by David Almond
The Professor flinches.
“Why are you speaking Spanish, boy?” he snaps.
Jack rests his hand on the badge of his Barcelona strip.
“Because I am Lionel Messi, señor!” he announces.
He turns around to show the name and number printed on his back.
The Professor groans.
“This is my sentence,” Jack says. “I am starving, consequently I cannot wait to get stuck into me dinner.”
“Technically correct,” says the Professor. “However, starving is hyperbole, stuck into is slang, cannot wait is hyperbole again, it is lunch not dinner, and it is my lunch not me lunch. Anyone else? You?”
He points to Angelino.
“Come along,” he says. “Give me a sentence which contains a complex and relevant connective.”
Angelino leans on Nancy’s pencil case. He stares back at the Professor.
“Try,” says the Professor. “Do you think I have achieved what I have achieved without trying? Speak up!”
Angelino farts again.
Nancy grins at him.
“Can you speak?” she whispers into his little ear.
He climbs over Nancy’s book and up her sleeve, perches on her collar and leans close to her ear.
And he whispers back to her. Yes, Angelino speaks.
“I don’t know nowt,” he says in a tiny voice.
Nancy gasps. She takes Angelino in her hand and looks at him in wonder.
“So?” demands the Professor. “What is his sentence?”
“He said ‘I don’t know nowt’!”
“I don’t know nowt?” repeats the Professor. “Grammatically incorrect! Double negative! And it’s nothing, not nowt! It should be ‘I know nothing’. And where, may I ask, is the connective?”
“There isn’t one, sir,” says Nancy.
“Indeed there is not!”
The Professor turns away in exasperation.
“Who can help? Who can give the class a sentence that begins with ‘I know nothing’, continues with a complex connective and concludes with a second clause?”
Alice Obi raises her hand.
“I know nothing,” she says, “therefore I must find out.”
“Excellent!” says the Professor. “It is no surprise that you are one of my Gifted and Talented group.”
Alice smiles sweetly. Nancy continues to stare at Angelino in awe. The Professor stares suspiciously into the void.
“Writing!” he says. “It is time for the writing task! Take out your books and pens and each write five sentences formed of two clauses joined by complex connectives. Begin now.”
The class obediently prepare to do the task. The Professor sits down at the teacher’s desk.
“Do not forget the date,” he says. “And correct punctuation of course, and best handwriting, and each sentence should be numbered, and…”
His voice falters. His eyes focus in puzzlement on Angelino once more. Angelino waves. The Professor flinches.
Nancy gives the angel a pencil and a sheet of paper. He holds the pencil between two hands.
“Just do your best,” Nancy whispers.
She helps to guide his pencil across the paper. He makes some marks.
“That’s brilliant,” she says.
Angelino looks at the other children writing. He flutters his wings.
“Write what you said,” Nancy whispers.
She takes her hand away from his.
“Go on, Angelino. Give it a try.”
Angelino flutters his wings again. And he writes. Yes, he writes. The pencil moves across the paper and he scrawls untidily:
“That’s fantastic, Angelino!” gasps Nancy. She herself writes:
Angelino grins. He holds the pencil up straight and leans on it. The children continue with their task. Angelino watches the Professor and the Professor watches Angelino. Strange, the angel seems a little taller now. The minutes pass. Lunchtime approaches. The children’s pens move across the pages, making words and sentences where before there was just empty space.
“Time!” announces the Professor.
He gathers in the children’s books. He beams at Alice Obi and murmurs, “Excellent.” He takes Jack’s work without giving it a glance. He edges towards Nancy and Angelino. He sees Angelino’s sheet while taking Nancy’s book.
He lifts the paper towards his eyes. He groans.
“No grammatical improvement at all!” he says. “What a disgraceful mess! Where is the capital letter? And the apostrophe? The silent k? Silent w? And it is I not ay. And where is the full stop? Does he know anything?”
“I don’t know, sir,” says Nancy.
“What do you know?” he asks Angelino.
Angelino says nothing.
