Describing Paul

Paul leaned back in his chair, tapping his pencil loudly across the edge of the desk. His lanky frame spilling over the edges of his seat. He did not look like the other boys surrounding him – he lacked muscle, and even fat – resembling a spider rather than a…...  His chest seemed to touch his spine, the skin stretching across his ribs like the canvas of a tent. His long arms wrapped around the edge of the desk as he pulled himself forward again, all four chair-legs touching the ground once more.

The sharp angles of his thin face stretched into a smug smile as he took pleasure in alerting the slower members of his class that he had finished. Eyes dancing with delight, he began playing his desk as if it was a piano; fingers flying, hands jumping. Fifth, to a third, to an octave, and back to a fifth again – he mimed the fingering of his favourite Bach. Slender, piano-player’s fingers glided across the chipped wood as he waited for his classmates to catch-up.