‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ simpered Sister. ‘I have paperwork to attend to.’
As she headed for the door, the headmistress stopped in her tracks and peered out of the window. I followed her gaze to see the school secretary creeping past in the direction of the dustbins. She was wearing bright yellow rubber gloves and a pained expression and she was carrying something, at arm’s length, on a shovel.
‘Whatever is Mrs Sanders up to?’ said Sister to Mrs McPhee. ‘Perhaps the school cat has…’ and she mouthed ‘mouse’ to her colleague before leaving the room.
The first pupil I approached was very keen to tell me about the books he liked to read. He was a small boy with shiny blond hair, clear blue eyes and a face full of freckles. He told me his name was Alexander.
‘I expect all your pals call you Alex,’ I said to him.
‘No they don’t, actually,’ he told me seriously. ‘They call me Alexander. I don’t like my name shortened.’
‘No,’ I said smiling, ‘neither do I.’ Connie, the caretaker at the Staff Development Centre, sometimes referred to me as ‘Gerv’. It sounded like a brand of cheap petrol. ‘And how are you today, Alexander?’ I asked.
‘Well, I’m not a hundred per cent,’ he told me. ‘But I don’t like to miss school.’
‘And what is your reading book about?’
‘Dinosaurs. I’m really into dinosaurs,’ the boy explained solemnly.
‘Are you?’
‘Oh yes. They’re incredible creatures. I know quite a lot about dinosaurs. Do you know much about dinosaurs, Mr Phinn?’
‘No, not a lot.’
‘Do you know which was the longest?’ asked the boy, looking me confidently in the eye.
‘I’m not entirely sure,’ I said and I wasn’t. ‘Is it the brontosaurus?’
‘No. It’s the diplodocus. As long as two double-decker buses, end to end. Do you know which was the biggest?’
‘Was that the brontosaurus?’
‘Wrong again. It was the brachiosaurus. It was taller than two giraffes and as heavy as eight full-grown elephants. Mind-blowing isn’t it? They weighed about thirty tonnes. Do you know which was the smallest?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ I told him.
‘Compsognathus. It was about the size of a chicken. You’ll not know which was the fastest, then?’
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘Gallimimus,’ said the boy. ‘It was a bit like an ostrich and could run over thirty miles an hour.’
‘Really. I do know which was the fiercest, though,’ I said.
‘Which one?’ The boy looked up at me intently with the clear blue eyes.
‘The tyrannosaurus rex.’
The boy smiled and shook his head. ‘Wrong again, I’m afraid. It was the deinonychus. It had huge slashing claws on each back foot and a set of killer teeth.’ He made a gnashing movement, then clacked his teeth together to emphasise his point. ‘They hunted in packs. Its name means “terrible claw”. A lot of people think the tyrannosaurus rex was the fiercest,’ he said leaning back in his chair, ‘but they’re wrong.’
‘Which was the last dinosaur to live on Earth?’ I asked him. I was genuinely interested. Very often the questions I asked pupils were pseudo questions. I already knew the answers and was merely seeing if the children did. It was very refreshing to ask questions for which I did not know the answers.
‘Now that’s a tricky one, Mr Phinn.’ He sucked in his breath and thought for a moment. ‘Most people would say it was the triceratops, but we can’t be sure. They lived about sixty-five million years ago, give or take a million. Shall I read you a bit from my book?’
‘Yes, I think that’s a very good idea,’ I said.
So the boy read with great gusto from a thick tome. He stopped at intervals to tell me additional fascinating facts about the great creatures and to point out interesting features in the pictures.
‘You’re a very good reader as well as being so knowledgeable, Alexander,’ I told him.
‘Yes, I know,’ he said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘And you’re a very good listener.’
I smiled and shook my head. I have met many a precocious child in my time but Alexander took the biscuit. ‘And when you leave school, I expect you want to work in the Natural History Museum in London, don’t you, and be the world expert on dinosaurs?’
‘Oh no, Mr Phinn, I want to be a solicitor, like my father. There’s not much of a future in dinosaurs.’
