Head Start

by Judith Cutler

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve been crazy enough to leave a key for anyone to find.’ Jo was tetchy as we picked our way round to the cycle shed.

  Grinning, I spread my hands: ‘Find it, then!’ Obligingly I lit up the area with my phone, watching her face as she took in the random weeds, stones, loose bricks and assorted litter blown in from wherever. Buckets and an upended empty guinea pig pen completed the still life. The frost made it look almost attractive, but confirmed that nothing had been disturbed.

  ‘Give up,’ she said.

  ‘The trouble is, if I disturb the snow, I shan’t be able to use this hidey-hole again … maybe! Sorry. Enough already.’

  Under a broken plastic bucket there was a loose brick. Very tempting. And yes, there was a key underneath. But not the school key. Far too small. So I turned to the guinea pig pen, and its covered accommodation – which for some reason was lockable. The little key opened this. Inside, if you twisted your hand round, you found a nail. It protruded enough for me to have hung the school key on. Sadly, our tracks would indeed betray me: in days to come I’d have to be similarly cunning. In fact, I might suggest to the locksmith that we upgrade from keys to a keypad.

  We not only got in through the kitchen, we made it to Melanie’s office, where we put the heating on override and brewed tea, clinging to her nice friendly radiator. We didn’t run out of conversation, but eventually Jo stood up straight. ‘Look, I came here to see the school, and see the school I will. All of it. I’ll leave my phone on. Lloyd’s number’s on speed dial. We’ll be fine. Won’t we?’ she prompted me.

  I shook my head doubtfully. I was tall and these days pretty fit – all those ball skill sessions! – but she was so tiny. ‘I don’t think Lloyd would be impressed if you got hurt, Jo. And I can tell you straight, the governors would have my pelt if I let a potential maths teacher be put out of the frame by my foolhardiness.’ At last I managed to add the real reason for my cowardice: ‘I’ve been on the receiving end of too much violence to want to expose myself to more. Sorry.’ I rolled up my sleeve, and then my trouser leg. ‘Stuff like this hurts. For far longer than you’d think. So I don’t really do bravery any more.’

  ‘An accident?’

  ‘Quite deliberate. My ex-husband. I don’t care to talk about it much. My therapist believes it’s better not to keep revisiting unpleasant times.’

  ‘Does burying it make it go away?’ she asked, clearly not convinced.

  ‘Picking scabs doesn’t always help healing,’ I countered. ‘However much they itch.’

  We set off. Jo clearly agreed with me that the school was too impersonal, though she conceded that I could soon do something about that. So we turned our attention to looking for roof hatches. Although we located two, neither of us was quite ready to be heroic and conduct a further search, news which pleased Lloyd, apparently. He texted back that there was a lot to do before he could join us and he’d be pleased to find us in one piece. Irritatingly he did not respond to Jo’s next text: Where R U? Whose house?

  One place Jo hadn’t seen was my office, so we headed back towards it. Outside it I stopped short.

  Why was I so cowardly this evening? Until now I’d felt so secure in my territory that I’d even slept here almost dreamlessly, hadn’t I? Was some sort of sixth sense operating? Hardly. I didn’t believe in intuition, just intelligent observation. Something, somewhere, was amiss. As if on cue, a text from Lloyd arrived. ‘He wants us to let him in. Via the kitchen, I suppose?’ She tapped away. ‘We’ll be fine just retracing our steps, won’t we?’ She sounded so kind and encouraging I could have screamed.

  That was the wonderful thing about Pat: he was always bracing, never kind or sympathetic. However, thinking about his apparent defection wasn’t going to make things any better. Then we heard a noise. Hardly audible, but a noise. Yes, from my office. Gazing at each other, we both froze. Which was best, to retreat or confront the intruder?

  ‘I’m going to fling open the door,’ I mouthed, passing Jo the key. ‘Stand back. If there’s a problem, just run for it and let Lloyd in!’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ I pulled a face. ‘If only there was something we could use as a weapon.’

  ‘I’ve got this. She dug in her bag and produced a mini hairspray. ‘I bet it would make his eyes sting.’

