the wheat from the chaff.

Jerry, I fear, will always struggle with English. Consonants and dipthongs stick in his throat; words just don't make their way out of his mouth. He sits alone in class, quiet, fidgeting. Ten years old and an enigmatic loner.

I give out scraps of paper and ask the kids to draw a map of China. Most produce a lopsided kidney bean. I pass Jerry's desk and he's halfway through sketching the entire Asian continent; every contour and groove as geographically and politically accurate as if he'd traced it from an atlas. Regional place names in perfect Chinese pinyin.

Later, between my crap Chinese and his crap English, it transpires that he wants me to keep his masterpiece. I do.

Jessica lucked out in the looks department. Pug-nosed and pudgy with cauliflower earlobes and a voice ["Kay-TEEE-ah, Kay-TEE-ah. FINished-ah."] about as musical as potato peelings being sucked down a drainpipe, her saving grace is her brilliance. Her English, on good days, rivals my adult students.

When I head for the door at the end of class, it's with Jessica's stubby nine-year-old arms wrapped around my waist. And with "Kay-TEE-ah, goodbye, I miss you..." screeched at my departing back.

Wing-eared Jack, in pastel shorts are too small for his chunky buttocks, could be the son of Shrek. Smart, and smart-arsed, Jack has driven many a teacher [Chinese and foreign] to suicidal exasperation. He's locked me out of the room, scattered chairs and muttered insults I don't care to have translated.

Jack waves when he sees me now. He laughs at my jokes. He stands when I ask him to. I dunno what I did; I don't care to find out. I just know that Jack would rather be smacked over the head with a book than told to write fifty lines for homework.

Susan is fifteen. She looks [walks/talks/dresses] twenty-one. I've had to boot Ali in the groin more than once for ogling her. She's invariably bored; her mates are all out shopping or giggling over milkshakes with their first boyfriends.

I ask her if she enjoys class.

No, she says.

In the middle of a a board game last week, Susan snatches my marker. She writes, in perfect cursive, "Don't trouble trouble until trouble troubles you."

"Katie, have a good trip," she says. Beatific smile.

Five months down, three weeks to go. And it turns out I actually like these brats.

That I'm going to miss them. That, months and years from now, I'll be wondering what they're doing, what they've become, whether they remember their weird yellow-haired foreign teacher who came from some unpronounceable place in the outback.

Today Mike is wearing a t-shirt that says COC-BOY.

I point at his head.

"Nose!"

I point at his nose.

Sloppy grin, lolling tongue.

"Mon...key."

Well. Some of these brats.