The next child, although younger than Alexander, was a large girl with saucer eyes and thick black hair tied in great bunches. Her thumb was stuck in her mouth. I had intended asking her to read me a few sentences from her book but this turned out to be not much more than a picture book. Clearly she had some special needs and experienced difficulty with her reading. The page she was looking at depicted a large black horse galloping across a river. Beneath it was written: ‘The horse is in the water.’ When I asked her what it said, she looked at me for a moment, regarded me as if I were simple-minded, removed the thumb and informed me bluntly, ‘It sez: “T’nag’s in t’beck!”’
While I was listening to another child read, I heard Mrs McPhee’s threateningly low voice somewhere behind us.
‘No, Alexander, I said a prayer.’
‘But, miss, I want to write about my holidays,’ appealed the child.
‘Well, you are not going to,’ said the teacher sharply., ‘You are to write a prayer like everyone else and that is that.’
‘But, Mrs McPhee,’ persisted the child, ‘I really don’t want to write a prayer.’
‘Alexander,’ snapped the teacher, ‘everyone is writing a prayer. We have looked at prayers, listened to prayers and read prayers. I have spent a full lesson telling you how to write a prayer. We are not writing about your holidays. When the bishop comes in on Monday and we are in assembly reading out our prayers starting “Thank you, God” – it would sound rather strange your reading about your holidays, “Last summer we went to Blackpool”, wouldn’t it?’
‘Actually, we didn’t go to Blackpool, miss,’ the child told her. ‘We went in a gite in France.’
‘I’m not in the slightest bit interested where you went, Alexander,’ interrupted the teacher sharply. ‘Now get on with your prayer. Chop! Chop!’
‘But, miss –’ began the boy, in a wheedling tone of voice.
Mrs McPhee drew a deep exasperated breath. ‘No buts, Alexander, off you go. “Thank you, God!”’
But the child wouldn’t let it lie. ‘You see, Mrs McPhee, I don’t know whether I believe in God.’
‘Not believe in God!’ exclaimed the teacher, heaving her ample bosom, her pale eyes now ablaze.
‘I think I believe in the “Big Bang” theory like my father,’ said the child, quite undaunted by the teacher’s dramatic display of outrage.
‘Alexander Maxwell-Smith,’ said Mrs McPhee, slowly and in a hushed and slightly sinister voice, ‘if you do not start your prayer “Thank you, God” in the next few seconds, there will be a “Big Bang!”’
I turned round to look at Alexander. The boy, shoulders drooping and with a weary expression on his small face, slouched in his chair, sighed and took up his pen. Mrs McPhee gave me an exasperated look and shook her head. ‘Not believe in God, indeed,’ she mouthed.
A little while later, having heard more children read and looked at some of the prayers, I arrived back at Alexander’s desk. His prayer was written in large neat handwriting. ‘Thank you, God,’ it started. Good, I thought, he had decided to do as he was told. Then I read on: ‘Thank you, God, for my holidays. This year we stayed in a gite in Vence (that’s in the south of France) and had a most enjoyable time.’ He had followed this with an account of his holiday which sounded anything but ‘most enjoyable’. His mother, he wrote, had got sunburnt and looked like a cooked lobster, his father had been ill for three days with his head down the lav, his brother had fallen over and sprained his wrist and his little sister had got lost and they
had all ended up at the police station. His eventful account concluded with: ‘But in spite of all the problems, I had a good time and thank you God, for my holidays. Amen.’
I left before the ‘Big Bang’ which would surely occur when his teacher read Alexander’s prayer, and headed for the infant department. I had a vision of the boy garrotted by the blue beads or suffocated in the heaving bosom of the formidable Mrs McPhee. Passing through the entrance hall, I stopped by the display and, much to my relief, saw it was bereft of the offending article.
In the next class, I discovered Miss Reece, a young woman with sandy-coloured hair tied back in a pony tail and wearing a bright yellow mohair jumper and pale cream slacks. She sat with the children clustered around her and was reading them a story from a large coloured picture book which was displayed on an easel beside her. One small girl sat on her knee. I crept to the back of the classroom, perched on a small melamine chair and listened.
‘I can see the little lamb bleating in the meadow,’ read the teacher slowly and dramatically. She pointed at the picture. ‘Can you see the little lamb, children? Isn’t he lovely and woolly?’ The children nodded vigorously. Miss Reece continued, ‘I can see the little calf mooing for his mother.’