  We braced ourselves: ‘Now!’

  I flung open the door – nothing.

  But the noise came again. Definitely from inside the room. If the source wasn’t under anything, it had to be in something.

  Making my arms as long as I could, I dragged open a desk drawer. And another. And the last.

  Out scrambled a large black rat.

  Lloyd claimed he heard our screams from halfway down the lane; it was only our violent eruption from the kitchen door that stopped him summoning armed reinforcements.

  A quick inspection of the playground soon located the cage that the rat and possibly some companions had travelled in. I passed Lloyd a bin liner, though I couldn’t believe that anyone cunning enough to leave me such an interesting gift wouldn’t have been wearing gloves. Probably thick leather gloves, come to think of it.

  ‘How kind people are,’ he said ironically, picking up his evidence and returning to the warmth of the building. He checked his phone and nodded: he was happy with the photo he’d taken of it in situ. Locking the door behind him, he said, ‘Rodent infestation. So I suppose you have to close the school now. After all your efforts to keep going during the snow.’

  ‘I don’t think we can blame my hoodie friend for the weather,’ I objected. ‘That’s an act of God. But I do blame him for the rat.’

  ‘God or the hoodie?’ Jo put in. ‘I’ve never understood why He created slugs, either.’

  Lloyd pointedly ignored her. ‘Which way did it go?’

  I shrugged helplessly, then rallied. ‘When we screamed – and I make no apologies at all! – it turned tail.’ They groaned at the inadvertent pun. ‘But the good news is that it must be somewhere in the old part of the school. We made damned sure it didn’t follow us into the hall. The bad news is that the old part is where everything happens: office, classrooms, my room, cloakrooms for coats and wellies. Oh, and all the electrics: a good bit of concentrated gnawing could put everything, but everything, out of action.’ I indulged in a short burst of language that would have had Prudence fainting away. ‘What the hell can I do? I have no option but to close, do I? And, however late it is, I’d better notify the governors now.’ I had my phone ready. Then I stopped. ‘Dawes is the sort of man it’s better to have a plan B for.’ I was almost literally scratching my head before I noticed Lloyd’s dry chuckle.

  ‘I fancy he’s got enough on his plate at the moment. It was his house that was broken into. There’s a right mess inside.’

  I frowned. ‘But surely the alarm would make any potential burglar take to his heels – you wouldn’t hang about with that noise around your ears. Unless you were deaf. And your colleagues were there in minutes. Plus, if the burglar was our hoodie he’d only have had seconds to do anything anyway.’

  He laughed. ‘Ever thought of joining the service, Jane? My thinking exactly. Look, I’ve got the AA coming out to the car, but you two might be happier making your way back to your cottage, Jane.’

  I shook my head firmly. ‘I’m not letting that little sod defeat me. Let’s make sure my office at least is still unoccupied. We can all sit there while you wait for them, and then you can stay over at mine if it’s easier. I’d lend you my car but of course it’s a hire one.’ The garage had so much snow crash damage to worry about I had a nasty suspicion that because I hadn’t been in their ear three times daily my impenetrable vehicle was at the bottom of their list.

  ‘It’d be nice to have a few weapons,’ Jo said. ‘If not to kill any rats, at least to encourage them to find somewhere else to play.’

  ‘The stockrooms are in such a mess I couldn’t lay hands on so much as a rounders bat, I’m afr
aid.’

  In what we were pretty sure was a rat-free room, after I’d made a formal statement about the hooded youth I’d seen running from the school towards Dawes’s house, we fell into an uneasy silence. I had to stop apologising for all the chaos, because Jo would chime in with her own grovels for insisting on coming to inspect the place after our meal.

  ‘It’s a good job you did,’ I countered. ‘At least I know my enemy is here – the furry one, at least. Look, I’m going to see if we can get a rat-catcher—’

  Lloyd coughed. ‘Rodent operative—’

  ‘Who would come out tonight. They have people-proof traps for mice – I assume they do for their big cousins. And if he can’t, how about some sort of away-day for the kids tomorrow? It’d mean a marathon effort on the computer and phone, but I might just manage it.’