“Where are you from?” says the Professor. “Who on earth are you?”
Angelino ponders, then climbs to Nancy’s ear again.
“I don’t know who I am,” he whispers.
“Well?” demands the Professor.
“He said,” says Nancy, “‘I don’t know who I am.’”
“I don’t know who I am?” says the Professor. “How can anybody not know who he is?” His eyes light up. “But ah! You used the word know again. Did you hear the k in it? Of course you didn’t, because it is silent. The silent letter is one of the mysteries and joys of the English language. It is a letter that is not pronounced and so cannot be heard even though it is there. There are of course other words that begin with a k that cannot be heard.” He looks around the class. “Examples?”
Jack Fox raises his hand.
“Sausage,” he says.
“Sausage?” says the Professor. “Are you mad? You think there is a silent k in sausage?”
He stares at the void, picks up his briefcase, heads for the door.
“Well, I can’t hear it,” mutters Jack, as he jumps from his seat, feints, dodges and lashes an invisible ball into an invisible net.
Carrots, ketchup and custard, of course. There are many things in Betty’s delicious school dinners that appeal to an angel with a sweet tooth. Angelino happily nibbles and licks. He turns up his nose at gravy and meat. He sits at a table with Nancy and her pals. They feed him with their fingertips and with their spoons. They ask him to speak, to say his name, to write, to dance, to fly.
“Slow down!” says Nancy. “How would you like it if you were a tiny angel on his first day in school?”
“You’re right,” says Jack. “Give him time to settle in.”
So they’re quiet, and they gaze at Angelino in amazement. When Betty’s finished serving, she comes and sits with them. Angelino waves and does a little dance and climbs onto her arm.
“He did a lesson,” says Nancy. “With the Professor!”
“With the Professor!” says Betty proudly. “Well, Angelino, I am impressed. Just wait till I tell Bert!”
“And Betty,” says Nancy, “you’ll never guess what. He spoke!”
Betty goggles and claps her hand across her mouth.
“Angelino! And what did he say?”
“Go on, Angelino,” prompts Nancy. “Tell Betty what you said.”
Angelino frowns. He farts. Nancy whispers in his ear.
He steps down from Betty’s arm. He stands up straight, holds his hands behind his back, takes a deep breath, and says in a clear tiny voice, “I don’t know nowt and I don’t know who I am.”
“Angelino!” cries Betty. “What a lovely voice you have!”
Angelino beams.
He says it again, louder this time.
“I don’t know nowt and I don’t know who I am!”
“Just wait till Bert hears that!” says Betty.
“And Angelino,” says Jack, “it’s a proper compound sentence!”
Betty’s eyes shine with tears of joy. She takes the angel in her hand and holds him high. She laughs.
“You’re getting bigger and taller and heavier. I’m sure of it! Oh, what a lovely angel you’re going to be.”
“Sit d
own! Calm down!” It’s the voice of Mrs Mole, who is patrolling the dining hall and trying to keep kids away from Angelino’s table. “Control yourselves!”
She stamps her foot.
“We are trying to emerge from Special Measures and you are behaving like little monsters!” she cries. Her voice gets louder and screechier. How can she cope with all of this? Special Measures! Excited kids! And now an angel in their midst! “What,” she screeches, “if another School Inspector turns up at our door?”
“Poor Mrs Mole,” whispers Betty to Angelino. “She gets herself into such a tizz.”
Mrs Mole comes over to Angelino’s table.
“You are attracting far too much attention,” she says.
Angelino sticks out his bottom and farts.
“That is quite enough of that!” says Mrs Mole.
Angelino stops and stares at her.
“I expect far better manners from an angel,” she says.
“He’s sorry, Miss,” says Betty.
“I hope he is, Mrs Brown. It is he who should be showing an example to his fellow pupils.”
“He will, Miss,” promises Betty, in a rather trembly voice.
Mrs Mole leans down over Angelino.
“I shall,” she says, “be keeping a very close eye on you, my boy.”
And she wheels away.
“Oh, Angelino!” says Betty. “I’m so proud of you!”