‘He’s black and white, miss,’ volunteered the child sitting on the teacher’s knee.
‘He is, isn’t he, Chloë.’ The teacher read on. ‘I can see the little foal frisking in the field. “Frisking” is an unusual word, isn’t it, children?’
‘It means kicking up its legs, Miss Reece,’ called out a child sitting cross-legged in front of her.
‘Well done, Martin. It does mean that.’
Another child raised a hand. ‘Miss! Miss!’ she cried.
‘In a moment, Caitlin. We will be able to talk about the animals when I’ve finished reading the book.’
‘He’s sweet, isn’t he, miss?’ said the little girl sitting on the teacher’s knee.
‘He is very sweet, Chloë,’ agreed the teacher, ‘but just listen, dear, there’s a good girl, otherwise we will never get to the end.’ She turned the page. ‘I can see the little piglet grunting in the grass.’
A small boy, with a shock of red hair and a runny nose, who was sitting directly in front of me, began snorting and grunting like a pig.
‘We don’t need the animal noises, John-Paul, thank you very much,’ said the teacher with a slight edge to her voice. ‘Just look at the pictures and listen to the words.’ She turned the page.
‘Miss! Miss!’ cried little Caitlin again.
‘What did I say, Caitlin?’ asked the teacher. ‘Just be patient, you can tell me in a minute.’ She read on. ‘I can see the little chicks chirping in the farmyard.’ The small child sitting on the teacher’s knee leaned forward and looked intently at the picture of the bright yellow chicks in the picture. ‘They look as if they have just hatched out of their eggs, don’t they, children?’ said the teacher. ‘All soft and fluffy and golden.’
Chloë looked at the picture and then at the teacher and then back at the picture. After a moment she began stroking the teacher’s bright yellow mohair jumper.
‘Do you know, miss,’ she said in that loud, confident voice only possessed by young children, ‘you look as if you’ve just been laid.’
Miss Reece turned crimson and I nearly fell off the chair, laughing.
‘Miss! Miss!’ Caitlin’s voice now sounded desperate.
‘What is it?’ asked the teacher, attempting to gain her composure.
‘Miss,’ moaned the child, ‘I’ve been sick in my jumper. I’ve been trying to tell you.’
I watched Miss Reece with great admiration as she produced a black bin-liner from her desk drawer, stripped the child of her jumper like a poacher skinning a rabbit and deposited the soiled article of clothing inside without so much as an iota of vomit touching anything or anybody. The teacher then expertly tied a tight knot in the bin liner and dropped it next to her desk. ‘We’ll let your mummy take that home after school, shall we, Caitlin?’ she said pleasantly. Miss Reece then took the child’s hand and asked me, ‘Will you be all right on your own for a few minutes, Mr Phinn? I’m just going to take Caitlin to the school office. Sometimes one child being sick starts all the others off. There are plenty of bin liners in my top drawer, if you need them.’
Later that morning, while the children were busy writing short poems and descriptions about the animals, I listened to a series of very competent little readers who had a great deal to say for themselves. One little girl, with apple-red cheeks, was particularly chatty.
‘Are you a good speller, Mr Phinn?’ she asked.
‘I am a very, very good speller,’ I teased. ‘I can spell any word.’
‘Any word?’ she gasped.
‘Any word at all. I’m the world’s best speller. Would you like to tell me a word and I will spell it for you?’
‘Yes, but you’re a grown-up,’ she said, folding her small arms across her chest. ‘Grown-ups can spell words.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Can you spell my name?’
‘Of course, I can,’ I replied, but knew that this might prove tricky. I have met children with a range of unusual, not to say bizarre names, as well as names which were not spelt as they sound. There was Kristofer, Curston, Mykell, Charleen, Kaylee, Heyleigh, Kylee, Barby, Blasé (pronounced Blaze), Gooey (spelt Guy) and a child called Portia but spelt Porsche for, as the teacher explained to me with a wry smile, the girl’s father had always wanted a Porsche car. In one school there were two sets of twins from the same family, aged ten and eleven respectively, named after great tragic heroines: Cleopatra and Cassandra, Desdemona and Dido. Then there were the brother and sister, Sam and Ella which, when said at speed, sounded like food poisoning.