  ‘A coach trip?’ Lloyd offered. ‘That sort of thing? It’d be hard to organise at this time of night, however – impossible, more like.

  ‘What about the village hall?’ Jo suggested. ‘It’ll already have had all the health and safety checks going. And any groups already booked in will surely give way graciously.’

  In this village? I wouldn’t bank on it. But I said nothing.

  ‘And for a walk across the road,’ she continued, ‘you won’t need to go to all the trouble of getting waiver forms signed.’

  And as a bonus Adele and her kitchen staff and dinner ladies would surely be able to produce something in even a village hall kitchen. Better than rat pie, anyway.

  ‘Wow: she’s not just a rare and endangered species of teacher,’ I said, ‘but a genius too.’

  ‘That’s why I married her.’ Lloyd checked his phone. ‘Ah! The AA have texted to say they’re here …’

  Having Jo to bounce ideas off – not to mention having her give me good advice – made me realise just how much I needed a trusted deputy head, someone paid and given time out of the classroom to take responsibility. Technically I had one, of course, but one on extended sick leave with stress. But if she was unable to return soon, even on a part-time basis, an acting replacement would be top of my wish list when we got the next budget. Or would such a move make her stress levels rise? Meanwhile, I texted Sandie Hill, the woman responsible for letting the village hall, and implored her to help.

  ‘I can help in two ways,’ she said, phoning straight back, incredibly cheerfully for someone disturbed while watching the late news. ‘First I can definitely clear tomorrow’s diary. Second, if you can nip down here right now – I can’t leave my kids on their own – I’ve got a packet of farm-quality rat poison. It comes in solid cubes, bright pink. So you could leave some on saucers or cups overnight and deal with the evidence in the morning. No? Well, my cousin Wayne works for a pest control firm – I’ll get him to give you a bell first thing. Mind you the firm’s not cheap. How long have you had the little pests? I always said it was a bad idea people going backwards and forwards through the kitchen. Mind you, I thought it would be food poisoning, not rats – or even theft, of course. Anyway, I’ll be there to unlock the hall at nine. Is that OK?’

  ‘Eight forty-five would be better.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, but I’ve got to drop my own kids off first, of course – and it all depends on the state of the traffic, not to mention the roads.’

  The AA man not only winched the poor injured car aboard his truck to take it away, but ushered Lloyd and Jo into his cab – all part of the service, he declared. When he saw that I was about to trudge home, he insisted on dropping me off first, thus joining Sandie Hill and Terry the tanker driver in my pantheon of rural gods. They were joined soon after seven the next morning: Jonah, the locksmith, promised to be with me within the hour to replace the glued-up lock.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  If Jonah was bright and cheerful, whistling tunefully as he worked, Brian Dawes was decidedly tetchy when I phoned to tell him what I’d arranged for the day and why. ‘Rats? That sort of thing has never occurred before, not on my watch at least,’ he added, as if holding me personally to blame. What had happened to the almost charming man of three days before?

  ‘The pest controllers assure me it’s not unusual for rats to find a nice warm home in this weather, and this building has, of course, the bonus of a working kitchen,’ I said mildly. I felt that there was no need to tell him that the intruder had been given a helpful lift to its new quarters, and how its means of transport was now regarded as evidence. I kept quiet about the time I’d discovered it too, though these days he and his colleagues seemed more tolerant of my long working hours. ‘I have absolute confidence that the staff will be able to adapt to the unusual circumstances, and Adele, the cook, says that the village hall kitchen is actually better than ours here. In any case, all should be back to normal tomorrow, thank goodness. By the way, I hear on the grapevine we’re not the only ones with trouble – I was very sorry to hear of your burglary, Brian.’

  He didn’t seem grateful for my kind interest. ‘Nothing much taken; just an almighty mess,’ he growled.

  ‘I’m so sorry to hear it – I know how awful it is to have your precious things damaged.’

