Song at Twilight Read Online Free PDF

and hoping that he liked me.
    We all want to be liked, but I have always attempted, in my professional capacity at least, to pay no attention to such matters. If a teacher is good at his or her job, and if he is fair, the chances are that his pupils will like him, but this liking should not be what he primarily seeks. I think that I can honestly say that although I have always been gratified as anyone would be by the slightest sign of being liked by my pupils, I have never, in all my years of teaching, gone out of my way to court popularity, except perhaps, very slightly, in the case of Timothy. I cannot say what precisely it was about him which provoked this interest unless it really was, as I have indicated, quite simply his forlorn little face on that first day when he arrived at Blenkinsop's.
    I wanted him to know that I liked him and I wanted his respect and trust. I even think that I may have wanted a certain indefinable, but real understanding to develop between us; such an understanding as I fondly imagined a mother might have with her child. But by mid-December when school broke up, I had the feeling that, despite all this, I did not know Timothy any better than I had done at the beginning of September. 
    When school reassembled after Christmas for the Spring Term, I sensed even more acutely than before an aura of loneliness around the boy. Since his voice had broken he had left the choir and I wondered if he participated in any other school activities. I rather gathered that he did not and decided that if I could find an opportunity to speak to him alone, I might bring the subject up.
    I noticed almost immediately that Timothy's work was not up to standard that term. He started to be late for lessons and no longer appeared to be paying very much attention in class. I wondered what trauma had come to disturb him over Christmas, or was his behaviour merely coming into line with that of most of his contemporaries – at least his male contemporaries. On the whole the laziest of my pupils were all boys. Perhaps Timothy thought at that stage that the role of the male teenager was one to adopt and that it would help him to fit in more easily with his peers.
    I looked at Timothy sitting as usual at the back of the classroom. He was better looking than I had at first thought and he had an endearing quality of thoughtfulness about him. I imagined him to be a gentle, sensitive person. I wished I could help him.
    About half way through that term, which was already going badly for Timothy, there occurred a very unpleasant incident. A poem with homosexual overtones, written on school paper in what was probably Timothy Hooper's handwriting, was found on the floor in his houseroom and pinned to the noticeboard by some well-wisher with, written underneath it in large, red, block capitals, the words ‘Timothy Hooper is a poof’.
    This disagreeable piece of information came to my ears from Timothy's housemaster.
    So I took the opportunity to expound on my worries about the boy.
    "The trouble with young Hooper," said his housemaster, "is that he hasn't understood the simple fact that school rules apply to him too."
    I was rather surprised to hear this, as Timothy gave me the impression of being the kind of boy who, generally speaking, tries not to be conspicuous. And if you don't want to be conspicuous in an institution, you usually obey the rules.
    "And the trouble with all you women," said the housemaster, "is that you're too soft-hearted. Let the little so-and-sos get away with murder."
    Then he added something very peculiar. It was in fact so peculiar that I at first supposed that I had misheard him, but I thought about it afterwards long and hard, and I am quite certain that what he said was:
    "You're all really just longing to be raped."
    Even if I were longing to be raped, which I am not, I can hardly see what such a statement had to do with poor Timothy. If his housemaster was not prepared to take him seriously, someone