She gives him a little kiss.
“Go on,” she says. “Go off and play with your friends.”
Mrs Mole isn’t the only one who’s keeping a close eye on our little angel this lunchtime. Beyond the school gates and across the road on the other side of the little park beyond stands a bloke in black. Yes, the same bloke as before. Strange, he looks quite a young bloke behind the shades and the moustache and the black, black suit. No more than a lad, really. He has a small pair of binoculars trained on Angelino. He has the notebook in his hand. And he has a phone to his cheek, and he’s speaking into it.
“Yes, Boss,” he says. “I’ve got him in me sights, Boss… No, I’ve not seen nowt like him never before, Boss. Never in me life, Boss… Yes, Boss, there’ll be a way of making money from it. Yes, Boss, the circus mebbe. Or how about a church, Boss? A church’d give a lot of loot to get its hands on a proper real-life angel.”
He goes on watching. He sees Angelino carried out into the school yard by Nancy. He sees all the excited kids gather around. And then a group of them break away and start a football game.
It’s rough and tough and fast. A bunch of lads and lasses scampering around kicking and heading and yelling.
“To me!” call the kids. “On me head! Great shot! Bad luck! That’s a foul! Red card, ref! What a goaaaaal! What a save! To me! To me! Ouch! To him! Bring him down! Get stuck in! Get stuck in!”
Jack Fox is the cleverest and quickest. He’s the star. He runs like Lionel Messi, swerves like Lionel Messi, scores like Lionel Messi. In his imagination he is Lionel Messi. He laughs and grins and yells encouragement to the others.
“Si!” he calls. “Maravilloso! Fantastico! Gol! Goooooool!”
Angelino dances on Nancy’s hand. He squeaks with delight. He runs around on her palm as if he’s running around with the kids in the game. He swings his leg as if he’s kicking the ball. He jumps up as if he’s heading it. He jumps and jumps and then, oh goodness gracious…
“Boss!” gasps the bloke in black into his phone. “He’s flying!”
Not very far. Not very high. But he does. He flies. He jumps off Nancy’s hand into the air and hovers there for a few moments, a little bit higher than her head. And then down he tumbles, to the ground at Nancy’s feet.
“Angelino!” she gasps in fright.
She’s sure he must have broken something – a leg, a wing, an arm, his back, his skull. But he jumps to his feet. He giggles and gasps. He flaps his wings. He leaps back into Nancy’s hands. He jumps again and flies again. A bit further. A bit higher. He lands back on her hands and gets ready to do it a third time. It’s amazing. He seems to have grown yet again. Nancy has to use both hands to hold him. Then the football flashes past and he jumps towards it and nearly touches it.
Down to Nancy’s hands again.
The ball flies past again and this time Angelino’s after it. He flaps his wings so fast they can hardly be seen. And he catches the ball and wraps his arms around it and down they fall together to the ground.
“Caramba!” yells Jack Fox. “What a save!”
Angelino totters to his feet, the ball at his side. It’s bigger than he is.
“You’re on our team!” yells Jack. “Angelino, you’re goalie! El portero!”
He carries the angel to where the goal is.
“You’ve got to stop the ball from going into that. Comprende?”
Angelino stares at Jack like he really, really wants to understand.
Jack shows him how it’s done.
“Take a penalty,” he says to Louis Lepp. “Just watch, Angelino!”
Louis puts the ball on the spot and takes a penalty kick. Jack dives to his left and catches the ball. He knocks a second penalty away with his fist.
“Get the idea?” he says to Angelino. “Now it’s you.”
He sets Angelino down between the posts. It looks hopeless. The angel’s surely far too small to be defending such a space.
But his good pal Nancy believes in him.
“You can do it, Angelino!” she shouts.
Angelino narrows his eyes and stares at the ball. He flexes his knees just like a proper goalie.
“Not too hard!” shouts Louis Lepp.
Jack chips the ball. It swerves towards the corner of the goal. And look how Angelino leaps and flies and catches it, then spins through the air with the ball in his arms and comes back down to earth!