  ‘No one can know unless – I’m sorry, you had that problem with the old caretaker’s house, didn’t you? Nothing antique there, though, surely to goodness.’

  ‘Of course not.’ And now wasn’t the time to tell him how Simon had once smashed all the china my grandmother had left me, piece by irreplaceable piece. Or how he had fed my family photos into the shredder. ‘Well, I hope the police catch the miscreant soon.’

  ‘They were here pretty damned quick, I’ll say that for them. Said something about another local call. Any idea what that was about?’

  ‘Some helpful soul superglued the school door: it’s being repaired even as we speak. And I saw someone I suspected of doing it running away in your direction, as it happens.’

  ‘What?’ he barked.

  ‘Yes, I’ve made a statement to the police. And then, in, as they say, a separate incident, a parked car was badly damaged by what appears to have been a heavy vehicle.’

  ‘People park anywhere these days – asking for trouble,’ he said dismissively. ‘So what are these children going to do all day, jammed together like sardines?’

  As if the abrupt change of subject didn’t surprise me, I said, ‘We already had a talk booked from our police community support officer, Ian Cooper—’

  ‘Why?’ he asked sharply.

  Had he forgotten already?

  ‘He’s going to talk about telling the truth, remember, and any other moral issues that even young children should be able to understand. After that? Some group lessons – I trust the staff to improvise. There’s a very good weather forecast, so we can have nice long playtimes – of course as long as we ensure that the actual school building is out of bounds, there’s no reason why we can’t use the playground as usual. And the Open the Book team are going to put on an extra assembly performance after lunch. There’s nothing wrong with quiet personal reading times. I’m sure we shall keep all the parents happy and all the children safe.’

  ‘I wish you joy of the former!’ This time his laugh sounded entirely genuine. ‘Look, if I have a moment I’ll come down and see if there’s anything I can do, shall I? I’m supposed to stay in for some forensic chappies or chappesses, but I can’t see them doing anything useful. So expect me some time after mid morning.’

  Chappesses? Was someone due some gender issues training?

  Ian Cooper, looking every inch a real policeman, had prepared his material well, and even produced a child-friendly power-point presentation. There was some small group work, with teams of all ages coming up with responses to different moral scenarios he’d set.

  ‘I did some of this stuff when I was an undergraduate,’ he said, while all the young heads were bent over their question sheets. ‘Slightly different situations, but basically involving the same instincts and reasoned answers.’

  ‘You’re doing brilliantly,�
� I said truthfully. ‘You’re wasted on our yellow-line patrol.’

  ‘Funnily enough, that was what my boss said this morning. In fact, if I hadn’t dug my toes in about giving this talk, then I’d have been the other side of the county. We’re very short-staffed, but a promise is a promise, I said.’

  ‘I hope keeping this one doesn’t spoil your career.’

  ‘If you’re giving a talk about morals, I think you should try to live by them,’ he said.

  Who could argue?

  His plenary session was exemplary: our Ian was not only a born teacher but also a born leader. I just hoped his career path would match his abilities – and that the children, who’d been so engrossed by the problems he’d set, would retain even the tiniest bit of what they’d learnt. To lie? To cheat? To take the easy route? Or to stick to their principles even when it wasn’t easy – just as Ian had this morning.

  With his permission, I told them about his dilemma when I stepped forward to thank him. The children were genuinely shocked when they heard he’d been told to cancel their session, and even more delighted that he’d kept his promise. Their applause – and that of the teachers – was spontaneous and warm.

  And then came a call on his radio, and he was no longer a friendly face, but a cop off to fight crime.

  Dawes still hadn’t arrived when Melanie, who had made a small meeting room at the front of the hall her temporary office, had a call from the pest control team – would I care to come and see what they’d done and sign their paperwork? Leaving the more than capable teaching and playground staff to escort the kids across the road to the playground, I did as I was asked. The workmen seemed to have left ajar every door in the building – it was icy cold. I shut a few as I went round on an escorted tour. I couldn’t argue about the baited traps they’d left in my office and in the staffroom, but I vetoed the idea of having any where a child might be tempted to investigate.