in the chemistry lab lighting a bunsen burner under the smoke alarm. In fact, this incident took it to a whole new level, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who caused it. One of the sixth years decided to cook a frozen pizza in the toaster. The pizza, of course, caught fire, and subsequently so did the toaster. After having evacuated the entire school and lost roughly 45 minutes of valuable class time — near exam time, no less — it was decided that the sixth years’ toaster would be permanently confiscated.

The story doesn’t end there, however. Our year, the fifth/incoming sixth years, did some things for the sixth years to help them de-stress before their oncoming leaving cert exams, e.g. throwing them a surprise party. At the leavers’ ceremony this week, the head girl announced that, as a thank you, the sixth years had bought our year a toaster as a sort of house-warming — kitchen-warming? — gift, as well as a swing-tennis set. Luckily, I think we’ve all learned the moral of the story: don’t cook non-toastable things in a toaster.