‘My name is Roisin,’ said the little girl bringing me back to the present. ‘It’s Irish. It means “little rose”.’
How very apt, I thought, looking at the rosy cheeks. I spelled it correctly and pulled a smug expression.
‘And my brother’s name’s Niall.’
I got that one right, as well.
‘My sisters are called Siobhaun and Nuala.’
I was doing really well now and obviously impressing my little interrogator who wasn’t to know about my Irish background.
‘And there’s my brother, Rory and remember, Mr Phinn, he has eight letters in his name. And my cousin, Orlah, who has nine in hers.’
I buried my head in my hands in mock helplessness and heard the child giggle uncontrollably. Then Roisin spelt the names for me, speaking the letters loudly and slowly as if I was hard of hearing.
‘R-u-a-r-a-i-d-h and O-r-f-h-l-a-i-t-h,’ she told me. ‘Easy-peasy!’
I stood with Sister Marie-Thérèse in the entrance hall at the end of the morning.
‘Well thank you, Sister,’ I said. ‘I shall send in my report in a few days’ time, but everything appears to be fine. The children read extremely well, the writing is above average, the atmosphere in the school is positive and the teaching very good.’ I looked in the direction of the display cabinet. ‘And the display… is wonderful.’
‘ “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who bringeth good tidings,” ’ said the nun.
My attention, however, had been caught by the school secretary standing in the doorway of the office. She gave me a vigorous thumbs-up sign.
‘I’m sorry, what did you say, Sister?’
‘Isaiah, Mr Phinn.’
‘Who?’
‘From the Bible. Isaiah,’ said the nun.’ “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who bringeth good tidings.” ’
‘Yes, of course, Sister.’
‘Now, that’s most odd,’ said the headmistress, resting a small hand on my arm. ‘I think I am either going mad or we have a ghost.’
‘A ghost?’ I repeated.
‘Well, I’m sure I put a little coloured balloon which one of the children found on the beach in Whitby in my display and it’s just disappeared
into thin air.’
‘A balloon?’ I sounded like an echo.
‘Don’t you recall seeing a pink balloon in my display this morning?’ asked the nun with a puzzled expression.
‘No, Sister,’ I said firmly, ‘there was no balloon in your display. I would have remembered. No, no, there was definitely no balloon.’
2
I was still smiling later that afternoon as I began to draft the report on Our Lady of Lourdes. The office was unusually peaceful for that time of day, for my three colleagues, with whom I shared the cramped and cluttered room, had not yet returned from their school visits. I was grateful for a bit of peace and quiet. There would be precious little of it when Sidney and David arrived.
Sidney Clamp, the larger-than-life inspector for Creative and Visual Arts, and David Pritchard, the Mathematics, PE and Games inspector who could talk for Wales (and frequently did), were witty, warm, clever and generous people but it was quite impossible to concentrate on anything if they were together in the office. They had worked together for many years and were good friends, but when they started bouncing insults off each other, scoring points, bemoaning, arguing, philosophising and regaling anyone within earshot with anecdotes and opinions, nothing could be done. Sidney and David were like a comedy duo.
The final member of our team, who put us to shame with her razor-sharp intelligence, superhuman efficiency and the tidiness of her desk, was Dr Geraldine Mullarkey, in charge of Science and Technology. Gerry liked to keep herself to herself and spent as little time as possible in the office. She was a single parent with a young child and tended to hide herself away at the Staff Development Centre at lunchtimes to write her reports and letters, and catch up with all the other paper work at home in the evenings. Down the corridor was our team leader, Dr Harold Yeats, the Senior Inspector, and next to his room was the small office where Julie, our secretary, presided.
I turned back to my report and read my first sentence: ‘The school is a bright, welcoming and cheerful building, enhanced by interesting and colourful displays.’ Immediately my mind went back to the morning’s drama and I wondered again just what Bishop Michael would have said and done if he had caught sight of the condom nestling amongst the display which Sister Marie-Thérèse most surely would have shown him as she had me. It would probably have set his mitre askew. I threw back my head and began to laugh out loud.
Up and Down in the Dales Page 2
