Parent’s Night came together very slowly. It started with an idea about Chrístõ playing lacrosse in a faculty team, which actually got dropped as I couldn’t work out how to fit it in. Julia’s gymnastics performance was also going to feature in a bigger way, too, with the earthquake coming when Chrístõ was watching her perform.

Then the issue with Mr Vernon came to mind, and I knew I could use that as a major point of the story. I first had Chrístõ meeting a few of the more graciously inclined parents, Mr and Mrs Ross, and the mother of the girl who liked to draw. Chrístõ’s advice to that mother, to encourage the girl’s interest in art, is one which few teachers ever seem to catch on to with national curriculums that churn out children who are average at everything rather than excelling in any specialist field. One day, in the future, perhaps not as far away as THIS story is set, they might realise their mistake.

Mr Vernon is, of course, an old fashioned bigot. That is certainly put across, I think. His bigotry extends to coloured teachers as well as extra-terrestrial ones. But while there are obviously laws against racism on Beta Delta, the melting pot of humanity, there are none against speciesism.

The gang surrounding him and threatening to beat him up for being an alien is a bit over the top, really. Would parents really do that to a teacher? I’m not sure. Then again, look at the risk taken by Atticus Finch the lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the most famous literary examples of justice attempting to hold out against mob rule. Chrístõ could have found himself in the midst of a witch-hunt.

Then again Chrístõ, a teacher, and Cal, a student, beating six parents, doesn’t look good either.

Saved by the earthquake.

Yes, totally deus ex machina! I admit that straight off. Of course, everything up until now has been leading here. That’s why Chrístõ is followed out of the school.

And no, New Canberra is NOT on a faultline. The earthquake is not natural. There was going to be a subplot about a deliberate attack on the city involving an alien with a sonic disruptor or whatever that causes earthquakes, but the story worked out perfectly well covering the rescue efforts.

The people trapped behind the door put some readers in mind of the Hillsborough Disaster, 1989, in which people died of crush injuries. In fact, what I actually had in mind was the Stardust Disaster of 1981, a discotheque in London which caught fire. People were trapped behind locked fire doors and died. In fiction, it is considerably easier to rescue people than in real life, unfortunately. Everyone gets out alive in this story.

The dilemma for Chrístõ, of course, is whether to reveal his alien powers to the crowd and rescue people in trouble. This is where I get to use the levitation that he merely showed off with in the story “Time’s Servant”. I always intended to use that ability in a more constructive way.

Now, the obvious problem with Chrístõ levitating up and down like a Time Lord elevator is that The Doctor has never done anything remotely like that on Doctor Who. He levitates in the Zero room in Castrovalva, and floats across the room in Last of The Time Lords, and that’s about it. But I have always been of the opinion that The Doctor should have more superhuman powers than he does, but the budget on TV didn’t allow for them. And, ok, lets assume he lost some of his powers when he got old and decrepit in his first incarnation and had his mind messed with by the Time Lords themselves in his second to third regeneration, and all of that. Besides, that sort of thing really is just showing off!

There was going to be a longer section at the end in which the Governor of Beta Delta IV arrives at the hospital and thanks Chrístõ for his efforts, promising him a job as a teacher for as long as he needs one, but on reflection, I decided that the best ending was the one I had already written, in which Mr Vernon, realising the error of his ways, stands up for Chrístõ against the other bigots.

But what will happen when term starts again in September? Is Chrístõ is going to be teaching in a portacabin?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardust_fire