Everybody cheers.
“What a goalie! What a save!”
And that’s how lunchtime passes by. The football game is huge. Everybody joins in. Nobody’s bothered about winning or losing. They just want to see the brave angelic goalie flying through the air to stop the ball. He doesn’t save it every time. Sometimes he catches the ball but can’t stop it, and ball and angel fly together into the net. But what a treat it is! Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. When the bell goes for the end of lunchtime, Angelino’s skin is scuffed with mud and grass stains. His dress is all dishevelled and his eyes are shining bright. Jack carries him back into the school as if he’s a hero, as if he’s just won the European Cup. Dozens of kids flock after him, cheering and chanting his name.
“Angelino! Angelino! Angelino!”
“Jack Fox! Put that angel down!”
Mrs Mole, of course.
“And line up properly!” she snaps. “And stop that silly noise!”
Jack puts Angelino down by Nancy’s side.
Strange, thinks Nancy. He’s higher than my ankle now. I’m sure he wasn’t so tall an hour ago.
“No wonder,” cries Mrs Mole, “that Mr Donkin has such trouble with his nerves!”
She is trying hard to be Very Stern, but her voice is wobbly. How can she cope with all this? She’s just an ordinary little woman. But then she clenches her fists and forces herself to be a proper Acting Head Teacher.
“And no wonder,” she snaps, “that this school is in such dire straits! Stand straight! Lips shut!”
“Must be the custard helping him grow,” muses Nancy.
She reaches down. Angelino reaches up. They take each other’s hand.
Just yesterday, thinks Nancy, he was little enough to fit into a bus driver’s pocket.
“This is an educational establishment!” says Mrs Mole. “Not a zoo in which you run amuck!”
Nancy licks her finger. She dabs away a spot of mud from the angel’s brow.
“You are here to be trained, to be educated, to be… What on earth are you doing, Nancy Miller?”
Nancy blinks.
“Wiping Angelino’s brow, Miss.”
&nb
sp; “Wiping Angelino’s brow? Wiping Angelino’s brow! And what gives you the right, may I ask, to wipe an angel’s brow when a teacher – particularly an Acting Head Teacher such as myself – is speaking?”
“I don’t know, Miss.”
“You don’t know! Do you think you would find a pupil such as Alice Obi wiping an angel’s brow when a teacher is speaking?”
“I don’t know, Miss.”
“Then I shall tell you. No, you would not find a Gifted and Talented pupil such as Alice Obi wiping an angel’s brow when a teacher is speaking! You would not find a Gifted and Talented pupil allowing herself to be distracted by fripperies with wings and dresses and running amuck during a school lunchtime! Would you, Alice? Alice, where are you?”
“I’m here, Mrs Mole,” comes a voice.
“Step forward, Alice.”
Alice steps out of the line. She has a book in her hand.
“Bring some sanity to this place,” says Mrs Mole. “Tell us what you were doing this lunchtime.”
“I was in the library, Mrs Mole.”
Mrs Mole sighs with delight.
“And that,” she says, “is how to spend your time instead of wasting it all on football and fripperies. Thank you, Alice. My faith in human nature – at least in that part of it represented by our Gifted and Talented pupils – is restored. And now silence! Line up!”
Nancy ponders Angelino. She can’t restrain herself. She raises her hand.
“Please, Miss,” she says.
Mrs Mole glares.
“Well?”
“Please, Miss,” says Nancy. “Do you know if angels grow?”
Mrs Mole stamps her foot.
“What kind of question is that? DO I KNOW IF ANGELS GROW? Are you mad?”
“Do they, Miss?”
Red-faced Mrs Mole is about to yell some more, then Alice steps out of line again. She holds up her book. It’s an ancient battered-looking thing.
“No,” Alice says. “It seems they do not. I read it in here. It says that angels are always the same size. They aren’t born and they don’t die. They are perfect beings that have always existed and will always exist.”
Everybody looks at Angelino. He grins and waves back. He looks far from perfect. He leans against Nancy’s leg.
